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{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}
{{Short description|American writer (1909–1993)}}
{{for|the German artist|Daniel and Geo Fuchs}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2010}}

'''Daniel Fuchs''' (June 25, 1909 – July 26, 1993) was an American screenwriter, fiction writer, and essayist.<ref>{{cite book | last1 =Chametzky | first1 =Jules | last2 =Felstiner| first2 =John| last3 =Flanzbaum | first3 =Hilene | last4 = Hellerstein| first4 =Kathryn| title =Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology| publisher = [[W.W. Norton & Company]]| date =2001 | pages =[https://archive.org/details/jewishamericanli00jule/page/501 501] | url =https://archive.org/details/jewishamericanli00jule | url-access =registration | isbn =9780393048094 }}</ref>

==Biography==
Daniel Fuchs was born to a [[American Jews|Jewish]] family<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I0byBwAAQBAJ&q=fuchs|first=John|last=Cones|title=Motion Picture Biographies: The Hollywood Spin on Historical Figures|pages=60|date=April 2015|publisher=Algora |isbn=9781628941166}}</ref> on the [[Lower East Side]], [[Manhattan]], but his family moved to [[Williamsburg, Brooklyn]] while Fuchs was an infant. He wrote three early novels, published by the [[Vanguard Press]] — ''Summer in Williamsburg'' (1934), ''Homage to Blenholt'' (1936), and ''Low Company'' (1937). The earlier two of these depicted Jewish life in Williamsburg; the last focused on various ethnic types in Brighton Beach. A single-volume edition of these was published by Basic Books in 1965 under the title "Three Novels."<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://lccn.loc.gov/61013511|lccn = 61013511|title = Three Novels: Summer in Williamsburg, Homage to Blenholt &#91;and&#93; Low Company|last1 = Fuchs|first1 = Daniel|year = 1961|publisher = Basic Books}}</ref>  Subsequent one-volume editions include ''The Brooklyn Novels,<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://lccn.loc.gov/2006023170|lccn=2006023170|title=The Brooklyn Novels|isbn=9781574232103|last1=Fuchs|first1=Daniel|year=2006}}</ref>'' with an introduction by the novelist [[Jonathan Lethem]], published in 2006 by [[Black Sparrow Books]], an imprint since 2002 of [[David R. Godine, Publisher]].

''Homage to Blenholt'' concerns a well-meaning tenement ''schlemiel'' who hopes to escape poverty via various inventions and get-rich quick schemes. Fuchs also wrote [[Short story|short stories]] and personal essays, mainly for ''[[The New Yorker]]''. When he was 26, he moved to [[Los Angeles, California]] to work on films.

Fuchs wrote the screenplay for the crime [[Film noir|noir]] ''[[Criss Cross (film)|Criss Cross]]'' (1949). He also penned the psychodrama ''[[Panic in the Streets (film)|Panic in the Streets]]'' (1950), which was directed by [[Elia Kazan]]. In 1995, ''Criss Cross'' was remade as ''The Underneath'' by director [[Steven Soderbergh]], with credit given to Fuchs. ''[[Love Me or Leave Me (film)|Love Me or Leave Me]]'', a biopic about the torch singer [[Ruth Etting]], which won Fuchs an [[Academy Award|Oscar]] for [[Academy Award for Best Story|Best Story]] in 1955, featured a performance by [[James Cagney]] in the role of a [[Chicago]] hoodlum and [[Doris Day]] as the beleaguered songstress.

Fuchs' Hollywood novel, ''West of the Rockies'', was published in 1971, and in 1979 appeared a collection of mostly earlier-written short stories, ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint.'' ''The Golden West: Hollywood Stories,'' a collection of Fuchs's fiction and essays about Hollywood, was published in 2005 by Black Sparrow Books.

