Edward Lewis, 99; ‘Spartacus’ producer helped end blacklist in film industry

Edward Lewis, a producer who helped break the Hollywood blacklist with “Spartacus” by hiring “subversive” screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, and who later shared an Oscar nomination with his wife for producing “Missing,” about the death of an American writer in Chile, died July 27 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 99.

A daughter, Susan Lewis, confirmed the death but did not give a cause. His wife and frequent collaborator, Mildred Lewis, died April 7.

In a career that stretched back to the late 1940s, Lewis wrote occasional film scripts, produced 20 episodes of the TV anthology series “Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,” and worked with leading directors such as John Frankenheimer (“Seven Days in May”), John Huston (“The List of Adrian Messenger”) and Louis Malle (“Crackers”).

His movies earned 21 Oscar nominations, including six for “Spartacus” (1960), a swords-and-sandals epic directed by a young Stanley Kubrick and executive-produced by Kirk Douglas, who also starred as the title character, a gladiator who leads a slave revolt in ancient Rome.

Adapted from a novel by Howard Fast, which Lewis’ wife read and recommended he produce, “Spartacus” was one of the most expensive films of its time. Made on a $12 million budget, the equivalent of more than $100 million today, it featured a sprawling cast of extras and received mixed reviews upon its release, with New York Times critic Bosley Crowther dismissing it as “heroic humbug.”

But it became a fixture of late-night television and, because of its script by Trumbo, was credited with helping to bring down the Cold War-era blacklist, under which scores of purported communists and left-wing sympathizers were barred from work.

Since the late 1940s, blacklisted writers had left the country, switched fields, written under assumed names or used sympathetic producers as “fronts.” Among the most vaunted incognito scriptwriters was Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten who served a brief prison sentence after being held in contempt of Congress, then wrote Oscar-winning screenplays for “Roman Holiday” and “The Brave One.”

Neither bore his name. But in January 1960, director Otto Preminger announced that his upcoming epic “Exodus” – released by United Artists, which had not signed a pledge to bar communists from its films – was written by Trumbo. Months later, Universal-International followed suit with “Spartacus,” becoming “the first major movie studio to give screen credit to a blacklisted writer,” according to a New York Times report.

While the American Legion protested the decision, the blacklist era seemed all but over when newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy left the White House to see “Spartacus” at a nearby theater, later offering a three-word review: “It was fine.”