WRITING (Adapted Screenplay)

Writing

35th ceremony (1962)

Lawrence of Arabia

NOTE: The Board of Governors voted on September 26, 1995 to grant then-blacklisted writer Michael Wilson an Academy Award nomination, along with Robert Bolt, for Lawrence of Arabia. This was the result of a Writers Guild of America finding that Wilson and Bolt share the credit for the screenplay.

33rd ceremony (1960)

Inherit the Wind

NOTE: Upon request of his widow and upon recommendation of the Writers Branch Executive Committee, the Board of Governors voted on June 22, 1993, to restore the name of Nedrick Young to the nominations and award presented to Nathan E. Douglas (Mr. Young's pseudonym during the blacklisting period).

30th ceremony (1957)

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Winner

NOTE: Though Pierre Boulle received official screen credit, it was commonly known that blacklisted writers, Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, wrote the screenplay based on Mr. Boulle's novel (translated from the French). The Board of Governors, on December 11, 1984, voted posthumous Oscars to Wilson and Foreman and Academy records have been updated.

29th ceremony (1956)

Friendly Persuasion

NOTE: Early in 1956, the name of blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson had been deleted from the screen credits of Friendly Persuasion by Allied Artists, the film's distributor, based on a 1952 agreement between the Screen Writers Guild and various production companies. That agreement gave studios the right to omit from the screen the name of any individual who had failed to clear himself before a duly constituted legislative committee of Congress if accused of Communist affiliations, as was the case with Wilson at the time. The Academy, in the awkward position of possibly conferring its highest honor on someone whose name had been omitted from screen credit, revised its bylaws at a special February 6, 1957, meeting. That revision, in essence, allowed that in such cases, the achievement itself could be eligible for nomination, but the specific writer would be ineligible. The following instructions were sent to Price Waterhouse & Co., Certified Public Accountants, who tabulated Academy ballots: \"...we ask that if, in tabulating the nominations ballots for Best Screenplay (adapted), Friendly Persuasion is one of the five nominations, you list the other four alphabetically by title and below: Friendly Persuasion - Achievement nominated, but writer ineligible for Award under Academy By-Laws.\" On February 17, 1957, the Academy's Board of Governors voted to instruct Price Waterhouse & Co. \"...to list five nominations, and in the event that one of these is declared ineligible under the By-Law provision, four nominations would appear on the final ballot.\" THIS NOMINATION WAS NOT INCLUDED ON THE FINAL BALLOT. (The bylaw was repealed by the Academy as \"unworkable\" on January 12, 1959.) On December 10, 2002, the Academy's Board of Governors voted to reinstate Mr. Wilson's nomination.