Robert Alan Aurthur

Robert Alan Aurthur (June 10, 1922 – November 20, 1978) was an American screenwriter, director and producer.

Television
In the early years of television, he wrote for Studio One and then moved on to write episodes of Mister Peepers (1952–53). He followed with teleplays for Campbell Playhouse (1954), Justice (1954), Goodyear Television Playhouse (1953–54) and Producers' Showcase (1955). One of his four 1951-55 plays for Philco Television Playhouse was the Emmy-nominated A Man Is Ten Feet Tall (1955), with Don Murray and Sidney Poitier, which was adapted two years later as the theatrical film, Edge of the City (1957) with Poitier and John Cassavetes.

He did two teleplays for Playhouse 90, and one of these, A Sound of Different Drummers (3 October 1957), borrowed so heavily from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 that Bradbury sued.

Film
After 1957, he continued to do screenplays. He was one of the writers on Spring Reunion (1957), notable as Betty Hutton's last movie, following with Warlock (1959), and his earlier association with Cassavetes led to script contributions on the actor's directorial debut with Shadows (1959). After an uncredited contribution to Lilith (1964), he scripted John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix (1966).

He wrote and directed The Lost Man (1969) about a black militant (Sidney Poitier). As the writer-producer of All That Jazz (1979) he received two posthumous Academy Award nominations.

Personal life
Aurthur served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He was the first husband of actress Beatrice Arthur, who also served in the Marines; they divorced in 1950 and had no children. She used a variation of his surname as her professional name.

Death
Aurthur died of lung cancer in New York City, aged 56.