About Ring Lardner Jr.
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner Jr. was an American screenwriter and novelist. After enjoying early success in Hollywood, he was subpoenaed in 1947 by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he refused to answer whether he was a member of the Communist Party. He was declared in contempt of Congress, blacklisted by the film studios as one of the "Hollywood Ten", and sentenced to a year in federal prison. Lardner's next screenplay credit, using his own name, was not until The Cincinnati Kid in 1965. He went on to win an Academy Award for his M*A*S*H (1970) screenplay. Lardner's big break came when he and Michael Kanin wrote Woman of the Year (1942), a film which won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award. Lardner's adaptation was made into the Robert Altman-directed film M*A*S*H (1970), for which Lardner won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, presented in April 1971. In his last credited film project, he rewrote a script, originally created by Bill Gunn, for the 1977 Muhammad Ali biopic, The Greatest.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.