Schulberg's wife, Betsy, told The New York Times her husband was home in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. at the time of his death and was taken by ambulance to Peconic Bay Medical Center, where medics were unable to revive him. No cause of death has been reported.
Betsy Schulberg could not be reached for comment by press time.
In addition to the screenplay for "On the Waterfront," Schulberg is known for penning the novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" and writing short stories, novels and biographies.
Schulberg will perhaps be best remembered in Dartmouth lore for writing the screenplay of the 1939 film "Winter Carnival," based on the College's "big weekend." His research for the film included an infamous visit to Hanover in 1939 with renowned author and then-recovering alcoholic F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hollywood producer Walter Wanger, a member of the Class of 1915.
Although Wanger had been assured that Fitzgerald was "on the wagon" and "reliable," Schulberg recounted to The Dartmouth in February of this year, by the time the group's plane reached its first pit stop to refuel on the voyage east, "[Fitzgerald] was already on his way back to drinking."
"That was the beginning of a terrible weekend," Schulberg said.
In addition to speaking with several professors at the College during their week-long visit, Schulberg and Fitzgerald also visited Alpha Delta and Psi Upsilon fraternities, according to a 2003 article in the New York Times.
"Finally, on the end of the weekend, Wanger was so exasperated with us that he fired both us," Schulberg said.
Schulberg was later rehired to finish the script for the movie because he "was so close to the Carnival having just been out of the school," Schulberg said. Fitzgerald was not asked to come back to the film.
Schulberg told The Dartmouth in 2000 he cherished his memories of the late Fitzgerald.
"I still get a twinge every time I come into the [Hanover] Inn," he said. "Every time I come, I think about that weekend. It was our lost weekend."
The Dartmouth experience was difficult to encapsulate in one script, Schulberg said in February.
"It's not too easy, you know, to cram the whole of this Dartmouth spirit' into a Carnival story and really grasp it," he said. "It's a whole year's job... and there are plenty of headaches."
During his time at the College, Schulberg served as editor-in-chief for The Dartmouth, where he will be remembered for standing in defense of the paper's right to freedom of expression.
While at The Dartmouth, Schulberg penned an editorial piece for the newspaper about a clash between the management and workers in a Vermont marble quarry, Schulberg said in 2000. Schulberg took the side of the workers, a move with which angered many alumni, and led some to urged then-College President Ernest Hopkins to expel Schulberg from the College.
Hopkins called Schulberg into his office and asked him what he would say to himself if he were in the president's position, Schulberg told The Dartmouth in 2000.
"I told him, I guess I would say that I find everything you write abominable but it is supposed to be a liberal paper and I can't stop you from writing what you want,'" Schulberg said in the 2000 interview.
Hopkins reluctantly agreed and Schulberg was allowed to stay at Dartmouth.
Schulberg grew up surrounded by the movie industry. His father, who was the former head of Paramount Studios, was active in the production of over 90 films from the 1920s to the 1940s, including the 1927 inaugural Best Picture Oscar winner, "Wings."
During high school, Schulberg worked for The Hollywood Reporter and wrote movie scripts. He assumed he would work in the film industry after graduating from high school, but Wanger and writer-producer Gene Markey encouraged him to consider going to college, specifically Dartmouth.
While at the College, Schulberg majored in sociology and minored in English, concentrating in creative writing. Schulberg said in 2000 he did not have any definitive career plans in mind as a student, but knew he wanted to write in some capacity.
"I found that writing at Dartmouth is an ideal time in your life," Schulberg said. "You can do it without having to earn a living at it, not worrying."
After graduating, Schulberg returned to the movie business and worked as a junior writer under producer David Selznick. He made contributions to the 1937 "A Star is Born" and "Nothing Sacred."
Schulberg also wrote freelance pieces for the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire magazine, among other publications.
It wasn't until 1941 that his first novel, "What Makes Sammy Run?" was published. From 1939 to 1941, he worked on the book primarily in Norwich, Vt., where he lived, sometimes working out of the College's Baker Library, he told The Dartmouth 2000.
Schulberg was also a member of the Communist Party from 1934 to 1940. With the onset of World War II, Schulberg went to work for the Naval Intelligence Department of the Office of Strategic Services. He was assigned to filter through and edit Nazi concentration camp film that was used as evidence in The Nuremberg Trials.
In the spring of 1946, Schulberg left the service and settled in Pennsylvania where he wrote the novel "The Harder They Fall," which was later made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart.
A return to screenwriting produced Schulberg's most famous work, the 1954 film "On the Waterfront." Marlon Brando starred as Terry Malloy and uttered one of the most famous lines in movie history.
"I coulda been a contender," Malloy tells his brother. "I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am."
Schulberg won an Academy Award for Best Story and Screenplay in 1955 for the film.
Schulberg's last novel, "Sparring with Hemingway and Other Legends of the Fight Game," was published in 1995. It includes personal recounts of Schulberg's encounters with Ernest Hemingway.
"I didn't like [Hemingway]," he told The Dartmouth in 2000. "He thought that because he wrote a book on boxing that no one else could it was his domain. He may have been a great writer, but he was really a pain in the ass."
Schulberg is survived by his wife and five children.
