Val Lewton - Early Life

Early Life

Lewton was born Vladimir Ivanovich Leventon (Russian: Владимир Иванович Левентон, Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Левентон) in Yalta, Imperial Russia (now in Ukraine), in 1904. He was of Jewish descent, the son of moneylender Max Hofschneider and Nina Leventon, a pharmacist's daughter. The family converted to Christianity. He was nephew of actress Alla Nazimova.

His mother left his father and moved to Berlin, taking her children with her. In 1909, they emigrated to the United States, where his name was changed to Val Lewton. He was raised in suburban Port Chester, New York.

He studied journalism at Columbia University and authored eighteen works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Lewton once lost his job as a reporter for the Darien-Stamford Review after it was discovered that a story he wrote about a truckload of kosher chickens dying in a New York heat wave was a total fabrication.

In 1932, he wrote the best-selling pulp novel No Bed of Her Own, which was later used for the film No Man of Her Own, with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.