Arne Skouen was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway. His parents were Peder Nikolai Skouen (1883-1978) and Jenny Emanuelson (1883-1975). He graduated at Hegdehaugen School in 1933. He had three distinct career careers: journalist, author and filmmaker, partly at the same time.
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After the liberation of Norway at the end of World War II, he returned to Dagbladet as a columnist, serving from 1946 to 1947. He then worked at Verdens Gang from 1947 to 1957, where he introduced the use of die throws to review films (giving a score from 1 to 6, corresponding to the faces of a die), which is now common practice in Norwegian media.[3] He later returned to Dagbladet, where he worked from 1971 to 1995.[2]
Skouen debuted as an author with the youth novel Gymnasiast (1932), followed by the novel Ruth sett meg (1937). During the war he published the children's play Barn av solen (1941) and Tre små enaktere (1943). This was followed in the postwar years by his novels Fest i Port des Galets and Romanen Gategutter (1948). Late in life, he published his autobiography En journalists erindringer (1996).[2]
After the war, Skouen began working in film. His first film Gategutter (Street Boys) was released in 1949.
He received international fame for his 1957 film Ni Liv, about Jan Baalsrud's survival following a failed a WWII commando raid in occupied Norway, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.[4] It was also shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 1980, he received the Narvesen Prize (Narvesenprisen), in 1983 the Oslo City Culture Prize, in 1986 the Ibsen Prize (Ibsenprisen) and the Honorary Prize of the Amanda Prize (Amandaprisen), in 1988 the Arts Council Norway Honorary Award (Norsk kulturråds ærespris), in 1993 the Oslo Byes Veles Prize and Fritt Ord Award. He was an honorary member of the Norwegian Dramatic Society and Norwegian Film Association.
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