Budd Wilson Schulberg's first novel, What Makes Sammy Run", was published in 1941. Its principal character, Sammy Glick, is, in Schulberg's words, "about as unpalatable a character as ever came down the pike"--a Hollywood type who rises from newspaper office boy to motion picture mogul. The narrative is hard-hitting, biting and cynical, a chronicle of a kind of life Schulberg knew firsthand.

Schulberg was born 27 March 1914, in New York City to B.P. and Adeline Jaffe Schulberg. When he was five years old his family moved to Hollywood, where his father, one of the industry's most important producers, was head of production at Paramount Famous-Lasky studios. Schulberg describes his life from about 1920 to 1937 as "Hollywood": "The studio backlot was my playground and hundreds of nights I went off to sleep with the drone of interminable story conferences as my lullaby music." Between 1931 and 1936 Schulberg attended and graduated from...