Howard E. Koch (December 12, 1901 – August 17, 1995)[1][2][3] was an American playwright and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood film studio bosses in the 1950s.
The work included the Orson Welles radio drama The War of the Worlds (1938), which allegedly caused nationwide panic among some listeners for its documentary-like portrayal of an invasion of spaceships from Mars.
[10] Koch contributed to the popular film Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart, which he co-scripted with writers Julius and Philip Epstein in 1942, and for which he received an Academy Award in 1943.
[19] After being blacklisted, Koch moved with his wife, Anne (an accomplished writer in her own right) and their family to Europe and eventually took up residence in the United Kingdom[15] with other blacklisted writers, where they wrote for five years for film and television (British television series The Adventures of Robin Hood among them) under the pseudonyms "Peter Howard"[8] and "Anne Rodney".
Koch was promptly removed from the blacklist,[22] and he resumed his name and continued to write plays and books and remained actively committed to progressive political and social justice causes.