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4 October 2010 10:35 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Oscar-nominated Us screenwriter known for his work on Norma Rae, Hud and Hombre

The husband-and-wife screenwriting team of Irving Ravetch, who has died aged 89, and Harriet Frank Jr specialised in adapting the work of writers as varied as William Faulkner, Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard. The pair enjoyed a particularly successful collaboration with the director Martin Ritt, with whom they made eight films notable for their acute concern with social justice. The screenplays for two of these, Hud (1963) and Norma Rae (1979), were nominated for Academy awards. The latter, for which Sally Field won an Oscar for best actress, had a pro-union theme that illustrated Ravetch's belief in film's ability to "seed ideas and wake up dormant minds".

He was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish immigrant parents. His father, from Russia, was a pharmacist who became a rabbi. His mother, from what is now Israel, taught Hebrew. When Ravetch »

- Michael Carlson

1 item from 2010