Early life Scott was born in
Arlington, New Jersey, the son of successful Irish Catholic parents — his father worked in middle management for the New York Telephone Company. Arlington was one of the centers of the American textile industry, a key site in the history of industrial capitalism and a hotbed of radical labor agitation. Arlington is 12 miles south of Paterson, where the 1913 strike of 25,000 silk workers brought together socialists,
Wobblies, and Greenwich Village intellectuals. In 1926, when Scott was 15, 20,000 textile workers in nearby Passaic, New Jersey, closed down the mills. Scott's older brother
Allan was a playwright (and later screenwriter), whose comedy
Goodbye Again ran on Broadway for most of 1933. Adrian's college yearbook in
Amherst College described him: "Hat cocked back at a rakish angle, cigar in the corner of his mouth, his fingers playing nimbly over the typewriter keys, the inimitable R.A.L. Scott." Scott graduated from Amherst in 1934. He was a film critic and associate editor of
Stage magazine from 1936 through 1938. He moved to Hollywood, California, in 1939.
Screenwriter Scott broke into Hollywood as a screenwriter. He worked on the script for
Keeping Company (1940) at
MGM,
We Go Fast (1941) at
20th Century Fox, and
The Parson of Panamint (1941) at
Paramount. Scott wrote
Mr. Lucky (1943) at
RKO, which was a hit.
Producer RKO signed Scott to work as a producer. His first credit in that capacity was
My Pal Wolf (1944). He went on to produce
Murder, My Sweet (1944), an adaptation of
Farewell My Lovely by
Raymond Chandler by
John Paxton that was directed by
Edward Dmytryk. It was a critical and commercial success. The cast included
Dick Powell, who revitalized his career in the role of
Philip Marlowe, and
Anne Shirley, whom Scott married. Scott, Dmytryk, Powell, and Paxton reunited on
Cornered (1945). Scott then produced
Deadline at Dawn (1946), the only feature film directed by
Harold Clurman. Dmytryk, Paxton, and he reunited on
So Well Remembered (1947) shot in England. More successful was
Crossfire (1947), another collaboration among the three men.
Crossfire was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture and was a popular success. Scott produced
The Boy with Green Hair (1948), directed by
Joseph Losey, which was a box-office flop. He is credited on the script for ''
Miss Susie Slagle's'' (1946) at Paramount.
Blacklisting " stand with their attorneys outside district court in
Washington, D.C. before arraignment on
contempt of Congress charges. The ten were charged for refusing to cooperate with the
House Un-American Activities Committee.
(Front row, L-R): Herbert Biberman, attorney Martin Popper, attorney
Robert W. Kenny,
Albert Maltz and
Lester Cole.
(Second row, L-R): Dalton Trumbo,
John Howard Lawson,
Alvah Bessie and
Samuel Ornitz.
(Top row, L-R): Ring Lardner Jr.,
Edward Dmytryk and
Adrian Scott. Scott joined the
Communist Party USA in 1944. In October 1947, Scott was called to testify during the
House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings on Hollywood, but as did nine others, refused to testify. RKO fired him on October 29, 1947, for refusing to answer questions. For the first year of the blacklist, he returned to journalism, contributing to the London journal
Cine-Technician. He was sentenced to prison along with the other members of the
Hollywood Ten. Edward Dmytryk, another of the Hollywood Ten, chose to become a 'friendly' witness and testified before the HUAC in 1951 that Scott pressured him to put communist propaganda in his films. In 1955, Scott published an essay titled "Blacklist: The Liberal's Straightjacket and Its Effect on Content" in
Hollywood Review. From 1954 to 1961, Scott made a living writing for television. These shows included
The Adventures of Robin Hood and
The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. He provided the story for
Conspiracy of Hearts (1960) under a pseudonym. He moved to England in 1961. In 1963,
MGM-British hired Scott as a production executive, effectively ending his blacklisting.
Later career Scott attempted to make a return to feature-film production in 1967 by producing a new adaptation of
Monsieur Lecoq; the film was never finished. Film stills featuring the movie's actress
Julie Newmar were featured in the September 1969 edition of
Playboy. Shortly before his death, Scott made a television adaptation of ''
The Great Man's Whiskers'' and was credited with his legal name. ==Personal life==