Fuchs died in Los Angeles.{{when?|date=June 2025}}

==Critique==
[[Irving Howe]] wrote of Fuchs for [[Commentary Magazine]] in 1948 that "he showed such a rich gift for fictional portraiture of Jewish life in the American city that, given sustained work and growth of mind, he might have written its still-uncreated comedie humaine. After reading Fuchs' work one wonders: What was the source of his talent and the cause of his silence, and, perhaps more important, what was the relationship between his talent and his silence?"<ref>[http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/daniel-fuchs--escape-from-williamsburg-br-em-the-fate-of-talent-in-america-em--594 "The fate of Talent In America" Commentary Magazine]</ref>

[[John Updike]] said, "Nobody else writes like Daniel Fuchs. I think of him as a natural—a poet who never had to strain after a poetic effect, a magician who made magic look almost too easy."<ref>(New Yorker Magazine, 1971; cf. Updikes', 'Picked-Up Pieces', 1975)</ref>

==Works==

===Novels===
Fuchs's early novels were published by the [[Vanguard Press]]; he was represented by the [[Maxim Lieber]] Literary Agency, and handled by agent [[Elizabeth Nowell]] (who later became [[Thomas Wolfe]]'s exclusive agent{{relevance?|date=June 2025}}).<ref name=loyalty>
 {{cite book
 | editor-last = Kennedy
 | editor-first = Richard S.
 | title = Beyond love and loyalty: the letters of Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Nowell
 | publisher = University of North Carolina Press Books
 | year = 1983
 | pages = xii
 | isbn = 978-0807815458
 | url = https://archive.org/details/beyondloveloyalt0000wolf
 | url-access = registration
 }}</ref>  
* ''Summer in Williamsburg'' (1934)
* ''Homage to Blenholt'' (1936)
* ''Low Company'' (1937)
* ''Three Novels'' (1965):  omnibus of earlier novels
* ''West of the Rockies'' (1971)

===Collections===
* ''Stories'', with [[Jean Stafford]], [[John Cheever]], and [[William Keepers Maxwell Jr.|William Maxwell]] (1956)
* ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint'' (1979)
* ''The Golden West: Hollywood Stories'' (2005)

=== Scripts ===
* ''[[The Hard Way (1943 film)|The Hard Way]]'' (1943)
* ''[[Between Two Worlds (1944 film)|Between Two Worlds]]'' (1944)
* ''[[The Gangster (1947 film)|The Gangster]]'' (1947), based on his own novel ''Low Company''
*''[[Hollow Triumph]]'' (1948)
* ''[[Criss Cross (film)|Criss Cross]]'' (1949)
* ''[[Panic in the Streets (film)|Panic in the Streets]]'' (1950)
* ''[[Storm Warning (1951 film)|Storm Warning]]'' (1951)
* ''[[The Human Jungle (film)|The Human Jungle]]'' (1954)
* ''[[Love Me or Leave Me (film)|Love Me Or Leave Me]]'' (1955)
* ''[[Jeanne Eagels (film)|Jeanne Eagels]]'' (1957)
* ''[[Interlude (1957 film)|Interlude]]'' (1957)

