Oscar winning screenwriter Abby Mann has past away after suffering from heart failure, he was eighty years old.In a career that spanned fifty years Mann was a writerr, producer and director and s best known for his Oscar winning script Judgement at Nuremberg.After a stint in the army, where he fought in World War II, he began professional writing as a career during the early days of television.He worked steadily in television penning scripts for Studio One and Playhouse 90.Mann's celebrated 1961 script Judgement at Nuremberg, which told of Nazi war crimes, was originally produced for Playhouse 90 before Hollywood took overproduction.The film does not shy away from difficult issues surrounding this delicate subject matter as it examoines and questions the complicity of individuals in crimes committed by the state against humanity.

The movie won an Academy Award for Best Actor, for Maximillian Schell and Best Adapted Screenplay for Mann.

It was also nominated for a second Best Actor gong for Spencer Tracey, Nest Supporting Actor for Montgomery Clift, Best Supporting Actress for Judy Garland and Best Picture.

He followed up his Oscar winning screenplay with other successful scripts including A Child is Waiting in 1963 and Ship of Fools in 1965.

Ship of Fools was an adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter's novel which told of a German ship that leaves Mexico for Bremerhaven in 1931.

The script earnt Mann a second Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay as Ship of Fools picked up eight nominations in total and two wins.

He them moved back to television where he enjoyed more success winning an Emmy for television movie The Marcus Nelson Murders.

The film, which starred Terry Savalas, created New York cop Kojak, which was then turned into a long running television series.

More Emmy success followed with his next project King, a mini series on the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

his last work came in 2002 when he penned Whitewash: The Clarence Bradely Story which was based on the true life story of a man who was wrongly convicyed of murder because of racism.

Mann is survived by a wife and son.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw.