Hollywood blacklist
Encyclopedia
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected. Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy toward the American Communist Party
, involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist investigations into Communist Party activities; some were blacklisted merely because their names came up at the wrong place and time. Even during the period of its strictest enforcement, the late 1940s through the late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit and verifiable, but it caused direct damage to the careers of scores of American artists, often made betrayal of friendship (not to mention principle) the price for a livelihood, and promoted ideological censorship across the entire industry.
The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress
for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. A group of studio
executives, acting under the aegis
of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the artists—the so-called Hollywood Ten—in what has become known as the Waldorf Statement
. On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels
appeared, focusing on the field of broadcasting. It named 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of "Red Fascists and their sympathizers"; soon most of those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in much of the entertainment field. The blacklist was effectively broken in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo
, an unrepentant member of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly acknowledged as the screenwriter of the films Spartacus
and Exodus
. A number of those blacklisted, however, were still barred from work in their professions for years afterward.
and World War II. During this era, long before the horrors of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
's rule became common knowledge in the West, the American Communist Party
attracted a large number of followers, many of them young idealists in the field of arts and entertainment. The party was the primary force in the United States fighting for the rights of poor people, and was centrally involved in campaigns for improvement in welfare, unemployment, and social security benefits. Two major film industry
strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Communist-affiliated Screen Writers Guild.
The American Communist Party lost substantial support after the Moscow show trials
of 1936–38 and the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
of 1939. The U.S. government began turning its attention to the links, real and imagined, between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then chairman Martin Dies, Jr.
, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) released a report in 1938 claiming that communism
was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, who named forty-two movie industry professionals as Communists. After Leech repeated his charges in supposed confidence to a Los Angeles grand jury, many of the names were reported in the press, including those of stars Humphrey Bogart
, James Cagney
, and Frederic March, among other well-known Hollywood figures. Dies said he would "clear" all those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he called "executive session". Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir
had met with the HUAC chairman. Dies "cleared" everyone except actor Lionel Stander
, who was fired by the movie studio, Republic Pictures
, where he was contracted.
In 1941, producer Walt Disney
took out an ad in Variety
, the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind a cartoonists and animators' strike. According to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, "In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disney's overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity." Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Jack Tenney
, chairman of the state legislature's Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines.
The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the American Communist Party newfound credibility. During the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith
, founder of the neofascist America First Party
, began giving speeches in Los Angeles assailing the "alien minded Russian Jews in Hollywood". Mississippi congressman John E. Rankin
, a member of HUAC, held a press conference to declare that "one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this Government has its headquarters in Hollywood...the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States." Rankin promised, "We're on the trail of the tarantula now". Reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the war's aftermath added more fuel to what became known as the "Second Red Scare". The growth of conservative political influence and the Republican
triumph in the 1946 Congressional elections, which saw the party take control of both the House
and Senate
, led to a major revival of institutional anticommunist activity, publicly spearheaded by HUAC. The following year, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), a political action group cofounded by Walt Disney, issued a pamphlet advising producers on the avoidance of "subtle communistic touches" in their films. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as "Don't smear the free-enterprise system ... Don't smear industrialists ... Don't smear wealth ... Don't smear the profit motive ... Don't deify the 'common man' ... Don't glorify the collective".
In October 1947, a number of persons working in the Hollywood film industry were summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been surreptitiously planting propaganda in U.S. films. The hearings began with several Hollywood professionals, including Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan
, president of the Screen Actors Guild
, testifying that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one. Actor Adolphe Menjou
declared, "I am a witch hunter if the witches are Communists. I am a Red-baiter
. I would like to see them all back in Russia." In contrast, several leading Hollywood figures, including director John Huston
and actors Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
, and Danny Kaye
, organized the Committee for the First Amendment
to protest the government targeting of their industry.
Many of the film industry professionals in whom HUAC had expressed interest—primarily screenwriters, but actors, directors, producers, and others as well—were either known or alleged to have been members of the American Communist Party. Of the forty-three people put on the witness list, a total of nineteen declared that they would not give evidence. Eleven of these nineteen were called before the committee. Members of the Committee for the First Amendment flew to Washington ahead of this climactic phase of the hearing, which commenced on Monday, October 27. Of the eleven "unfriendly witnesses", one, émigré playwright Bertolt Brecht
, ultimately chose to answer the committee's questions. The other ten refused, citing their First Amendment
rights to freedom of speech and assembly. The crucial question they refused to answer is now generally rendered as "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party
?" In fact, each had at one time or another been a member; most still were, while a few had been in the past and only briefly. These ten were formally accused of contempt of Congress
and proceedings against them began in the full House of Representatives
.
In light of the "Hollywood Ten"'s defiance of HUAC—in addition to refusing to testify, many had attempted to read statements decrying the committee's investigation as unconstitutional—political pressure mounted on the film industry to demonstrate its "anti-subversive" bona fides. Late in the hearings, Eric Johnston
, president of the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA), declared to the committee that he would never "employ any proven or admitted Communist because they are just a disruptive force and I don't want them around." On November 17, the Screen Actors Guild voted to make its officers swear to a non-Communist pledge. The following week, on November 24, the House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations against the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress. The next day, following a meeting of film industry executives
at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, MPAA president Johnston issued a press release on the executives' behalf that is today referred to as the Waldorf Statement
. The statement declared that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. The first Hollywood blacklist was now in effect.
, the primary owner of RKO Pictures
, to get out of the business. As a result, the studio would pass into the hands of Howard Hughes
. Within weeks of taking over in May 1948, Hughes fired most of RKO's employees and virtually shut the studio down for half a year as he had the political sympathies of the rest investigated. Then, just as RKO swung back into production, Hughes made the decision to settle a long-standing federal antitrust suit
against the industry's Big Five studios
. This would be one of the crucial steps in the collapse of the studio system
that had governed Hollywood, and ruled much of world cinema, for a quarter-century.
In early 1948, as well, all of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt. Following a series of unsuccessful appeals, the cases arrived before the Supreme Court
; among the submissions filed in defense of the ten was an amicus curiae
brief signed by 204 Hollywood professionals. After the court denied review, the Hollywood Ten began serving one-year prison sentences in 1950. In September 1950, one of the ten, director Edward Dmytryk
, publicly announced that he had once been a Communist and was prepared to give evidence against others who had been as well. He was released early from jail; following his 1951 HUAC appearance, in which he described his brief membership in the party and named names, his career recovered.
