Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt (1914–1990) was an American director and former actor whose career was shaped by the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s. Trained in theatre under the Group Theatre and an early television director, he was blacklisted in the McCarthy era and reinvented his career later in the decade as a feature director. His socially engaged features, often built around taut moral confrontations, became defining works of the so-called New Hollywood transition. His acclaimed films include Edge of the City, The Long, Hot Summer, Hud, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Sounder, Conrack, The Front, Norma Rae, and Cross Creek.