Abby Mann won Oscar for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg’
Published 9:57 pm Thursday, March 27, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Abby Mann, writer of socially conscious scripts for movies and television and winner of the 1961 Academy Award for adapted screenplay for “Judgment at Nuremberg,” has died at 80.
Writers Guild of America spokesman Gregg Mitchell said Mann died Tuesday. The cause of death was not given.
Mann also won multiple Emmys, including one in 1973 for “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” which created a maverick New York police detective named Theo Kojak. The film, starring Telly Savalas, was spun off into the long-running TV series “Kojak.”
In a career spanning more than 50 years as a writer, director and producer, Mann returned repeatedly to morally conscious themes, doing films for television on such subjects as Martin Luther King Jr., human rights advocate Simon Weisenthal and the Teamsters.
“Abby was brought along by great producers like Herbert Brodkin, but his passion was his own. From his earliest days as a writer, he was guided by a moral compass that never wavered,” said Del Reisman, former president of the Writers Guild of America, West, and a longtime friend.