The others remained silent and most were unable to obtain work in the American film and television industry for many years. Adrian Scott
, who had produced four of Dmytryk's films—Murder, My Sweet
; Cornered
; So Well Remembered
; and Crossfire
—was one of those named by his former friend. Scott's next screen credit would not come until 1972 and he would never produce another feature film. Some of those blacklisted continued to write for Hollywood or the broadcasting industry surreptitiously, using pseudonym
s or the names of friends who posed as the actual writers (those who allowed their names to be used in this fashion were called "fronts"). Of the 204 who signed the amicus brief, 84 would be blacklisted themselves. There was a more general chilling effect: Humphrey Bogart, who had been one of the most prominent members of the Committee for the First Amendment, felt compelled to write an article for Photoplay
magazine denying he was a Communist sympathizer. The Tenney Committee, which had continued its state-level investigations, summoned songwriter Ira Gershwin
to testify about his participation in the committee.
A number of nongovernmental organizations participated in enforcing and expanding the blacklist; in particular, the American Legion
, the conservative war veterans' group, was instrumental in pressuring the entertainment industry to exclude those of political sympathies it disagreed with. In 1949, the Americanism Division of the Legion issued its own blacklist—a roster of 128 people whom it claimed were participants in the "Communist Conspiracy." Among the names on the Legion's list was that of well-known playwright Lillian Hellman
. Hellman had written or contributed to the screenplays of approximately ten motion pictures up to that point; she would not be employed again by a Hollywood studio until 1966.
Another influential group was American Business Consultants Inc., founded in 1947. In the subscription information for its weekly publication Counterattack, "The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism", it declared that it was run by "a group of former FBI men. It has no affiliation whatsoever with any government agency." Notwithstanding that claim, it seems the editors of Counterattack had direct access to the files of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and HUAC; the results of that access became widely apparent with the June 1950 publication of Red Channels
. This Counterattack spinoff listed 151 people in entertainment and broadcast journalism, along with records of their involvement in what the pamphlet meant to be taken as Communist or pro-Communist activities. A few of those named, such as Hellman, were already being denied employment in the motion picture, TV, and radio fields; the publication of Red Channels meant that scores more would be placed on the blacklist. That year, CBS
instituted a loyalty oath which it required of all its employees.
said when called before the panel,
Parks ultimately testified, becoming however reluctantly, a "friendly witness", and found himself blacklisted, nonetheless.
In fact, the legal tactics of those refusing to testify had changed by this time; instead of relying on the First Amendment, they invoked the Fifth Amendment
's shield against self-incrimination (though, as before, Communist Party membership was not illegal). While this usually allowed a witness to avoid "naming names" without being indicted for contempt of Congress, "taking the Fifth" before HUAC guaranteed that one would be added to the industry blacklist. Historians at times distinguish between the relatively official blacklist—the names of those who (a) were called by HUAC and, in whatever manner, refused to cooperate and/or (b) were identified as Communists in the hearings—and the so-called graylist—those others who were denied work because of their political or personal affiliations, real or imagined; the consequences, however, were largely the same. The graylist also refers more specifically to those who were denied work by the major studios but could still find jobs on Poverty Row
: Composer Elmer Bernstein
, for instance, was called by HUAC when it was discovered that he had written some music reviews for a Communist newspaper. After he refused to name names, pointing out that he had never attended a Communist Party meeting, he found himself composing music for movies such as Cat Women of the Moon.
Like Parks and Dmytryk, others also named names to the committee. Some friendly witnesses gave broadly damaging testimony with less apparent reluctance, most prominently director Elia Kazan
and screenwriter Budd Schulberg
. Their cooperation in describing the political leanings of their friends and professional associates effectively brought a halt to dozens of careers and compelled a number of artists to depart for Mexico or Europe. Others were also forced abroad in order to work. Director Jules Dassin
was among the best known of these. Briefly a Communist, Dassin had left the party in 1939. He was immediately blacklisted after Edward Dmytryk and fellow filmmaker Frank Tuttle
named him to HUAC in 1952. Dassin left for France, and spent much of his remaining career in Greece. Scholar Thomas Doherty describes how the HUAC hearings swept onto the blacklist those who had never even been particularly active politically, let alone suspected of being Communists:
When Stander was himself called before HUAC, he began by pledging his full support in the fight against "subversive" activities:
Stander was clearly speaking of the committee itself.
The hunt for subversives extended into every branch of the entertainment industry. In the field of animation, two studios in particularly were affected: United Productions of America
(UPA) was purged of a large portion of its staff, while New York–based Tempo was entirely crushed. The HUAC investigation also effectively destroyed families. Screenwriter Richard Collins, after a brief period on the blacklist, became a friendly witness and dumped his wife, actress Dorothy Comingore
, who refused to name names. Divorcing Comingore, Collins took the couple's young son, as well. The family's story was later dramatized in the film Guilty by Suspicion
(1991), in which the character based on Comingore "commits suicide rather than endure a long mental collapse." In real life, Comingore succumbed to alcoholism and died of a pulmonary disease at the age of fifty-eight. In the description of historians Paul Buhle and David Wagner, "premature strokes and heart attacks were fairly common [among blacklistees], along with heavy drinking as a form of suicide on the installment plan."
For all that, evidence that Communists were actually using Hollywood films as vehicles for subversion remained hard to come by. Schulberg reported that the manuscript of his novel What Makes Sammy Run?
(later a screenplay, as well) had been subject to an ideological critique by Hollywood Ten writer John Howard Lawson
, whose comments he had solicited. The significance of such interactions was questionable. As historian Gerald Horne
describes, many Hollywood screenwriters had joined or associated with the local Communist Party chapter because it "offered a collective to a profession that was enmeshed in tremendous isolation at the typewriter. Their 'Writers' Clinic' had 'an informal "board" of respected screenwriters'—including Lawson and Ring Lardner Jr.
—'who read and commented upon any screenplay submitted to them. Although their criticism could be plentiful, stinging, and (sometimes) politically dogmatic, the author was entirely free to accept it or reject it as he or she pleased without incurring the slightest "consequence" or sanction.'" Much of the onscreen evidence of Communist influence uncovered by HUAC was feeble at best. One witness remembered Stander, while performing in a film, whistling the left-wing "Internationale
" as his character waited for an elevator. "Another noted that screenwriter Lester Cole
had inserted lines from a famous pro-Loyalist
speech by La Pasionaria
about it being 'better to die on your feet than to live on your knees' into a pep talk delivered by a football coach."
, for instance, one of the Hollywood Ten and still very much on the blacklist, had received screen credit in 1950 for writing, years earlier, the story on which the screenplay of Columbia Pictures
' Emergency Wedding
was based. There would be no more of that until the 1960s. The name of Albert Maltz
, who had written the original screenplay for The Robe
in the mid-1940s, was nowhere to be seen when the movie was released in 1953.
