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Manhattan-born Richard Maibaum attended NYU, then headed west to study acting at the University of Iowa. Before he was 30, Maibaum was a firmly established Broadway actor and playwright. He entered films as a screenwriter in 1937, spending the war years with the army's Combat Film Division. In 1946, he joined Paramount as both screenwriter and producer, turning out such worthwhile projects as The Big Clock (1948) and the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby. Advised that making films abroad was an excellent tax shelter, Maibaum formed a partnership in the 1950s with producers Irving Allen and Albert Broccoli. This alliance eventually led to the James Bond series of the 1960s and 1970s: Richard Maibaum wrote or cowrote the screenplay for virtually every Bond film, beginning with Dr. No (1962) and ending with License to Kill (1989).