His grandfather was from Chisinäu. In 1932, he wrote the best-selling pulp no- vel No Bed of Her Own, which was later used for the film No Man of Her Own, with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. In 1933, Lewton clandestinely published Grushenka: Three Times a Woman, an erotic novel whose publication would have subjected Lewton to criminal penalties given the mores of the time. Grushenka pur- ported to be a translation from the Russian and brought from the Soviet Union, but this was a ruse to protect the book's real author. Lewton's first production was Cat People, released in 1942. The film was direc- ted by Jacques Tourneur, who subsequently also directed I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man for Lewton. Made for US$134,000, the film went on to earn nearly US$4 million and was the top moneymaker for RKO that year. This success enabled Lewton to make his next films with relatively little studio interference, allowinghim to fulfill his vision despite the sensationalistic film titles he was given, focusing on omi- nous suggestion and themes of existential ambivalence. Lewton always wrote the final draft of the screenplays for his films, but avoided on-screen co-writing credits except in two cases, The Body Snatcher and Bedlam, for which he used the pseudonym "Carlos Keith", which he had previously used for the novels 4 Wives, A Laughing Woman, This Fool, Passion, and Where the Cobra Sings.