Alvah Bessie Quotes

Alvah Bessie was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter.  Bessie’s father was an inventor and successful businessman and the family lived a comfortable life in a prosperous section of Harlem in New York City. He graduated from Dewitt Clinton High School where he had the reputation of being a rebellious student. He subsequently enrolled in Columbia University in 1920, graduating in 1924 with a B.A. in English.  Bessie became an actor in the group, which led to a four year period of theatre work for him in Provincetown as well as in the New York theatre world as performer and actor/manager. Recognizing his talents as an actor were limited, Bessie moved to France in 1928, joining the colony of American expatriates who had relocated there. Bessie now focused his energies on becoming a writer. Bessie then joined the American Communist Party and worked as the film reviewer for the left-wing magazine The New Masses. Bessie wrote screenplays for Warner Brothers and other studios during the mid and late 1940s. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story for the patriotic Warner's film Objective Burma.