As William O'Neill describes, pressure was maintained even on those who had ostensibly "cleared" themselves:
The group's efforts dragged many others onto the blacklist: In 1954, "[s]creenwriter Louis Pollock, a man without any known political views or associations, suddenly had his career yanked out from under him because the American Legion confused him with Louis Pollack, a California clothier, who had refused to cooperate with HUAC."
During this same period, a number of influential newspaper columnists covering the entertainment industry, including Walter Winchell
, Hedda Hopper
, Victor Riesel
, Jack O'Brian
, and George Sokolsky
, regularly offered up names with the suggestion that they should be added to the blacklist. Actor John Ireland
received an out-of-court settlement to end a 1954 lawsuit against the Young & Rubicam
advertising agency, which had ordered him dropped from the lead role in a television series it sponsored. Variety described it as "the first industry admission of what has for some time been an open secret—that the threat of being labeled a political nonconformist, or worse, has been used against show business personalities and that a screening system is at work determining thesp [actors'] availabilities for roles."
The Hollywood blacklist had long gone hand in hand with the Red-baiting activities of J. Edgar Hoover
's FBI. Adversaries of HUAC such as lawyer Bartley Crum
, who defended some of the Hollywood Ten in front of the committee in 1947, were labeled as Communist sympathizers or subversives and targeted for investigation themselves. Throughout the 1950s, the FBI tapped Crum's phones, opened his mail, and placed him under continuous surveillance. As a result, he lost most of his clients and, unable to cope with the stress of ceaseless harassment, committed suicide in 1959. Intimidating and dividing the left is now seen as a central purpose of the HUAC hearings. Fund-raising for once-popular humanitarian efforts became difficult, and despite the sympathies of many in the industry there was little open support in Hollywood for causes such as the African American Civil Rights Movement and opposition to nuclear weapons testing.
The struggles attending the blacklist were played out metaphorically on the big screen in various ways. As described by film historian James Chapman, "Carl Foreman
, who had refused to testify before the committee, wrote the western High Noon
(1952), in which a town marshal (ironically played by friendly witness Gary Cooper
...) finds himself deserted by the good citizens of Hadleyville (for which read Hollywood) when a gang of outlaws who had terrorized the town several years earlier (for which read HUAC) returns." Cooper's lawman cleaned up Hadleyville, but Foreman was forced to leave for Europe to find work. Even more famously, Kazan and Schulberg collaborated on a movie widely seen as justifying their decision to name names. On the Waterfront
(1954) became one of the most honored films in Hollywood history, winning eight Academy Awards
, including Oscars for Best Film, Kazan's direction, and Schulberg's screenplay. The film featured Lee J. Cobb
, one of the best known actors to name names. Time Out Film Guide argues that the film is "undermined" by its "embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers."
After his release from prison, Herbert Biberman
of the Hollywood Ten directed Salt of the Earth
, working independently in New Mexico with fellow blacklisted Hollywood professionals—producer Paul Jarrico
, writer Michael Wilson
, and actors Rosaura Revueltas
and Will Geer
. The film, concerning a strike by Mexican-American mine workers, was denounced as Communist propaganda when it was completed in 1953. Distributors boycotted it, newspapers and radio stations rejected advertisements for it, and the projectionists' union refused to run it. Nationwide in 1954, only around a dozen theaters exhibited it.
. Host of an afternoon comedy radio show, Faulk was a leftist active in his union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
. He was scrutinized by AWARE, one of the private firms that examined individuals for signs of Communist sympathies and "disloyalty." Marked by the group as unfit, he was fired by CBS Radio. Almost alone among the many victims of blacklisting, Faulk decided to sue AWARE in 1957. Though the case would drag through the courts for years, the suit itself was an important symbol of the building resistance to the blacklist.
The initial cracks in the entertainment industry blacklist were evident on television, specifically at CBS. In 1957, blacklisted actor Norman Lloyd
was hired by Alfred Hitchcock
as an associate producer for his anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, then entering its third season on the network. On November 30, 1958, a live CBS production of Wonderful Town
, based on short stories written by then-Communist Ruth McKenney
, appeared with the proper writing credit of blacklisted Edward Chodorov, along with his literary partner, Joseph Fields. The following year, actress Betty Hutton
insisted that blacklisted composer Jerry Fielding
be hired as musical director for her new series, also on CBS. The first main break in the Hollywood blacklist followed soon after: on January 20, 1960, director Otto Preminger
publicly announced that Dalton Trumbo, one of the best known members of the Hollywood Ten, was the screenwriter of his forthcoming film Exodus
. Six-and-a-half months later, with Exodus still to debut, the New York Times announced that Universal Pictures
would give Trumbo screen credit for his role as writer on Spartacus
, a decision star Kirk Douglas
is now recognized as largely responsible for. On October 6, Spartacus premiered—the first movie to bear Trumbo's name since he had received story credit on Emergency Wedding in 1950. Since 1947, he had written or cowritten approximately seventeen motion pictures without credit. Exodus followed in December, also bearing Trumbo's name. The blacklist was now clearly coming to an end, but its effects would reverberate for years to come.
John Henry Faulk finally won his lawsuit in 1962. With this court decision, the private blacklisters and those who used them were put on notice that they were legally liable
for the professional and financial damage they caused. This helped to bring an end to publications such as Counterattack. Like Adrian Scott and Lillian Hellman, however, a number of those on the blacklist remained there for an extended period—Lionel Stander, for instance, could not find work in Hollywood until 1965. Some of those who named names, like Kazan and Schulberg, argued for years after that they had made an ethically proper decision. Others, like actor Lee J. Cobb
and director Michael Gordon
, who gave friendly testimony to HUAC after suffering on the blacklist for a time, "concede[d] with remorse that their plan was to name their way back to work." And there were those more gravely haunted by the choice they had made. In 1963, actor Sterling Hayden
declared,
Scholars Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner state that Hayden "was widely believed to have drunk himself into a near-suicidal depression decades before his 1986 death."
As late as 2000, the Writers Guild
was still pursuing the correction of screen credits from movies of the 1950s and early 1960s to properly reflect the work of blacklisted writers such as Carl Foreman and Hugo Butler
.
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
, involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist investigations into Communist Party activities; some were blacklisted merely because their names came up at the wrong place and time. Even during the period of its strictest enforcement, the late 1940s through the late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit and verifiable, but it caused direct damage to the careers of scores of American artists, often made betrayal of friendship (not to mention principle) the price for a livelihood, and promoted ideological censorship across the entire industry.
