Ian McLellan Hunter (8 August 1915 – 5 March 1991) was an English screenwriter, best remembered for fronting for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo as the credited writer of Roman Holiday in 1953.
[1] Hunter agreed to front for Trumbo's screenplay for Roman Holiday, which both William Wyler and Paramount were very keen to make.
When it was released to great acclaim and financial success, it was Hunter's name on the credits and it was he who picked up the Academy Award for Best Story.
In the 1990s, the Academy sought to rectify some of the mistakes they had made during the Cold War and the Second Red Scare, reinstating Dalton Trumbo being one of them.
He wrote the screenplays for over twenty films, including Footlight Fever (1941), The Amazing Mr. X (1948) and Mastermind (1976), as well as episodes of the television series The Defenders and the teleplay for the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (1982).