===Short fiction===
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Title !! Publication !! Collected in
|-
| "Where Al Capone Grew Up" || ''[[The New Republic]]'' (September 9, 1931) || -
|-
| "The Village by the Sea" || ''Opinion'' (April 11, 1932) || -
|-
| "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" || ''[[Story (magazine)|Story]]'' (December 1933) || -
|-
| "Dream City, or The Drugged Lake" || ''Cinema Arts'' (Sumer 1937) || ''The Golden West: Hollywood Stories''
|-
| "My Sister Who Is Famous" || ''[[Collier's]]'' (September 4, 1937) || -
|-
| "Crap Game" || ''[[The New Yorker]]'' (December 25, 1937) || -
|-
| "The Amazing Mystery at Storick, Dorschi, Pflaumer, Inc." || ''[[Scribner's Magazine]]'' (February 1938) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Last Fall" || ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' (March 5, 1938) || -
|-
| "Such a Nice Spring Day" || ''Collier's'' (April 23, 1938) || -
|-
| "Shun All Care" || ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]'' (May 1938) || -
|-
| "A Hollywood Diary" || ''The New Yorker'' (August 6, 1938) || rowspan=2| ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "The Apathetic Bookie Joint" || ''The New Yorker'' (August 20, 1938)
|-
| "Getaway Day" || ''Collier's'' (September 10, 1938) || -
|-
| "People on a Planet" || ''The New Yorker'' (September 24, 1938) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Lucky Loser" || ''Collier's'' (October 15, 1938) || -
|-
| "Kinds of Laughter"<br>aka "A Matter of Pride" || ''Collier's'' (October 22, 1938) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Life Sentence" || ''Collier's'' (November 19, 1938) || -
|-
| "Give Hollywood a Chance" || ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'' (December 1938) || -
|-
| "Fortune and Men's Eyes" || ''The Saturday Evening Post'' (December 10, 1938) || -
|-
| "A Girl Like Cele" || ''[[Redbook]]'' (April 1939) || -
|-
| "The Woman in Buffalo" || ''Esquire'' (April 1939) || -
|-
| "The Man from Mars" || ''The New Yorker'' (April 8, 1939) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "If a Man Answers, Hang Up" || ''Collier's'' (April 22, 1939) || -
|-
| "Crazy Over Pigeons" || ''Collier's'' (April 29, 1939) || -
|-
| "Not to the Swift" || ''Collier's'' (May 13, 1939) || -
|-
| "Florida"<br>aka "Toilers of the Screen" || ''Collier's'' (July 8, 1939) || ''The Golden West: Hollywood Stories''
|-
| "The Hosiery Shop" || ''Harper's Bazaar'' (September 1939) || rowspan=2| ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Love in Brooklyn" || ''The New Yorker'' (September 2, 1939)
|-
| "The Politician" || ''The New Republic'' (October 11, 1939) || -
|-
| "All or Nothing" || ''Collier's'' (October 14, 1939) || -
|-
| "The Morose Policeman" || ''The New Yorker'' (October 14, 1939) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "No Regrets" || ''This Week'' (January 21, 1940) || -
|-
| "A Mink Coat Each Morning" || ''Collier's'' (January 27, 1940) || -
|-
| "There's Always Honolulu" || ''This Week'' (January 21, 1940) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Pug in an Opera Hat" || ''Collier's'' (March 23, 1940) || -
|-
| "The First Smell of Spring, and Brooklyn" || ''[[Mademoiselle (magazine)|Mademoiselle]]'' (April 1940) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Daring Young Man" || ''Collier's'' (August 24, 1940) || -
|-
| "All the Tricks" || ''Collier's'' (September 14, 1940) || -
|-
| "The Sun Goes Down" || ''The New Yorker'' (September 14, 1940) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Racing Is a Business" || ''Collier's'' (October 5, 1940) || -
|-
| "The Language of Love" || ''The New Yorker'' (December 14, 1940) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "The Fabulous Rubio" || ''Collier's'' (January 4, 1941) || -
|-
| "Strange Things Happen in Brooklyn" || ''Collier's'' (February 1, 1941) || -
|-
| "Loew's Kings, the Chink's, and a Ride Home" || ''The New Yorker'' (April 5, 1941) || rowspan=3| ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Okay, Mr. Pappendas, Okay" || ''[[The Southern Review]]'' (Spring 1942)
|-
| "A Clean, Quiet House" || ''The New Yorker'' (May 30, 1942)
|-
| "The Long Green" || ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]'' (February 1951) || -
|-
| "Man in the Middle of the Ocean" || ''The New Yorker'' (July 11, 1953) || ''Stories''
|-
| "Ecossaise, Berceuse, Polonaise" || ''The New Yorker'' (August 1, 1953) || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Twilight in Southern California" || ''The New Yorker'' (October 3, 1953) || rowspan=2| ''Stories''
|-
| "The Golden West" || ''The New Yorker'' (July 10, 1954)
|-
| "Ivanov's 'The Adventures of a Fakir'" || ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]'' (June 1975) || rowspan=2| ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint''
|-
| "Triplicate" || ''The Apathetic Bookie Joint'' (1979)
|-
|}

== Awards ==

* 1980: [[National Jewish Book Award]] for The Apathetic Bookie Joint<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners|title=Past Winners|website=Jewish Book Council|language=en|access-date=January 19, 2020}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*[https://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/rarebooks/fuchs-homagetoblenholt.php Homage to Blenholt: The Daniel Fuchs Papers] The Ohio State University Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection
*{{IMDb name|0297190}}

{{AcademyAwardBestStory 1940–1956}}
{{Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Musical}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Daniel}}
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1993 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American male screenwriters]]
[[Category:Best Story Academy Award winners]]
[[Category:Jewish American novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Los Angeles]]
[[Category:American male short story writers]]
[[Category:American male essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from California]]
[[Category:People from Williamsburg, Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:People from the Lower East Side]]
[[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]