Sam Hellman

American screenwriter Samuel Hellman spent most of the 1930s at Fox Studios, surviving the company's 1935 matriculation into 20th Century-Fox. Hellman wrote for stars as varied as Will Rogers (The County Chairman, 1935), Spencer Tracy (It's a Small World, 1935) and the Ritz Brothers (The Three Musketeers, 1939). He was also a valuable member of the Shirley Temple unit, collaborating on the screenplays of such Temple hits as Poor Little Rich Girl and Captain January (both 1936). Switching to Warner Bros. in the 1940s, Samuel Hellman co-wrote films ranging from The Doughgirls (1944) to the notorious Jack Benny vehicle Horn Blows at Midnight (1945).