Provided by Wikipedia Ben Maddow (born David Wolff; August 7, 1909 – October 9, 1992) was an American screenwriter and documentarian from the 1930s through the 1970s. Educated at Columbia University, Maddow began his career working within the American documentary movement in the 1930s.
In 1936 he co-founded the short-lived left-wing newsreel ''The World Today''. Under the pseudonym of David Wolff, Maddow co-wrote the screenplay to the Paul Strand–Leo Hurwitz documentary landmark, ''Native Land'' (1942).
As a documentarian he directed and wrote such films as ''Storm of Strangers'', ''The Stairs'', and ''The Savage Eye'' (1959), which won the BAFTA Flaherty Documentary Award. Maddow made his solo feature directorial debut with the striking, offbeat feature ''An Affair of the Skin'' (1963), a well-acted story of several loves and friendships gone sour and marked by the rich characterisations which had distinguished his best screenplays.
In 1961, Maddow and Huston co-wrote the episode "The Professor" of the 1961 television series ''The Asphalt Jungle''. In 1968 he wrote a screenplay based on Edmund Naughton's novel ''McCabe''; while a film adaptation of the novel was ultimately produced as ''McCabe & Mrs. Miller'' (1971), Maddow wasn't credited on the film. His final screenplay was for the horror melodrama ''The Mephisto Waltz'' (1970).
