Lester Ziffren (April 30, 1906 – November 12, 2007) was an American

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

screenwriter. Born in

Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island is a city in and the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The original Rock Island, from which the city name is derived, is now called Rock Island Arsenal, Arsenal Island. The popul ...

, Ziffren became a reporter for United Press. He was among the first to report on the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He met Ernest Hemingway in Spain, and the two became good friends. Ziffren used a

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

to evade censors. He left Spain just ahead of

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...

's troops. He then went to Hollywood where he got a job writing movie screenplays. Ziffren married Edythe L. Wurtzel in 1937; her uncle,

Sol M. Wurtzel Solomon Max Wurtzel (September 12, 1890 – April 9, 1958) was an American film producer. Life and career Born in New York City, the second of five brothers; his parents were both Polish Jews from the village of Ulanow (Surname ''Wurtzel'' i ...

, was a major Hollywood executive. Ziffren wrote nine scripts during his stint in Hollywood including five films in the '' Charlie Chan'' series for

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

. Ziffren worked at the U.S. Embassy in Chile during World War II. Ziffren died in New York City of

congestive heart disease Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...

with his daughter Didi by his side.

Selected filmography

* '' City Girl'' (1938) * '' The Man Who Wouldn't Talk'' (1940)

Sources

* ''Lester Ziffren 1906-2007, While working for United Press in Madrid in 1936, he broke the story on the outbreak of The Spanish Civil War. He Then Took Up a Hollywood Career'', obituary in the 24-25 Nov. 2007 Wall Street Journal, pg. A8

External links

*
Boston Globe: Lester Ziffren, 101, Spanish Civil War reporter, movie writer, diplomat

Lester Ziffren papers
at th
Hoover Institution Archives
1906 births 2007 deaths People from Rock Island, Illinois Jewish American screenwriters American centenarians American people of the Spanish Civil War American male screenwriters Writers from Manhattan American war correspondents American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Screenwriters from Illinois 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters Men centenarians 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews {{US-journalist-1900s-stub