Lewis Meltzer; Screenwriter for ‘Man With the Golden Arm’

Lewis Meltzer, whose film adaptations examined the dark underbelly of prizefighting and the destructiveness of heroin addiction, has died.

Meltzer, whose three-decade career as a scenarist included “Golden Boy” and “Man With the Golden Arm,” died of pneumonia Thursday at his home in Albuquerque, N.M. He was 84.

His two best-known films came from adapting a play by Clifford Odets that gave William Holden his first starring role in 1939 as “Golden Boy” and a novel by Nelson Algren in which Frank Sinatra played a professional card dealer also dealing with the despair of heroin in 1955.

Meltzer came to film writing from a show business background. His father, Isidor Meltzer, was a comedian in Yiddish theater.

“He was always on the road with his father. They traveled the circuit from New York to Philadelphia to Chicago,” Meltzer’s son, Joshua, told the Associated Press.

Meltzer’s brother, character actor Sid Melton, continues the tradition. He was Uncle Charley on “The Danny Thomas Show” and Alf Monroe on another top-rated TV series, “Green Acres.”

Meltzer came to Hollywood in 1938 at the request of Rouben Mamoulian, who directed “Golden Boy.” He then began writing for a number of studios. Meltzer lost his eyesight about 10 years ago and moved to Albuquerque four years later, his son said.

Meltzer’s other credits as a writer or co-writer included “The Lady in Question” (1940), “Once Upon a Time” (1944), “Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven” (1948), “Along the Great Divide” (1950), “The Jazz Singer” (a 1952 remake starring Danny Thomas) and “Autumn Leaves” (1955).

He was equally busy with television, writing for such series as “Schlitz Playhouse,” “Cheyenne,” “Naked City” and the “Rifleman.”

Meltzer’s son said that when his father wrote a play titled “My Fair Lady” in 1958, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner asked if he could have the title for the musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion.” He said Meltzer gave the title to Lerner and retitled his play “Come and Kiss Me.”