Donald Freed

Donald Freed (born May 13, 1932) is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, historian, teacher and activist. According to Freed's friend and colleague, the late Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, "(Freed) is a writer of blazing imagination, courage and insight. His work is a unique and fearless marriage of politics and art."

Early life Freed was born May 13, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois, the only son of Jeanne (Greene) and David J. Freed, an attorney; the couple later divorced. Freed maintained a relationship with his father David throughout his life, although he was young when his parents separated. His mother remarried Arthur Malsin, a merchant by trade. At age 4, Freed moved with his mother and stepfather to Eagle River, Wisconsin. Three years later, Freed's mother and stepfather moved again, to Alexandria, Louisiana.

Malsin, Freed's stepfather, was "a successful merchant selling clothing for a time, then military gear, and later soft drinks. After World War II, when the wartime boom deflated and prices soared, his stepfather’s business collapsed and he committed suicide". The Old Vic, United Kingdom (2007).

Investigative journalism Freed also has been an investigative journalist publishing articles and books related mostly to politics and civil rights movements. Freed was affiliated with the Citizens Research and Investigation Committee (C.R.I.C.), a Los Angeles-based group of investigative journalists active in the 1960s and 1970s.

FBI disinformation campaign Freed was a member of the Friends of the Panthers, a group of white supporters of the Black Panther movement. He was a close friend of Huey Percy Newton, a political activist and founding member of the Black Panther Party. Freed acted as one of the unofficial historians of the Black Panther Party, and served as one of the advisors to Newton's doctoral thesis (The War Against the Panthers) for the University of California.

According to Richard Stayton, who wrote an introduction to a 2003 collection of plays by Freed, in 1969 the FBI, in an effort to drive distrust between Freed and the Black Panther Party, began a disinformation campaign against him and added him to Nixon's enemies list. FBI case agent, Phil Denny, ensured that Freed lost his teaching contract at the San Fernando Valley State College and that the California State College in Fullerton would not hire him. Stayton also said that in July 1969, Hoover approved the distribution of leaflets falsely stating that Freed “is a PIG” and a law enforcement informant. The authors specifically named David Atlee Phillips as being involved in a cover-up of the assassination. They also repeated Gaeton Fonzi's claim that Phillips had earlier served as Lee Harvey Oswald's case officer and used the alias "Maurice Bishop". In 1982, Freed, Landis, and their publisher were named in a $230 million libel suit by Phillips and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. In an interview on Larry King Live, Ron Goldman's father called into the show and berated Freed about the book.

Work for Peoples Temple and Jonestown Tragedy Freed visited Jonestown before the mass suicide of over 900 members of Peoples Temple. Freed's visit followed his being contacted by Jim Jones, who wanted him and Mark Lane to uncover alleged plots by intelligence agencies against the Temple.

In the summer of 1978, Peoples Temple hired Lane and Freed to investigate what it alleged to be a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against Peoples Temple. Temple member Edith Roller wrote in her journal that Freed said a Temple defector pressing for a U.S. investigation of Jonestown "was a CIA agent before coming to the Temple."

In August 1978, Freed visited Jonestown and encouraged Lane to visit. Lane held press conferences with the results of his and Freed's visits to Jonestown, stating that "none of the charges" against the Temple "are accurate or true". They said that there was a "massive conspiracy" against the Temple by "intelligence organizations," naming the CIA, FCC, and the U.S. Post Office. Another Temple member, Carolyn Layton, wrote that Freed told them that "anything this dragged out could be nothing less than conspiracy."

A month later, on November 18, 1978, more than 900 Temple members committed mass suicide in Jonestown. Congressman Leo Ryan, NBC reporter Don Harris and others who had flown there to visit were murdered at a nearby airstrip. Jones had created fear among members by stating that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were conspiring with "capitalist pigs" to destroy Jonestown and harm its members.

Selected writings

Plays Crime and Punishment (1960) The Gandhi Play (1969) Inquest (1969) (dir. Alan Schneider), about the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Secret Honor: The Last Testament of Richard M. Nixon with Arthur M. Stone (1983) Circe and Bravo (1984)(Perf. Faye Dunaway; dir. Harold Pinter) Quartered Man (1988) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. The Last Hero (1988) Alfred and Victoria: A Life (1988) The White Crow (1989) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Veterans Day (1989) (Perf. Jack Lemmon and Michael Gambon) Is He Still Dead? (1990) (Perf. Julie Harris (Nora Joyce) Child of Luck (1990) American Iliad (2000) How Shall We Be Saved? (2002) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. The Death Of Ivan Ilych (2004) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. The Devil's Advocate (2005) (about U.S. invasion of Panama and President Manuel Noriega) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Patient No. 1 (2006) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Hamlet (In Rehearsal) (2008) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. The Einstein Plan (2010) 1951–2006 (2010) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Sokrates Must Die (2010) (Perf. Edward Asner) Tomorrow (2013) published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.

Prose fiction Executive Action with Mark Lane (Dell Publishing, 1973). Introduction by Richard Popkin. The China Card (Arbor House, 1980) The Spymaster (Arbor House, 1980) Every Third House (Penmarin Books, 2005)

Non-fiction prose Freud and Stanislavsky New York: Vantage Press, 1965. The Existentialism of Alberto Moravia (Co-author with Joan Ross). Carbonale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965. . In Search of Common Ground (Co-author with Erik Erikson, Kai Erikson, Huey P. Newton) New Haven: Yale University Press. 1971. The Glass House Tapes (editor), New York: Avon Books, 1972. Agony in New Haven: The Trial of Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, and the Black Panther Party. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Rpt. Figueroa Press, forthcoming January 2008. The Killing of RFK. New York: Dell, 1975 Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1980. (10). (13). Killing Time: The First Full Investigation into the Unsolved Murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman (Co-author with Raymond P. Briggs). New York: Macmillan General Reference, 1996. (10). (13).

Films Executive Action (with Dalton Trumbo and Mark Lane) Secret Honor with Arthur M. Stone (dir. Robert Altman) The King of Love Of Love and Shadows (adaptation of the novel by Isabel Allende)

Honors and awards Berlin Critics Award Rockefeller Awards (3) Louis B. Mayer Awards (2) Unicorn Prize NEA Award for "Distinguished Writing" Los Angeles Critics' Awards (5) John Larkin Award Edinburgh Festival Prize Washington D.C. Fringe Prize Pen Award Avignon Festival 2019: Coups de Coeur for Le Cornbeau Blanc [The White Crow (Eichmann in Jerusalem)] American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Award of Appreciation

Personal life In 1952, at 20, Freed married Patricia McGowan and the couple moved to Los Angeles, California three years later. They divorced in 1960.

In 1965, Freed married actress Barboura Morris. In 1975, the couple adopted Hugh Morris Freed, but Barboura died later that year. In 1980, Freed married Patricia Rae Ezor. They are still together after 40 years. After his visiting appointment in Leeds and York, they returned to USC. He has taught in the United States' first multidisciplinary master's program in creative writing for 22 years".