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Lester Cole was one of the "Hollywood Ten" and one of the founders of the Screenwriters´ Guild (now the Writers Guild of America). He died in 1985 at the age
of 81. Yet his legacy and presence are still quite real both in Hollywood and in Europe where he is remembered as a "scree nwriter´s screenwriter" and an irrepressible activist. A successful New York playwright, he was contracted to Hollywood in
the early 1930´s and wrote over 40 films during the heyday of the Dream Factories. As one of the founders of the Screenwriters Guild and a thorn in the side of the movie
-moguls, especially MGM´s Irving Thalberg, he fought throughout his life for the rights of writers to control their work. The scourge of the blacklist that began in 1947
ended his studio career, but he continued to work under "front" names and continued the fight as an activist and gadfly. His last important film was Born Free, written under the euphemistic penname of "Gerald L.C. Copley". He
was a film critic in his later years and a revered teacher of screenwriting at UC-Berkeley. Among the many facets of his legacy are plays and screenplays yet to be produced, and an unpublished novel which he was
completing during his last year.
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