Screenwriter for Don Siegel and writer/producer of classic TV series, he named many of his colleagues as communists
In 1951, when the screenwriter Richard Collins, who has died aged 98, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), he named more than 20 colleagues and friends in the film industry as belonging to or sympathising with the Communist party. Although by so doing he saved his Hollywood career, it was an action that cast a shadow over the rest of his life, regardless of his success in film and television as a writer and producer.
According to many, it was a cowardly act, which Collins later tried to justify, as did directors Elia Kazan and Edward Dmytryk, by saying that it was his patriotic duty, and that Huac knew the names anyway. However, in an interview in Victor Navasky's book Naming Names (1980), Collins called himself "a son of a bitch, a miserable little bastard. It was unfortunate but true. I was a good boy, doing what you're supposed to do."
Collins, who had admitted having been a member of the Communist party, but had stopped paying his dues in 1939, was first subpoenaed as one of 19 unfriendly witnesses in 1947, which led to him being blacklisted. Four years later, with no screenwriting work coming his way, Collins decided to recant, while others went to prison for pleading the fifth amendment. He then immediately continued in films where he had left off.
Unlike many members of the Communist party who were working class and/or of immigrant stock, Collins was born to well-off parents in New York City. His father was the fashion designer Harry Collins, who dressed the Vanderbilts and the Astors. Young Collins attended various schools in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, before briefly studying at Stanford University.
In 1936, back in New York, he satisfied his interest in writing as a member of the New Theatre League, a leftwing institution linked to the Young Communist League. In 1935, Collins returned to Los Angeles where he took a job at a department store, before becoming a script reader and junior writer at various Hollywood studios.
Collins got his first screenwriting credit on Rulers of the Sea (1939), a well-crafted adventure about the building and maiden voyage of the first steamship. There followed a few screenplays for different studios, including two movies for MGM: the revue-style all-star, morale-boosting Thousands Cheer (1943) and Song of Russia (1944). The latter, starring Robert Taylor as an American conductor falling for a Soviet classical pianist (Susan Peters), was a glowing tribute to the US's wartime ally. MGM later regretted producing it when kowtowing to Senator McCarthy, while the rightwing Taylor, called as a friendly witness, explained that the film was made under pressure from President Roosevelt to gain sympathy for the Soviets in their war against Germany. The film was so corny in its utopian depiction of the Soviet Union that it was impossible, even for a committed Stalinist, to take seriously. Nevertheless, it was hauled out in 1947 as an example of the communist influence over the film industry.
The two MGM films were co-written with Paul Jarrico, as was the story of Little Giant (1946), one of the better Abbott and Costello farces. Despite their close working relationship, Collins gave Jarrico's name to Huac. Jarrico never spoke to Collins again. Another tragic victim of the anti-communist scare was Collins's first wife, Dorothy Comingore, best known for portraying Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane (1941). Unlike her former husband – they were divorced in 1945 after six years of marriage – she refused to answer questions on her alleged communist connections before Huac in 1952. As a result, her career was ended.
After clearing his name, Collins began to be offered work again, mainly with five movies directed by Don Siegel, among them Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), which was entirely conceived and written by Collins, and stands as one of his best scripts. The realistic prison picture is a powerful indictment of the dehumanising effects of the US penal system. Despite not receiving a credit for the screenplay of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Collins made an important contribution to the classic sci-fi drama, which can be seen to reflect the hysteria of the McCarthy era.
Collins's last feature film script was Pay or Die (1960), a gripping low-budget mafia movie starring Ernest Borgnine as a good cop. Then Collins went almost exclusively into television, both as a writer and producer. He wrote episodes for Route 66, The Untouchables, Bonanza – of which he produced 127 episodes from 1968 to 1973 – and Matlock, which he produced from 1987 to 1992.
Collins, whose second wife died in 1991, is survived by his son and a daughter.
• Richard Collins, screenwriter and producer; born 20 July 1914; died 14 February 2013