James Dalton Trumbo - Grand Junction, CO - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

Dalton Trumbo, a prolific writer, lead a challenging, difficult and heroic life. He wanted to be a writer and worked to achieve that goal. He strongly believed in social justice, but ran into many political problems--often because he would not back down. His book, 'Johnny Got His Gun,' is still one of the most anti-war novels and suggested reading in many middle/high schools. The book has never been out of print (though he held the book out of circulation during WWII). He was sent to prison and then black-listed during the McCarthy Anti-Communist era. He had to work either under pseudonyms or other writers would front his work. He won many academy awards while black-listed and was one of the first to write under his own name that helped defeat the blacklist.

Rather eccentric, he wrote in his bathtub, as depicted in this piece. The sculpture is a life sized replication of the famous photo from California of Trumbo working on a screenplay in his tub with his ever present cigarettes and coffee. He lost a lung to cancer as he was a 5-6 pack a day smoker.

Animosity over Trumbo's book 'Eclipse' as well as his left-leanings remains in Grand Junction today. The piece was paid for with donations; not tax dollars unlike other pieces of historic people in the area.

More information about Trumbo, including video of the McCarthy Hearings may be found at (visit link) , (visit link) and (visit link) .

Articles about the unveiling of the sculpture may be found at (visit link) and (visit link) .

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/16/2011 Chasing Blue Sky visited it