A stage and screen writer with an unabashed socialist ideology, Trevor Griffiths is best known as co-writer of "Reds", the 1981 feature film based on the lives of John Reed and Louise Bryant directed by Warren Beatty. Griffiths actually sparred with Beatty on the final draft, when Beatty decided that the story should focus on the romance of Reed and Bryant as much as on Reed's American in Soviet Russia angle. Despite their differences, the pair shared an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

From a working-class background, Griffiths taught, lectured and edited the NORTHERN VOICE