Richard Bransten (February 24, 1906 – November 18, 1955) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and Communist Party member.

Family and background

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. In 1929, Bransten married his first wife Louise Rosenberg, the San Francisco heiress to a dried fruit fortune. As

Louise Bransten Louise most commonly refers to: * Louise (given name) Louise or Luise may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Songs * "Louise" (Maurice Chevalier song), 1929 * "Louise", by The Yardbirds from the album '' Five Live Yardbirds'', 1964 * "Louis ...

, she was a close contact of Nathan Silvermaster and Grigory Kheifets and was accused of being a Soviet spy.

Political and literary career

Bransten began his career as a novelist and short story writer, writing stories that his wife described as “full of bitterness against the hypocritical rich Jewish society in which he had been brought up.” His first political work, ''The Fascist Menace in the USA'', was published in 1934. In 1937, Bransten married

Ruth McKenney Ruth Marguerite McKenney (November 18, 1911 – July 25, 1972) was an American author and journalist, best remembered for ''My Sister Eileen'', a memoir of her experiences growing up in Ohio and moving to Greenwich Village with her sister Eileen ...

, author of ''

My Sister Eileen ''My Sister Eileen'' is a series of autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney, originally published in ''The New Yorker'', which eventually inspired many other works: her 1938 book ''My Sister Eileen'', a My Sister Eileen (play), play, ...

''. 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. During World War II, Bransten assisted

Jacob Golos Jacob Golos (born Yakov Naumovich Reizen, Russian: Яков Наумович Рейзен; April 24, 1889 - November 27, 1943) was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary who became an intelligence operative in the United States on behalf of the U ...

and Silvermaster in passing information from Washington to KGB sources in New York. Silvermaster testified in 1944 that Bransten had been “one of his closest social friends”. Bransten moved to Hollywood for a short period between 1944 and 1945, where he worked as a screenwriter on the films ''

Margie Margie is a feminine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of the related names Margaret, Marjorie, or Margarita, all of which mean "pearl". Margie may refer to: People * Margie Abbott (born 1958), Australian businesswoman * Margie Ac ...

,'' ''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. This was the result of the Branstens' opposition to the 1946 expulsion of

Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, spy for the Soviet Union, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CP ...

from the Communist Party. Following their break with the Party, Bransten and McKenney moved to Europe, living in Brussels and London. There, Bransten published the humorous British travel guide ''Here's England: A Highly Informal Guide''. Disillusioned with the Communist Party, Bransten may have informed on his former friends in the Party, though this is not certain. He committed suicide on November 18, 1955, with a drug overdose.

Legacy

Bransten was the model for the character Stephen Howard in

Christina Stead Christina Stead (17 July 190231 March 1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations. Christina Stead was a committed Marxist, although she was never a me ...

’s novel '' I'm Dying Laughing.'' Stead had been a fellow Communist Party member and had been friends with Bransten and McKenney.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bransten, Richard 1906 births 1955 deaths Writers from San Francisco 20th-century American novelists Members of the Communist Party USA Drug-related suicides in England