Irving Shulman (May 21, 1913 – March 23, 1995) was an American author and screenwriter whose works were adapted into movies. His books included The Amboy Dukes, Cry Tough, and The Square Trap, all of which were adapted into movies.Shulman wrote the early film treatment for Rebel Without a Cause. Stewart Stern did the screenplay based on the story concepts of Shulman and director Nicholas Ray. Later, Shulman used his treatment as the basis for his 1956 novel Children of the Dark.Published in 1947, The Amboy Dukes examined the grim, and sometimes short, lives of teenage street criminals in Brooklyn during World War II; notably, its primary characters were described as being Jewish. It sold five million copies and led to his being hired as a screenwriter by Warner Bros. Two subsequent novels, Cry Tough! and The Big Brokers, followed the equally grim experiences of some of the characters who survived The Amboy Dukes, but with somewhat less emphasis on their being practitioners of Judaism.In The Amboy Dukes, two members of the gang accidentally shoot and kill one of their teachers; a third member of the Dukes kills one of them before the story is over. Cry Tough! has another member of the Dukes, Mitchell Wolf, return from prison and, after trying unsuccessfully to "go straight," become a member of an organized crime family. In The Big Brokers, Wolf and two other former members of the Dukes are sent to Nevada to run one of the crime family's casinos in Las Vegas.Shulman's message in all three books is that crime does not pay.In 1951, a film based on The Amboy Dukes, titled City Across The River, was released; Tony Curtis made his second on-screen appearance in this film, which is believed to have provided at least a partial model for Elvis Presley's early image.In the 1960s, Shulman wrote biographies of Jean Harlow and Rudolph Valentino, and a novelization of the film West Side Story.Shulman died of Alzheimer's disease in 1995.
Birth date
1913-05-21
Birth year
1913
Death date
1995-03-23
Death year
1995
Individualised gnd number
107473712
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