This book was written for the most part from primary sources—interviews, letters, private memoranda, etc. The chief source, of course, was Dalton Trumbo himself. He gave me interview time at a period in his life when he simply had no idea how much time he himself had left. He also gave me complete access to his correspondence and personal papers pertaining to his life through 1962, which are stored at the Wisconsin Centre for Theatre Research, University of Wisconsin. He allowed me to roam at will through his personal files at home in which he had those documents covering the years that followed. All this he did in an act of pure, blind faith, for with the exception of one brief section (as noted in the text), no manuscript approval was asked for and none was offered.
In addition, however, I was granted interviews by many who have known Trumbo over the years and by others who had specific or general information to impart. Not all of them who were helpful were quoted in the text. One of those quoted in the text was not helpful. Those to whom I talked were: Jacoba Atlas, Catherine Baldwin, Elizabeth Baskerville, Harry Benge, John Berry, Alvah Bessie, John Bright, Jean Butler, Lester Cole, Kirk Douglas, Jerry Fielding, Thomas K. Finletter, Aubrey Finn, Pauline Finn, Hubert Gallagher, Dorothy Healy, Alice Hunter, Ian MacLellan Hunter, Robert W. Kenny, Frank King, Frances Lardner, Ring Lardner, Jr., Al Leavitt, Edward Lewis, George Litto, George MacKinnon, Albert Maltz, Carey McWilliams, David Miller, William Pomerance, Katherine Popper, Martin Popper, Otto Preminger, Franklin Schaffner, Adrian Scott, Roy Silver, Christopher Trumbo, Cleo Trumbo, Mitzi Trumbo, Ed Whalley, Mary Teresa Whalley, Charles White, and Michael Wilson.
As any writer will, however, I made use of whatever I could lay my hands on in the way of published materials in the preparation of this book. And while my debts to certain authors are paid in passing in the text, circumstances did not always permit proper acknowledgment to be made where it was pertinent, and so I take this last opportunity to do so.
Finally, special thanks to Mitzi Trumbo and the Trumbo family.
Eclipse (Dickson, 1935)
Washington Jitters (Knopf, 1936)
Johnny Got His Gun (Lippincott, 1939)
The Remarkable Andrew (Lippincott, 1940)
The Biggest Thief in Town (Dramatists Play Service, 1949)
Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942–1962 , edited by Helen Manfull (Evans, 1970)
The Time of the Toad (Harper & Row, 1972)
This book is dedicated to the producer Kevin Brown, who met Bruce Cook at Dutton’s bookstore in North Hollywood. And fifteen years later, that led to John McNamara, and then to Michael London, and then to Jay Roach, and to Bryan Cranston, and here we are today, with this great film, and all because Bruce happened to be standing behind Kevin in a bookstore.