in 1980. Previously, Brooks had been married for 11 years to Harriette Levin, a relationship that also ended in divorce. Character Brooks hated bigotry, which was a central theme of his novel The Brick Foxhole, his co-written screenplay for Storm Warning (1951), and his first western, The Last Hunt (1956). Racial division and reconciliation was also at the heart of Something of Value (1957). He saw Blackboard Jungle as encouraging teachers to continue striving to help their students and as reassuring them that they can make a difference. Opposed to the death penalty, he used In Cold Blood to suggest that executing criminals solves nothing and only creates more violence. While he worked in the studio system for most of the 1940s and 1950s, Brooks often clashed with studio policies about the look and feel of films and the stories they presented. He also chafed against the Production Code's limitations on subject matter and expression. His goal as a filmmaker was total control of a production, and he achieved that with most films after the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The failure of Lord Jim threatened that independence. Brooks responded by becoming a fast and efficient filmmaker, operating with a tight budget and often forgoing a high up-front salary in exchange for a guarantee of control. Brooks was developing a reputation as a hard-driving, difficult and perpetually angry man as early as his tenure with radio station WNEW in the late 1930s. He was not averse to quitting a job when in conflict with those in charge—as he did while directing at the Mill Pond Theater in 1940 and writing for Universal in 1943. At MGM he was known for almost daily eruptions of anger, often aimed at his crew and sometimes at his cast. That did not change even after he was the producer of his films, and he was known throughout the industry as a talented filmmaker yet a difficult man to deal with. Debbie Reynolds recounts that, while as a young and relatively inexperienced actress filming The Catered Affair (1956), Brooks hit her in the face and had to be pulled away from further assault by the assistant director. Later during filming, a heavy piece of equipment fell on his foot, breaking it, and the crew were noticeably slow in removing it which Reynolds attests to a general dislike of the director. Brooks was