Film and television writer Malvin (Daniel) Wald died of age-related causes on 6 March 2008. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1917, he was nominated for an Oscar in 1949 for The Naked City, which was the archetypal police drama. It ended with the line that has become a classic: “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”
Wald graduated from Brooklyn College in 1936, and then followed his older brother Jerry (who started writing screenplays in the 1930s and became a producer), to Hollywood. He served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces during World War II, and wrote more than thirty military training and recruitment films.
His genre writing credits include: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980), Paroxismus (1969), Project: Man in Space (1963), and three episodes of Your Favorite Story (including 1954’s “A Tale of Negative Gravity”).
Wald is survived by his son, Alan, and his daughter, Jenifer Wald Morgan. His wife, Sylvia, died in 1999, and his brother died in 1962.