2008 Award Recipient

Acclaimed screenwriter Budd Schulberg will receive the Writers Guild of America West's prestigious 2008 Laurel Award for Screen, honoring lifetime achievement in outstanding writing for motion pictures, at the WGAW's upcoming Honorary Awards Luncheon on April 23 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.

Having penned some of the most memorable films in American film history, Schulberg has carved out a lengthy career as both a screenwriter and novelist. Perhaps best known for his screenplay for 1954's searing working-class drama, On the Waterfront, Schulberg earned a Writers Guild Award for his work on the film (Screen: Best Written American Drama, 1955), as well as an Academy Award (Best Writing, Story and Screenplay) the same year.

His other notable screen credits include A Face in the Crowd (1957), based on his own short story, Your Arkansas Traveler, and winner of a Berlin Festival Award for Best Screenplay, Wind Across the Everglades (1958), The Harder They Fall (1955, screenplay by Philip Yordan, based on Schulberg's own novel), Government Girl (1943, screenplay by Dudley Nichols, adaptation by Budd Schulberg, based on the published serial by Adela Rogers St. Johns), Little Orphan Annie (screenplay by Budd Schulberg and Sam Ornitz, screen story by Sam Ornitz & Endre Bohem, based on the comic strip by Harold Gray), and Winter Carnival (1939, screenplay by Budd Schulberg and Maurice Rapf and Lester Cole).

On the television front, his past works include the 1981 telefilm A Question of Honor (based on the book by Sonny Grosso with Phil Rosenberg), the documentary Once Upon A Time…Is Now: The Story of Princess Grace (1977), and General Electric Theater TV adaptations of his own short stories, Memory in White and The Legend That Walks Like a Man (both 1960).

Schulberg's father, B. P. Schulberg, was a pioneer film producer who ran Paramount Studios during the 1930's. An entertainment insider raised in Hollywood, a then-young Schulberg created a sensation in 1941 in both the entertainment industry and the literary world when he published his legendary novel-cum-expose, What Makes Sammy Run?, delivering one of Hollywood's most memorable anti-heroes ever in title character Sammy Glick, earning the National Critics Award for Best First Novel, and quickly becoming a runaway best-seller with millions sold in paperback. Over the years, Schulberg has seen his perennially popular book transformed into several well-received television and Broadway productions throughout the '40s, '50s, and '60s. While Hollywood has yet to produce a big-screen adaptation of his scathing take on the industry, several studios have come close in recent years. In 2002, Random House introduced a 50th anniversary edition of Sammy to whole new generation of readers, along with Schulberg's collection of short stories, Love, Action, Laughter, and Other Sad Tales.

Schulberg's other works of fiction include Some Faces in the Crowd (2008), his latest collection of short stories published in January, Ringside: A Treasury of Boxing Reportage (2007), culling the best of his work from over five decades of writing on the "sweet science," his autobiography Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince (2003), and novels including The Harder They Fall and The Disenchanted. His non-fiction works include From the Ashes: Voices of Watts, Loser and Still Champion: Muhammad Ali, The Four Seasons of Success, and an updated version of that book, Writers in America.

A lifelong boxing fan, Schulberg continues to cover title fights for various magazines, first published in Sparring with Hemingway and Other Legends of the Fight Game, and more recently in Ringside. He has been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and remains the only non-boxer ever chosen as a Living Legend of Boxing by the World Boxing Association. Schulberg has taught creative writing at Dartmouth College, Southhampton College of Long Island University, and Hofstra University, receiving honorary degrees from all three.

Awarded to a Writers Guild member who has advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter, the Laurel Award for Screen has been received in previous years by such notable writers as Billy Wilder, Horton Foote, John Huston, Blake Edwards, Mel Brooks, David Mamet, Lawrence Kasdan, and last year's honoree, Robert Benton.