An American producer and writer, born in New York, United States, and raised on Long Island, New York. He began his career as a copywriter for a Broadway publicist. He started doing freelance writing after graduating. Hollywood executives were drawn to his writings that he published in publications like Readbook, Cosmopolitan, and Colliers. He got a deal with Paramount Pictures in the mid-1950s, and the Library of Congress chose his movies to be preserved as cultural heritage. He is known for North by Northwest (1959) and Sabrina (1954).