Novelist and playwright who entered films in 1941 (working uncredited on "The Devil and Daniel Webster") and went on to script such riveting features as "House of Strangers" (1949) and "Detective Story" (1951). Yordan was also responsible for a brace of sophisticated westerns, notably "Johnny Guitar" and "Broken Lance" (both 1954) and allegedly lent his name to a number of scripts penned by blacklisted writers during the Hollywood witch-hunt.

Yordan produced his first film in 1949 (an adaptation of his stage hit "Anna Lucasta", which he adapted again for an all-black remake in 1958), and his second, the stinging boxing drama, "The Harder They Fall" in 1956. He went on to write or produce a number of increasingly top-heavy extravaganzas, including "El Cid" (1961) and "The Battle of the Bulge" (1965).