Before departing for Hollywood a decade later, Busch had risen to editor at the weekly, working simultaneously for The New Yorker, where he contributed profiles on famous Americans.

Soon thereafter he went to work as Goldwyn's story editor, recommending Pride of the Yankees, in which Gary Cooper and Busch's soon-to-be wife Teresa Wright co-starred.

The Carrington Incident, published in 1941, was followed by the best-seller Duel in the Sun, which Lewis Selznick's other son David purchased and turned into the 1946 blockbuster of the same title.

Another notable film of the period — for which Busch wrote the original screenplay — was Pursued starring Robert Mitchum and Teresa Wright, one of the first psychological Westerns with "noir" overtones.

Busch appears in the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being, playing the role of "Old Man" in the scene in which Sabina (Lena Olin) receives the letter informing her of Tómas and Tereza's deaths.