Richard J. Collins (July 20, 1914 – February 14, 2013) was an American producer, director and screenwriter prominent in Hollywood during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. He worked on several notable television programs including Bonanza, General Electric Theater, Matlock and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre. He was married to actress Dorothy Comingore from 1939 until 1945. One of the characters in the film Guilty by Suspicion was based on his character although he and Dorothy Comingore were long divorced before the HUAC hearings.
Richard J. Collins was born on July 20, 1914, in New York City. He attended various schools in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, including the Browning School, Lycee Janson de Sailly, and Beverly Hills High School. Collins also attended Stanford University for a term and a half before moving back to New York with his family. In 1936, Collins took classes for six months with the New Theatre League, where he joined the Young Communist League (YCL), the first of many left-wing associations he made over the years.
In 1935, Collins returned to Los Angeles where he took a job at Bloomingdale's while looking for a way into the movie and television industry. His' first position was as a script reader at Columbia Pictures, where he stayed for a few months before he was offered a junior writer position at Fox. During the 1930s, Collins would work for some of the biggest studios in Hollywood, including RKO Pictures, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros. He wrote or co-wrote many screenplays during this period, including some that would get him in trouble with HUAC in later years, like Song of Russia.
Collins had a successful film career up until the Hollywood 19 were called to testify before HUAC in October, 1947. At that time he agreed with the rest of the so-called unfriendly witnesses to plead the First Amendment Rights of free speech. Of the nineteen, only ten (the "Hollywood Ten") were called and it wasn't until 1951 that Collins was called to testify before HUAC. By this time his politics had changed and he agreed to testify becoming one of the first "friendly witnesses."
Collins admitted to formerly being a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, Hollywood Writers' Mobilization, the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), and the Progressive Citizens of America (PCA). Despite his past, Collins claimed that he stopped paying his Communist dues in 1939. Collins became infamous for naming people he knew to be in the Communist Party, even close friends. In all, he ultimately named 26 of his colleagues. Despite being heavily involved in the Communist movement in the 1930s, when he attended four to five meetings a week, he professed that he no longer followed their doctrine and never saw anything he did as an effort to undermine the security of the United States.
Collins's first screen credit after clearing his name with HUAC was on the 1953 film China Venture, directed by Don Siegel, for whom he would later write several more films. He was subsequently hired by producer Walter Wanger to write The Adventures of Hajji Baba and Riot in Cell Block 11 (the latter also directed by Siegel). He wrote an early treatment for the Wanger-produced and Siegel-directed cult film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but was not credited on the completed film. His later feature film credits included Pay or Die, Spanish Affair and The Badlanders. Later he wrote for television, including General Electric Theater, 87th Precinct, and Remington Steele. In 1963 he became a television producer for the TV series Breaking Point, followed by Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater. His big break came when he became producer of the television series Bonanza. In 1976, he was the executive producer of the short-lived western series Sara. The final major production that he worked on was the series Matlock in the 1980s.
Collins died at the age of 98 on February 14, 2013.[1] He is survived by his son Michael Collins and daughter Judith Collins.