Christopher Trumbo | Film and TV writer, 70

Christopher Trumbo, 70, a film and television writer, died last Saturday from complications of kidney cancer in Ojai, Calif.

He was the son of Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted and imprisoned during the Red Scare as a member of the Hollywood 10.

During a more than 40-year writing career, Mr. Trumbo wrote episodes of TV series such as Ironside; Quincy, M.E.; and Falcon Crest. He cowrote the 1973 crime drama The Don Is Dead, starring Anthony Quinn, and the 1975 crime drama Brannigan, starring John Wayne.

He also was known as an authority on the blacklist era. That most notably included writing a two-character play based on his father's letters, Trumbo: Red, White & Blacklisted, which tells the story of Dalton Trumbo's life and the blacklist through the words in his correspondence.

Dalton Trumbo's letters also were the basis of his son's Trumbo, a 2007 film that was part documentary and part performance by actors such as Paul Giamatti, Liam Neeson, and Donald Sutherland.

The three Trumbo children felt the effects of the Red Scare. "My younger sister was thrown out of the Blue Birds for being undesirable," Mr. Trumbo said in 1996. "When I went to high school, the authorities tried to deprive me of one academic award because of my family background. Feelings about my father were strong enough to get a reaction from schools, private organizations, and individuals who sent hate mail. That was the tenor of the times." - Los Angeles Times