AceShowbiz - Alan Trustman, the acclaimed screenwriter behind two iconic 1968 films starring Steve McQueen, The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt, passed away at the age of 95. His death occurred on February 5 at a nursing home in Miami, according to his son, John Trustman, who shared the news with The New York Times.

Alan Trustman was also known for co-writing They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), a crime drama sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967). That film starred Sidney Poitier reprising his role as detective Virgil Tibbs and was directed by Gordon Douglas.

Before his success in Hollywood, Trustman was a Harvard-trained corporate lawyer working at a major Boston law firm in 1967. Inspired by the idea of writing a bank heist story, he decided to try his hand at screenwriting, telling author John Spooner years later, "I knew I could never write a book. But maybe I could write a movie."

Using his college connections, Trustman secured a literary agent in New York to whom he pitched his story. This script eventually became the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, directed by Norman Jewison and produced by Walter Mirisch. The film was shot largely in Boston and featured Steve McQueen as the charming millionaire Thomas Crown, with Faye Dunaway playing the insurance investigator Vicki Anderson.

Shortly after The Thomas Crown Affair premiered, Trustman co-wrote the screenplay for Bullitt, sharing credit with Harry Kleiner. This film, based on a 1963 novel by Robert L. Fish, starred McQueen as Frank Bullitt, a San Francisco police detective. Trustman was instrumental in choosing English director Peter Yates for his American debut on this project, having admired Yates’ work on a chase sequence in the 1967 film Robbery.

Born on December 16, 1930, in Brookline, Massachusetts, Trustman attended Boston Latin School and The Phillips Exeter Academy. At age 15, he began working summers at the First National Bank of Boston. He graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and Harvard Law School in 1955, later joining the Boston law firm Nutter McClennen & Fish, where his father, Benjamin A. Trustman, was a partner. His father also served as a director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Trustman once explained that his transition from law to screenwriting was partly prompted by boredom after his favorite NFL quarterback, New York Giants’ Y.A. Tittle, retired. "Suddenly, I have nothing to do on Sunday afternoons," he said. "But I've had an idea for a long time about how to rob the First National Bank of Boston." To convince Jewison to direct The Thomas Crown Affair, Trustman personally toured the director around the bank to demonstrate how a robbery might realistically be executed.

Regarding Bullitt, Trustman revealed in a 2014 interview that he originally wrote the screenplay set in New York City. However, when producers Philip D'Antoni and Robert Relyea, along with McQueen, wanted to relocate the story to San Francisco, he was enthusiastic about the change. He was familiar with the city from a 1954 summer job at the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro. He shared insights about San Francisco’s steep hills and suggested using a Ford Mustang for one of the film’s famous car chase sequences. At the time, the Mustang was a relatively new model, and McQueen was thrilled by the idea, eager to drive it himself.

After the success of Bullitt, Trustman retired from law and was personally selected by producer Walter Mirisch to write the screenplay for They Call Me Mister Tibbs! He was also initially involved in writing Le Mans (1971), another McQueen vehicle, but was replaced following a disagreement with the actor.

Trustman’s other screenwriting credits include Lady Ice (1973), starring Donald Sutherland and Jennifer O'Neill, and Hit! (1973), featuring Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor. In 1976, he contributed to the films Crime and Passion and The Next Man. He also served as executive producer for The Tracker (1988) and adapted a Raymond Chandler story for a 1995 episode of the Showtime anthology series Fallen Angels.

Beyond screenwriting, Trustman was an author, educator, and currency trader. He taught screenwriting at prestigious institutions including Harvard, New York University, and the University of Miami.

Trustman is survived by his son John, his daughter Laurie, his sister Patty, and 11 grandchildren. He was married four times; his fourth wife, Barbara, a psychiatrist, married him in 2008. His third wife was Michelle Urry, Playboy magazine’s cartoons editor, to whom he was married from 1989 until her death in 2006.