The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. A group of studio
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
executives, acting under the aegis
Aegis
An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...
of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the artists—the so-called Hollywood Ten—in what has become known as the Waldorf Statement
Waldorf Statement
The Waldorf Statement was a two-page press release issued on December 3, 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, following a closed-door meeting by forty-eight motion picture company executives at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel...
. On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels
Red Channels
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare...
appeared, focusing on the field of broadcasting. It named 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of "Red Fascists and their sympathizers"; soon most of those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in much of the entertainment field. The blacklist was effectively broken in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
, an unrepentant member of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly acknowledged as the screenwriter of the films Spartacus
Spartacus (film)
Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast...
and Exodus
Exodus (film)
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
. A number of those blacklisted, however, were still barred from work in their professions for years afterward.
Historical background
The Hollywood blacklist is rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s, encompassing the height of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and World War II. During this era, long before the horrors of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's rule became common knowledge in the West, the American Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
attracted a large number of followers, many of them young idealists in the field of arts and entertainment. The party was the primary force in the United States fighting for the rights of poor people, and was centrally involved in campaigns for improvement in welfare, unemployment, and social security benefits. Two major film industry
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
strikes during the 1930s increased tensions between the Hollywood producers and the unions, particularly the Communist-affiliated Screen Writers Guild.
The American Communist Party lost substantial support after the Moscow show trials
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
of 1936–38 and the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
of 1939. The U.S. government began turning its attention to the links, real and imagined, between Hollywood and the party during this period. Under then chairman Martin Dies, Jr.
Martin Dies, Jr.
Martin Dies, Jr. was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. His father, Martin Dies, was also a member of the United States House of Representatives.-Biography:...
, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) released a report in 1938 claiming that communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
was pervasive in Hollywood. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, who named forty-two movie industry professionals as Communists. After Leech repeated his charges in supposed confidence to a Los Angeles grand jury, many of the names were reported in the press, including those of stars Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
, and Frederic March, among other well-known Hollywood figures. Dies said he would "clear" all those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he called "executive session". Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actress Jean Muir
Jean Muir (actress)
Jean Muir was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born in Suffern, New York as Jean Muir Fullarton, she first appeared on Broadway in 1930, and was signed by Warner Brothers Studios three years later. She played opposite several famous actors - Warren William, Paul Muni, Richard...
had met with the HUAC chairman. Dies "cleared" everyone except actor Lionel Stander
Lionel Stander
Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...
, who was fired by the movie studio, Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
, where he was contracted.
In 1941, producer Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
took out an ad in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind a cartoonists and animators' strike. According to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, "In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disney's overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity." Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Jack Tenney
Jack Tenney
Jack B. Tenney was an American politician who was noted for leading anti-communist investigations in California in the 1940s and early 1950s. Tenney was also the composer of several well-known songs, most notably "Mexicali Rose"....
, chairman of the state legislature's Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines.
The subsequent wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the American Communist Party newfound credibility. During the war, membership in the party reached a peak of 50,000. As World War II drew to a close, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade...
, founder of the neofascist America First Party
America First Party (1944)
The America First Party was an isolationist political party which was founded on January 10, 1943. Its leader, Gerald L. K. Smith, was the party's presidential candidate in the 1944 U.S...
, began giving speeches in Los Angeles assailing the "alien minded Russian Jews in Hollywood". Mississippi congressman John E. Rankin
John E. Rankin
John Elliott Rankin was a Democratic congressman from the U.S. State of Mississippi who supported racial segregation and, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, voiced racist views on African Americans and Jews and even accused Albert Einstein of being a communist agitator.In...
, a member of HUAC, held a press conference to declare that "one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this Government has its headquarters in Hollywood...the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States." Rankin promised, "We're on the trail of the tarantula now". Reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the war's aftermath added more fuel to what became known as the "Second Red Scare". The growth of conservative political influence and the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
triumph in the 1946 Congressional elections, which saw the party take control of both the House
United States House election, 1946
Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 80th United States Congress took place in 1946. These midterm elections occurred in the middle of President Harry S. Truman's first term....
and Senate
United States Senate election, 1946
The United States Senate elections of 1946 were in the middle of Democratic President Harry Truman's first term.The vote was largely seen as a referendum on Truman, whose approval rating had sunk to 32% over the president's controversial handling of a wave of post-war labor strikes, such as a...
, led to a major revival of institutional anticommunist activity, publicly spearheaded by HUAC. The following year, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), a political action group cofounded by Walt Disney, issued a pamphlet advising producers on the avoidance of "subtle communistic touches" in their films. Its counsel revolved around a list of ideological prohibitions, such as "Don't smear the free-enterprise system ... Don't smear industrialists ... Don't smear wealth ... Don't smear the profit motive ... Don't deify the 'common man' ... Don't glorify the collective".
The blacklist begins (1947)
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, president of the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
, testifying that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one. Actor Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...
declared, "I am a witch hunter if the witches are Communists. I am a Red-baiter
Red-baiting
Red-baiting is the act of accusing, denouncing, attacking or persecuting an individual or group as communist, socialist, or anarchist, or sympathetic toward communism, socialism, or anarchism. The word "red" in "red-baiting" is derived from the red flag signifying radical left-wing politics. In the...
. I would like to see them all back in Russia." In contrast, several leading Hollywood figures, including director John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
and actors Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, and Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
, organized the Committee for the First Amendment
Committee for the First Amendment
The Committee for the First Amendment was an action group formed in September 1947 by actors in support of the Hollywood Ten during the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
to protest the government targeting of their industry.
Many of the film industry professionals in whom HUAC had expressed interest—primarily screenwriters, but actors, directors, producers, and others as well—were either known or alleged to have been members of the American Communist Party. Of the forty-three people put on the witness list, a total of nineteen declared that they would not give evidence. Eleven of these nineteen were called before the committee. Members of the Committee for the First Amendment flew to Washington ahead of this climactic phase of the hearing, which commenced on Monday, October 27. Of the eleven "unfriendly witnesses", one, émigré playwright Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, ultimately chose to answer the committee's questions. The other ten refused, citing their First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
rights to freedom of speech and assembly. The crucial question they refused to answer is now generally rendered as "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
?" In fact, each had at one time or another been a member; most still were, while a few had been in the past and only briefly. These ten were formally accused of contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
and proceedings against them began in the full House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
.
In light of the "Hollywood Ten"'s defiance of HUAC—in addition to refusing to testify, many had attempted to read statements decrying the committee's investigation as unconstitutional—political pressure mounted on the film industry to demonstrate its "anti-subversive" bona fides. Late in the hearings, Eric Johnston
Eric Johnston
Eric Allen Johnston was a business owner, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, a Republican Party activist, president of the Motion Picture Association of America , and a U.S. government special projects administrator and envoy for both Democratic and Republican administrations...
