Mortimer Offner(1900-1965)

Noted Broadway portrait photographer, educated at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and trained at the Clarence White School of Photography. Sent to Hollywood on an assignment by Vanity Fair in 1930. Settled on the west coast two years later as contract screenwriter for RKO (1934-38). As a result of his membership in the Communist Party and his well-publicised leftist views, his career suffered during the McCarthy era. He later wrote for television under an assumed name.