Robert Pirosh

As he was born on April Fool's Day, it's fitting that screenwriter Robert Pirosh got his start scripting comedies. His career in Hollywood began in the 1930s, after he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Berlin. He snagged a job as a junior writer at MGM, where he co-wrote with George Seaton. Together the two hashed out the story for 1935's lottery-centered comedy "The Winning Ticket," earning Pirosh his first film credit. Next they collaborated on a pair of iconic Marx Brothers comedies: the class-clashing musical comedy "A Night at the Opera" and the horserace-fueled romp "A Day at the Races." The two would go on to collaborate a handful of times over the coming years, but Pirosh came into his own in 1950, when he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for penning the Battle of the Bulge drama "Battleground." Two years later, he earned Oscar attention again for his directorial debut, "Go For Broke!," a World War II drama that centered on a group of Japanese-American soldiers. Despite these filmic successes, Pirosh then moved into television, scripting episodes for numerous shows, including the long-running family drama "The Waltons," which was the last show he wrote for before retiring in 1981. Pirosh died on Christmas Day nearly 10 years later.