, president of the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
(MPAA), declared to the committee that he would never "employ any proven or admitted Communist because they are just a disruptive force and I don't want them around." On November 17, the Screen Actors Guild voted to make its officers swear to a non-Communist pledge. The following week, on November 24, the House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations against the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress. The next day, following a meeting of film industry executives
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, MPAA president Johnston issued a press release on the executives' behalf that is today referred to as the Waldorf Statement
Waldorf Statement
The Waldorf Statement was a two-page press release issued on December 3, 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, following a closed-door meeting by forty-eight motion picture company executives at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel...
. The statement declared that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. The first Hollywood blacklist was now in effect.
The list grows (1948–50)
The HUAC hearings had failed to turn up any evidence that Hollywood was secretly disseminating Communist propaganda, but the industry was nonetheless transformed. The fallout from the inquiry was a factor in the decision by Floyd OdlumFloyd Odlum
Floyd Bostwick Odlum was a wealthy lawyer and industrialist. He has been described as "possibly the only man in the United States who made a great fortune out of the Depression"...
, the primary owner of RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
, to get out of the business. As a result, the studio would pass into the hands of Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
. Within weeks of taking over in May 1948, Hughes fired most of RKO's employees and virtually shut the studio down for half a year as he had the political sympathies of the rest investigated. Then, just as RKO swung back into production, Hughes made the decision to settle a long-standing federal antitrust suit
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
against the industry's Big Five studios
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
. This would be one of the crucial steps in the collapse of the studio system
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
that had governed Hollywood, and ruled much of world cinema, for a quarter-century.
In early 1948, as well, all of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt. Following a series of unsuccessful appeals, the cases arrived before the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
; among the submissions filed in defense of the ten was an amicus curiae
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
brief signed by 204 Hollywood professionals. After the court denied review, the Hollywood Ten began serving one-year prison sentences in 1950. In September 1950, one of the ten, director Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...
, publicly announced that he had once been a Communist and was prepared to give evidence against others who had been as well. He was released early from jail; following his 1951 HUAC appearance, in which he described his brief membership in the party and named names, his career recovered.
The others remained silent and most were unable to obtain work in the American film and television industry for many years. Adrian Scott
Adrian Scott
Robert Adrian Scott was an American screenwriter and film producer. He was one of the Hollywood Ten and later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses.-Biography:...
, who had produced four of Dmytryk's films—Murder, My Sweet
Murder, My Sweet
Murder, My Sweet is a 1944 American film noir directed by Edward Dmytryk, and starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, and Anne Shirley. The film was released in the United Kingdom under the title Farewell, My Lovely, which is the title of the 1940 Raymond Chandler novel it is based on, and also the...
; Cornered
Cornered (film)
Cornered is a film noir starring Dick Powell and directed by Edward Dmytryk. This is the second teaming of Powell and Dmytryk .Many scenes shot by cinematographer Harry J. Wild and Dmytryk stand out as classic film noir...
; So Well Remembered
So Well Remembered
So Well Remembered is a 1947 British film starring John Mills, Martha Scott, and Trevor Howard. The film was based on the James Hilton novel of the same name and tells the story of a reformer and the woman he marries in a fictional Lancashire mill town. Hilton also narrated...
; and Crossfire
Crossfire (film)
-External links:* review at DVD Savant by Glenn Erickson* film trailer at YouTube...
—was one of those named by his former friend. Scott's next screen credit would not come until 1972 and he would never produce another feature film. Some of those blacklisted continued to write for Hollywood or the broadcasting industry surreptitiously, using pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s or the names of friends who posed as the actual writers (those who allowed their names to be used in this fashion were called "fronts"). Of the 204 who signed the amicus brief, 84 would be blacklisted themselves. There was a more general chilling effect: Humphrey Bogart, who had been one of the most prominent members of the Committee for the First Amendment, felt compelled to write an article for Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
magazine denying he was a Communist sympathizer. The Tenney Committee, which had continued its state-level investigations, summoned songwriter Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
to testify about his participation in the committee.
A number of nongovernmental organizations participated in enforcing and expanding the blacklist; in particular, the American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
, the conservative war veterans' group, was instrumental in pressuring the entertainment industry to exclude those of political sympathies it disagreed with. In 1949, the Americanism Division of the Legion issued its own blacklist—a roster of 128 people whom it claimed were participants in the "Communist Conspiracy." Among the names on the Legion's list was that of well-known playwright Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
. Hellman had written or contributed to the screenplays of approximately ten motion pictures up to that point; she would not be employed again by a Hollywood studio until 1966.
Another influential group was American Business Consultants Inc., founded in 1947. In the subscription information for its weekly publication Counterattack, "The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism", it declared that it was run by "a group of former FBI men. It has no affiliation whatsoever with any government agency." Notwithstanding that claim, it seems the editors of Counterattack had direct access to the files of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and HUAC; the results of that access became widely apparent with the June 1950 publication of Red Channels
Red Channels
Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television is an anti-Communist tract published in the United States at the height of the Red Scare...
. This Counterattack spinoff listed 151 people in entertainment and broadcast journalism, along with records of their involvement in what the pamphlet meant to be taken as Communist or pro-Communist activities. A few of those named, such as Hellman, were already being denied employment in the motion picture, TV, and radio fields; the publication of Red Channels meant that scores more would be placed on the blacklist. That year, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
instituted a loyalty oath which it required of all its employees.
HUAC returns (1951–52)
In 1951, with the U.S. Congress now under Democratic control, HUAC launched a second investigation of Hollywood and Communism. As actor Larry ParksLarry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
said when called before the panel,
Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer. For what purpose? I don't think it is a choice at all. I don't think this is really sportsmanlike. I don't think this is American. I don't think this is American justice.
Parks ultimately testified, becoming however reluctantly, a "friendly witness", and found himself blacklisted, nonetheless.
In fact, the legal tactics of those refusing to testify had changed by this time; instead of relying on the First Amendment, they invoked the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
's shield against self-incrimination (though, as before, Communist Party membership was not illegal). While this usually allowed a witness to avoid "naming names" without being indicted for contempt of Congress, "taking the Fifth" before HUAC guaranteed that one would be added to the industry blacklist. Historians at times distinguish between the relatively official blacklist—the names of those who (a) were called by HUAC and, in whatever manner, refused to cooperate and/or (b) were identified as Communists in the hearings—and the so-called graylist—those others who were denied work because of their political or personal affiliations, real or imagined; the consequences, however, were largely the same. The graylist also refers more specifically to those who were denied work by the major studios but could still find jobs on Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
: Composer Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
, for instance, was called by HUAC when it was discovered that he had written some music reviews for a Communist newspaper. After he refused to name names, pointing out that he had never attended a Communist Party meeting, he found himself composing music for movies such as Cat Women of the Moon.
