Waldo Salt

Waldo Miller Salt^[1] (October 18, 1914 – March 7, 1987) was an American screenwriter. He wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplays for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978).

Salt was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Winifred (née Porter) and William Haslem Salt, an artist and business executive.^[2] He graduated from Stanford University in 1934.^[3] The first of the nineteen films he wrote or co-wrote was released in 1937 with the title The Bride Wore Red.

Salt's career in Hollywood was interrupted when he was blacklisted after refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951. Like many other blacklisted writers, while he was unable to work in Hollywood, Salt wrote under a pseudonym for the British television series The Adventures of Robin Hood.^[4]

After the collapse of the blacklist, Salt won Academy Awards for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for his work on Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home respectively, as well as earning a nomination for the former for Serpico.

Salt is featured in the extras for the Criterion Collection's Midnight Cowboy blu-ray release, specifically in an audio interview with Michael Childers; many photos of Waldo Salt can be seen here as he was a collaborator for the screenplay. The documentary listed below, Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey, is also featured on the disc.

Salt was married four times. The first was to Amber Dana (1938-1941), then to actress Mary Davenport (married in 1942) with whom he had two children, actress/writer/producer Jennifer, and Deborah; both marriages ended in divorce.^[5] After his divorce from Davenport, he married Gladys Schwartz in 1969, and remained together until her death in 1981. He was married to playwright Eve Merriam from 1983 until his death in Los Angeles on March 7, 1987; he was 72.^[5][6]

Waldo Salt was the subject of a 1990 documentary Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey, which featured interviews with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jon Voight, John Schlesinger and other collaborators and friends.

The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, first presented in 1992, is awarded at the Sundance Film Festival annually. It is determined by the dramatic jury, and recognizes outstanding screenwriting in a film screened at the festival that year.^[7]

• Waldo Salt at IMDb
• Waldo Salt from the American Masters website
• Waldo Salt Papers, an inventory of papers kept in the UCLA Library
• Works by Waldo Salt at Open Library