Richard Bransten
Richard Bransten (February 24, 1906 – November 18, 1955), pen and party name "Bruce Minton," was an American novelist, screenwriter, and Communist Party member.
Family and background
[edit | edit source]Richard Bransten was born in San Francisco in 1906. He was born into a wealthy family that had made its fortune in the coffee business. His grandfather was Joseph Brandenstein and his father Charles had been one of the founders of MJB Coffee.[1] In 1929, Bransten married his first wife Louise Rosenberg, San Francisco heiress to a dried fruit fortune. As Louise Bransten, she was a close contact of Nathan Silvermaster and Grigory Kheifets and herself accused of being a Soviet spy.[2]
Political and literary career
[edit | edit source]Bransten began his career as a novelist and short story writer. His wife described his stories as “full of bitterness against the hypocritical rich Jewish society in which he had been brought up.”[3] His first political work, The Fascist Menace in the USA, was published in 1934.[4]
In 1937, Bransten married Ruth McKenney, author of My Sister Eileen. Under the pen name Bruce Minton, Bransten published The Fat Years and the Lean in 1940, a book describing the labor movement from 1918 to 1939. As a result of his political writings, the FBI opened a file on Bransten in April 1941.[5]
During World War II, Bransten assisted Jacob Golos and Silvermaster in passing information from Washington to KGB sources in New York.[6] Silvermaster testified in 1944 that Bransten had been “one of his closest social friends”.[7]
Bransten moved to Hollywood for a short period between 1944 and 1945,[8] where he worked as a screenwriter on the films Margie, San Diego I Love You, and The Trouble with Women. Bransten and McKenney were expelled from the Communist Party in 1946 and accused of “conducting a factional struggle against the party line” according to the New York Times.[9] Their expulsion resulted from the Branstens' opposition to the 1946 expulsion of Earl Browder from the Communist Party.[10]
Following their break with the Party, Bransten and McKenney moved to Europe and lived in Brussels and London. Bransten published the humorous British travel guide Here's England: A Highly Informal Guide.[11]
Disillusioned with the Communist Party, Bransten may have informed on his former friends in the Party, though this is not certain.[12]
Richard Branstein committed suicide on November 18, 1955, with a drug overdose.[1]
Legacy
[edit | edit source]Bransten was the model for the character Stephen Howard in Christina Stead’s novel I'm Dying Laughing.[13] Stead had been a fellow Communist Party member and friends with Bransten and McKenney.
References
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- ^ “Richard Bransten." FBI file for Richard Bransten, page 3, document no. 100-HQ-80068, April 6, 1951.
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External links
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