Robert Pirosh; Oscar-Winning Screenwriter

Robert Pirosh, a screenwriter whose 1949 film account of the Battle of the Bulge, “Battleground,” brought him an Academy Award, died Monday of heart failure at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica.

His former wife, Nancy, said he was 79 and most recently had remained active by teaching writing classes at USC.

Writer, producer and director on a dozen well-known films and an equal number of television series, he wrote the pilot programs for the successful TV adventure shows “Laramie” and “Combat.” He also wrote several segments of “Hawaii Five-O,” “Ellery Queen,” “Mannix,” “Bonanza,” “Ironside,” “The Waltons,” “Barnaby Jones,” “The Bold Ones” and many more.

But Pirosh was better known in Hollywood for the adventure motion pictures he wrote in a three-decade career that began in 1935 with “The Winning Ticket.”

He next wrote “A Day at the Races” for the Marx Brothers; “I Married a Witch”; “Up in Arms,” the 1944 Danny Kaye comedy; “Hell Is for Heroes”; “A Gathering of Eagles”; “What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?”; “Go for Broke,” the 1951 recounting of Japanese-American soldiers fighting in Europe; “Valley of the Kings”; “Spring Reunion” and more.

Pirosh drew on his own experiences for “Battleground.” He had fought with the 320th Infantry in the 35th Division at Bastogne when U.S. troops were surrounded by German soldiers for eight fateful days.

His survivors include two sons, a daughter and his sister. At his request there will be no services.