19 October 2011 Last updated at 06:08 ET

Hollywood film writer Norman Corwin dies aged 101

Screenwriter Norman Corwin, who penned the 1956 Kirk Douglas film Lust For Life, has died aged 101.

He died peacefully of natural causes at his US home, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism said.

During a career that spanned more than 70 years, Corwin wrote, produced and directed for radio, TV, film and stage.

In 1957 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Lust For Life, which told the life story of painter Vincent van Gogh.

But he was best known for writing and directing plays for radio during the 1930s and 40s.

He joined CBS in 1938 at the height of the radio network's glory and went on to pen We Hold These Truths.

The play - which featured the voices of Lionel Barrymore, Walter Brennan and Orson Welles - was broadcast on all four radio networks days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

In 1945 he wrote On a Note of Triumph, which was broadcast nationwide on 8 May - the day of the Allied victory in Europe.

A film about that broadcast, A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, won the best short documentary Oscar in 2006.

Corwin, who died at his home in Los Angeles, also wrote at least 19 books and several stage plays.