Lawson, however, was neither the highest paid nor, perhaps, the most talented left-wing screenwriter. Donald Ogden Stewart, Sidney Buchman, Ring Lardner Jr., and Abraham Polonsky were likely Hollywood’s best leftist writers. However, in some ways Dalton Trumbo stands head and shoulders above the rest not only in terms of income, but also in his ability to add gloss and sheen to what might be called formula dramas. By the year of the 1946 lockout, Trumbo had obtained from MGM the best contract ever held by a writer in the industry to that time: a straight five-year contract, without option on the part of the studio, which gave him the option of a $3000-per-week salary for the length of the job or $75,000 per script. He had complete freedom in selecting or rejecting subject material, a rarity among writers. The amorphous “morality clause,” which gave the studios virtual carte blanche to terminate a contract on the flimsiest of grounds was absent from Trumbo’s contract. Of French-Swiss origins, Trumbo—who hailed from Colorado—had U.S. roots stretching back to the American Revolution. He was at the peak of his profession, which included 1,200 writers in Hollywood with only permanent year-round labor for 350—with many of the rest working part-time, if at all.77