Foreman dropped out of law school and worked as a newspaper reporter, fiction writer (selling stories to "Esquire"), press agent, play director and carnival barker. "I was one of the few college trained barkers in the business", he said. Foreman returned to Hollywood in 1938. He worked as a story analyst for several studios and as a film laboratory technician, while continuing to write. He was a member of the Communist Party from 1938 to 1942. "The idea was just in the air", he later said.