Val Lewton

Val Lewton (May 7, 1904–March 14, 1951) was an American film producer and screenwriter, who is best known for a sequence of nine brooding horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. Lewton, born Vladimir Ivan Leventon, was born in what is now Yalta, Ukraine. He was a nephew of the actress Alla Nazimova. In 1909, he emigrated with his sister and mother to the United States, where his name was changed to Val Lewton. He was raised in sub... more

Val Lewton (May 7, 1904–March 14, 1951) was an American film producer and screenwriter, who is best known for a sequence of nine brooding horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. Lewton, born Vladimir Ivan Leventon, was born in what is now Yalta, Ukraine. He was a nephew of the actress Alla Nazimova. In 1909, he emigrated with his sister and mother to the United States, where his name was changed to Val Lewton. He was raised in suburban Port Chester, New York. He studied journalism at Columbia University and authored eighteen works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Lewton once lost his job as a reporter for the Darien-Stamford Review after it was discovered that a story he wrote about a truckload of kosher chickens dying in a New York heat wave was a total fabrication. In 1932 he wrote a best-selling pulp novel No Bed of Her Own, which was later used in the making of the film No Man of Her Own, with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Lewton worked as a writer for the New... less