Like Parks and Dmytryk, others also named names to the committee. Some friendly witnesses gave broadly damaging testimony with less apparent reluctance, most prominently director Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
and screenwriter Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the...
. Their cooperation in describing the political leanings of their friends and professional associates effectively brought a halt to dozens of careers and compelled a number of artists to depart for Mexico or Europe. Others were also forced abroad in order to work. Director Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
was among the best known of these. Briefly a Communist, Dassin had left the party in 1939. He was immediately blacklisted after Edward Dmytryk and fellow filmmaker Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle was a Hollywood film director and writer who directed films from 1922 to 1959 ....
named him to HUAC in 1952. Dassin left for France, and spent much of his remaining career in Greece. Scholar Thomas Doherty describes how the HUAC hearings swept onto the blacklist those who had never even been particularly active politically, let alone suspected of being Communists:
[O]n March 21, 1951, the name of the actor Lionel StanderLionel StanderLionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...
was uttered by the actor Larry Parks during testimony before HUAC. "Do you know Lionel Stander?" committee counsel Frank S. TavennerFrank S. Tavenner, Jr.Frank S. Tavenner, Jr. was born in Woodstock, Virginia in 1895. He took an A.B. degree at Roanoke College in 1916, an A.M. at Princeton University in 1917, and an LL.B at the University of Virginia Law School in 1927, after which he began the practice of law in his home town. His father, F.S...
inquired. Parks replied he knew the man, but had no knowledge of his political affiliations. No more was said about Stander either by Parks or the committee—no accusation, no insinuation. Yet Stander's phone stopped ringing. Prior to Parks's testimony, Stander had worked on ten television shows in the previous 100 days. Afterwards, nothing.
When Stander was himself called before HUAC, he began by pledging his full support in the fight against "subversive" activities:
I know of a group of fanatics who are desperately trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists and others of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness without due process of law.... I can tell names and cite instances and I am one of the first victims of it.... [This is] a group of ex-Fascists and America-Firsters and anti-Semites, people who hate everybody including Negroes, minority groups and most likely themselves.... [T]hese people are engaged in a conspiracy outside all the legal processes to undermine the very fundamental American concepts upon which our entire system of democracy exists.
Stander was clearly speaking of the committee itself.
The hunt for subversives extended into every branch of the entertainment industry. In the field of animation, two studios in particularly were affected: United Productions of America
United Productions of America
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio of the 1940s through present day, beginning with industrial films and World War II training films. In the late 1940s, UPA produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures, most notably the Mr. Magoo series. In...
(UPA) was purged of a large portion of its staff, while New York–based Tempo was entirely crushed. The HUAC investigation also effectively destroyed families. Screenwriter Richard Collins, after a brief period on the blacklist, became a friendly witness and dumped his wife, actress Dorothy Comingore
Dorothy Comingore
Dorothy Comingore was an American film actress, best known for her portrayal of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles's critically acclaimed movie Citizen Kane...
, who refused to name names. Divorcing Comingore, Collins took the couple's young son, as well. The family's story was later dramatized in the film Guilty by Suspicion
Guilty by Suspicion
Guilty by Suspicion is a 1991 film about the Hollywood blacklist and associated activities stemming from McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee...
(1991), in which the character based on Comingore "commits suicide rather than endure a long mental collapse." In real life, Comingore succumbed to alcoholism and died of a pulmonary disease at the age of fifty-eight. In the description of historians Paul Buhle and David Wagner, "premature strokes and heart attacks were fairly common [among blacklistees], along with heavy drinking as a form of suicide on the installment plan."
For all that, evidence that Communists were actually using Hollywood films as vehicles for subversion remained hard to come by. Schulberg reported that the manuscript of his novel What Makes Sammy Run?
What Makes Sammy Run?
What Makes Sammy Run? is a novel by Budd Schulberg. It is a rags to riches story chronicling the rise and fall of Sammy Glick, a Jewish boy born in New York's Lower East Side who very early in his life makes up his mind to escape the ghetto and climb the ladder of success...
(later a screenplay, as well) had been subject to an ideological critique by Hollywood Ten writer John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson was an American writer. He was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the cell's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief...
, whose comments he had solicited. The significance of such interactions was questionable. As historian Gerald Horne
Gerald Horne
Gerald Horne is an African American historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He received his PhD from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a frequent...
describes, many Hollywood screenwriters had joined or associated with the local Communist Party chapter because it "offered a collective to a profession that was enmeshed in tremendous isolation at the typewriter. Their 'Writers' Clinic' had 'an informal "board" of respected screenwriters'—including Lawson and Ring Lardner Jr.
Ring Lardner Jr.
Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
—'who read and commented upon any screenplay submitted to them. Although their criticism could be plentiful, stinging, and (sometimes) politically dogmatic, the author was entirely free to accept it or reject it as he or she pleased without incurring the slightest "consequence" or sanction.'" Much of the onscreen evidence of Communist influence uncovered by HUAC was feeble at best. One witness remembered Stander, while performing in a film, whistling the left-wing "Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
" as his character waited for an elevator. "Another noted that screenwriter Lester Cole
Lester Cole
Lester Cole was an American screenwriter.Born in New York City, Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was "If I had a Million." In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America.In 1934, Cole...
had inserted lines from a famous pro-Loyalist
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
speech by La Pasionaria
Dolores Ibárruri
Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez , known more famously as "La Pasionaria" was a Spanish Republican leader of the Spanish Civil War and communist politician of Basque origin...
about it being 'better to die on your feet than to live on your knees' into a pep talk delivered by a football coach."
The blacklist at its height (1952–56)
In 1952, the Screen Writers Guild—which had been founded two decades before by three future members of the Hollywood Ten—authorized the movie studios to "omit from the screen" the names of any individuals who had failed to clear themselves before Congress. Writer Dalton TrumboDalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
, for instance, one of the Hollywood Ten and still very much on the blacklist, had received screen credit in 1950 for writing, years earlier, the story on which the screenplay of Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
' Emergency Wedding
Emergency Wedding
Emergency Wedding is a 1950 film directed by Edward Buzzell. It stars Larry Parks and Barbara Hale.-Cast:*Larry Parks as Peter Judson Kirk*Barbara Hale as Dr. Helen Hunt*Willard Parker as Vandemer*Una Merkel as Emma*Alan Reed as Tony...
was based. There would be no more of that until the 1960s. The name of Albert Maltz
Albert Maltz
Albert Maltz was an American author and screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten who were later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses....
