HONORED. DALTON TRUMBO, screenwriter, with an Oscar for the screenplay of Roman Holiday, 40 years after its 1953 release and 16 years after his death. Trumbo was among the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood until his name disappeared from the screen for years as a result of Hollywood's McCarthy-era blacklist. The House Un-American Activities Committee accused Trumbo of membership in the Communist Party (an affiliation he acknowledged years later), and he went to prison in 1950 rather than cooperate with his inquisitors. Unable to use his own name, he recruited a series of "fronts," and it was during his underground years, ironically, that he produced his best scripts--the most famous being Roman Holiday, the tale of a princess passing as a commoner. Trumbo enlisted his friend Ian McLellan Hunter to pose as the creator of the film, but now an Academy Award has gone to the real author. In 1975 Trumbo received an Oscar for a blacklist-era work, The Brave One. That time, he was still alive to enjoy it.