Biography
Robert Pirosh (1 April 1910 – 25 December 1989) was an American screenwriter and film director. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he began his Hollywood career in 1934 as a junior writer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, collaborating with George Seaton on the Marx Brothers films A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937).
He served in the US Army during the Second World War and drew on his experiences for the screenplay of Battleground (1949), which he also produced; the film won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He received a further Oscar nomination for Go for Broke! (1951), his directorial debut. Other screenwriting credits include I Married a Witch (1942) and Hell Is for Heroes (1962).
From the late 1950s Pirosh wrote extensively for television, contributing episodes to The Fugitive (1963), Combat! (1962–67), Hawaii Five-O (1968–80), Ironside (1967–75), Mannix (1967–75) and The Waltons (1972–81). He also wrote pilots for Laramie (1959) and Combat!. In later years he taught screenwriting at the University of Southern California.