, who had written the original screenplay for The Robe
The Robe (film)
The Robe is a 1953 American Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and is notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope.It was directed by Henry Koster...
in the mid-1940s, was nowhere to be seen when the movie was released in 1953.
As William O'Neill describes, pressure was maintained even on those who had ostensibly "cleared" themselves:
On December 27, 1952, the American Legion announced that it disapproved of a new film, Moulin RougeMoulin Rouge (1952 film)Moulin Rouge is a 1952 film directed by John Huston, produced by Sir John Woolf and James Woolf of Romulus Films and released by United Artists. The film is set in Paris in the late 19th century, following artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the city's bohemian sub-culture in and around the...
, starring José FerrerJosé FerrerJosé Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
, who used to be no more progressive than hundreds of other actors and had already been grilled by HUAC. The picture itself was based on the life of Toulouse-Lautrec and was totally apolitical. Nine members of the Legion had picketed it anyway, giving rise to the controversy. By this time people were not taking any chances. Ferrer immediately wired the Legion's national commander that he would be glad to join the veterans in their "fight against communism."
The group's efforts dragged many others onto the blacklist: In 1954, "[s]creenwriter Louis Pollock, a man without any known political views or associations, suddenly had his career yanked out from under him because the American Legion confused him with Louis Pollack, a California clothier, who had refused to cooperate with HUAC."
During this same period, a number of influential newspaper columnists covering the entertainment industry, including Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
, Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
, Victor Riesel
Victor Riesel
Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in news related to labor unions. At the height of his career, his column on labor union issues was syndicated to 356 newspapers in the United States...
, Jack O'Brian
Jack O'Brian
John Dennis Patrick O'Brian was a New York Journal American television critic and supporter of Joseph McCarthy.O'Brian was born in Buffalo, New York...
, and George Sokolsky
George Sokolsky
George Ephraim Sokolsky was a weekly radio broadcaster for the National Association of Manufacturers and a columnist for The New York Herald Tribune, who later switched to The New York Sun and other Hearst newspapers.-Biography:...
, regularly offered up names with the suggestion that they should be added to the blacklist. Actor John Ireland
John Ireland (actor)
John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...
received an out-of-court settlement to end a 1954 lawsuit against the Young & Rubicam
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...
advertising agency, which had ordered him dropped from the lead role in a television series it sponsored. Variety described it as "the first industry admission of what has for some time been an open secret—that the threat of being labeled a political nonconformist, or worse, has been used against show business personalities and that a screening system is at work determining thesp [actors'] availabilities for roles."
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
's FBI. Adversaries of HUAC such as lawyer Bartley Crum
Bartley Crum
Bartley Cavanaugh Crum was a prominent American lawyer.Bartley Crum was a confidant of William Randolph Hearst and the 1940 U.S. Presidential candidate Wendel Willkie...
, who defended some of the Hollywood Ten in front of the committee in 1947, were labeled as Communist sympathizers or subversives and targeted for investigation themselves. Throughout the 1950s, the FBI tapped Crum's phones, opened his mail, and placed him under continuous surveillance. As a result, he lost most of his clients and, unable to cope with the stress of ceaseless harassment, committed suicide in 1959. Intimidating and dividing the left is now seen as a central purpose of the HUAC hearings. Fund-raising for once-popular humanitarian efforts became difficult, and despite the sympathies of many in the industry there was little open support in Hollywood for causes such as the African American Civil Rights Movement and opposition to nuclear weapons testing.
The struggles attending the blacklist were played out metaphorically on the big screen in various ways. As described by film historian James Chapman, "Carl Foreman
Carl Foreman
Carl Foreman, CBE was an American screenwriter and film producer who wrote the notable film High Noon. He was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, who had refused to testify before the committee, wrote the western High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...
(1952), in which a town marshal (ironically played by friendly witness Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
...) finds himself deserted by the good citizens of Hadleyville (for which read Hollywood) when a gang of outlaws who had terrorized the town several years earlier (for which read HUAC) returns." Cooper's lawman cleaned up Hadleyville, but Foreman was forced to leave for Europe to find work. Even more famously, Kazan and Schulberg collaborated on a movie widely seen as justifying their decision to name names. On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
(1954) became one of the most honored films in Hollywood history, winning eight Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, including Oscars for Best Film, Kazan's direction, and Schulberg's screenplay. The film featured Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
, one of the best known actors to name names. Time Out Film Guide argues that the film is "undermined" by its "embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers."
After his release from prison, Herbert Biberman
Herbert Biberman
Herbert J. Biberman , was an American screenwriter and film director. He may be best known for having been one of the Hollywood Ten as well as directing Salt of the Earth, a 1954 film about a zinc miners' strike in Grant County, New Mexico.He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joseph and...
of the Hollywood Ten directed Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth
Salt of the Earth is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics....
, working independently in New Mexico with fellow blacklisted Hollywood professionals—producer Paul Jarrico
Paul Jarrico
Paul Jarrico was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.-Early years:...
, writer Michael Wilson
Michael Wilson (writer)
Michael Wilson was an Academy Award winning American screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism....
, and actors Rosaura Revueltas
Rosaura Revueltas
Rosaura Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican star of screen and stage, and a dancer, author and teacher.-Early life:...
and Will Geer
Will Geer
Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
. The film, concerning a strike by Mexican-American mine workers, was denounced as Communist propaganda when it was completed in 1953. Distributors boycotted it, newspapers and radio stations rejected advertisements for it, and the projectionists' union refused to run it. Nationwide in 1954, only around a dozen theaters exhibited it.
Breaking the blacklist (1957–present)
A key figure in bringing an end to blacklisting was John Henry FaulkJohn Henry Faulk
John Henry Faulk from Austin, Texas was a storyteller and radio show host. His successful lawsuit against blacklisters of the entertainment industry helped to bring an end to the Hollywood blacklist.-Early life:...
. Host of an afternoon comedy radio show, Faulk was a leftist active in his union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is a performers' union that represents a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, as well as radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording artists , promo and voice-over announcers and other...
. He was scrutinized by AWARE, one of the private firms that examined individuals for signs of Communist sympathies and "disloyalty." Marked by the group as unfit, he was fired by CBS Radio. Almost alone among the many victims of blacklisting, Faulk decided to sue AWARE in 1957. Though the case would drag through the courts for years, the suit itself was an important symbol of the building resistance to the blacklist.
The initial cracks in the entertainment industry blacklist were evident on television, specifically at CBS. In 1957, blacklisted actor Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd
Norman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....
was hired by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
as an associate producer for his anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
, then entering its third season on the network. On November 30, 1958, a live CBS production of Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...
, based on short stories written by then-Communist Ruth McKenney
Ruth McKenney
Ruth McKenney was an American author and journalist, best remembered for My Sister Eileen, a memoir of her experiences growing up in Ohio and moving to Greenwich Village with her sister Eileen McKenney. This was later adapted as the musical Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein.-Early life:McKenney...
, appeared with the proper writing credit of blacklisted Edward Chodorov, along with his literary partner, Joseph Fields. The following year, actress Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...
insisted that blacklisted composer Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...
be hired as musical director for her new series, also on CBS. The first main break in the Hollywood blacklist followed soon after: on January 20, 1960, director Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
publicly announced that Dalton Trumbo, one of the best known members of the Hollywood Ten, was the screenwriter of his forthcoming film Exodus
Exodus (film)
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
. Six-and-a-half months later, with Exodus still to debut, the New York Times announced that Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
would give Trumbo screen credit for his role as writer on Spartacus
Spartacus (film)
Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast...
, a decision star Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
is now recognized as largely responsible for. On October 6, Spartacus premiered—the first movie to bear Trumbo's name since he had received story credit on Emergency Wedding in 1950. Since 1947, he had written or cowritten approximately seventeen motion pictures without credit. Exodus followed in December, also bearing Trumbo's name. The blacklist was now clearly coming to an end, but its effects would reverberate for years to come.
John Henry Faulk finally won his lawsuit in 1962. With this court decision, the private blacklisters and those who used them were put on notice that they were legally liable
Legal liability
Legal liability is the legal bound obligation to pay debts.* In law a person is said to be legally liable when they are financially and legally responsible for something. Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law. See Strict liability. Under English law, with the passing of the Theft...
for the professional and financial damage they caused. This helped to bring an end to publications such as Counterattack. Like Adrian Scott and Lillian Hellman, however, a number of those on the blacklist remained there for an extended period—Lionel Stander, for instance, could not find work in Hollywood until 1965. Some of those who named names, like Kazan and Schulberg, argued for years after that they had made an ethically proper decision. Others, like actor Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
and director Michael Gordon
Michael Gordon (film director)
Michael Gordon was an American stage actor and stage and film director.-Life and career:Gordon was born in Baltimore and raised in a middle class Jewish community. He was a member of the Group Theatre , and was blacklisted as a Communist in the days of McCarthyism...
, who gave friendly testimony to HUAC after suffering on the blacklist for a time, "concede[d] with remorse that their plan was to name their way back to work." And there were those more gravely haunted by the choice they had made. In 1963, actor Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
declared,
I was a rat, a stoolie, and the names I named of those close friends were blacklisted and deprived of their livelihood.
Scholars Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner state that Hayden "was widely believed to have drunk himself into a near-suicidal depression decades before his 1986 death."
As late as 2000, the Writers Guild
Writers Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
was still pursuing the correction of screen credits from movies of the 1950s and early 1960s to properly reflect the work of blacklisted writers such as Carl Foreman and Hugo Butler
Hugo Butler
Hugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...
.
The blacklist
The Hollywood Ten
- Alvah BessieAlvah BessieAlvah Cecil Bessie was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter who was imprisoned for ten months and blacklisted by the movie studio bosses for being one of the group known as the Hollywood Ten.-Life and career:...
, screenwriter - Herbert BibermanHerbert BibermanHerbert J. Biberman , was an American screenwriter and film director. He may be best known for having been one of the Hollywood Ten as well as directing Salt of the Earth, a 1954 film about a zinc miners' strike in Grant County, New Mexico.He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joseph and...
, screenwriter and director - Lester ColeLester ColeLester Cole was an American screenwriter.Born in New York City, Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was "If I had a Million." In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America.In 1934, Cole...
, screenwriter - Edward DmytrykEdward DmytrykEdward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...
, director - Ring Lardner Jr.Ring Lardner Jr.Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
, screenwriter - John Howard LawsonJohn Howard LawsonJohn Howard Lawson was an American writer. He was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the cell's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief...
, screenwriter - Albert MaltzAlbert MaltzAlbert Maltz was an American author and screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten who were later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses....
, screenwriter - Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter
- Adrian ScottAdrian ScottRobert Adrian Scott was an American screenwriter and film producer. He was one of the Hollywood Ten and later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses.-Biography:...
, producer and screenwriter - Dalton TrumboDalton TrumboJames Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
, screenwriter
Others
- Hanns EislerHanns EislerHanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
, composer - Bernard Gordon, screenwriter
- Joan Scott, screenwriter
Persons first blacklisted between January 1948 and June 1950
(an asterisk after the entry indicates the person was also listed in Red Channels)- Ben BarzmanBen BarzmanBen Barzman was a Canadian journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and died in Santa Monica, California, USA. He is best known as a writer or co-writer of more than 20 films, from You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith to The Head of Normande St...
, screenwriter - Paul DraperPaul Draper (dancer)Paul Draper was a noted American tap dancer and choreographer. Born into an artistic, socially prominent New York family, the nephew of Ruth Draper was an innovator in the arts. Despite the pressure his family put on him to become an engineer, Paul’s love for dance persisted and ultimately won out...
, actor and dancer* - Sheridan Gibney, screenwriter
- Paul Green, playwright and screenwriter
- Lillian HellmanLillian HellmanLillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
, playwright and screenwriter* - Canada LeeCanada LeeCanada Lee was an American actor who pioneered roles for African Americans. A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, he died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He became an actor after careers as a jockey, boxer, and musician...
, actor - Paul RobesonPaul RobesonPaul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, actor and singer - Edwin Rolfe, screenwriter and poet
- William Sweets, radio personality*
- Richard WrightRichard Wright (author)Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, writer
The Red Channels list
(see, e.g., Schrecker [2002], p. 244; Barnouw [1990], pp. 122–24)- Larry AdlerLarry AdlerLawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler was an American musician, widely acknowledged as one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. Composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin composed works for him...
, actor and musician - Luther AdlerLuther AdlerLuther Adler was an American actor best known for his work in theatre, but who also worked in film and television. He also directed plays on Broadway.-Life and career:...
, actor and director - Stella AdlerStella AdlerStella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
, actress and teacher - Edith AtwaterEdith AtwaterEdith Atwater was an American stage, film and television actress.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Atwater made her Broadway debut in 1933. In 1939 she starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner....
, actress - Howard BayHoward Bay (designer)Howard Bay was an American scenic, lighting and costume designer for stage, opera and film. He won the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design twice.-Career:...
, scenic designer - Ralph BellRalph BellRalph Albert "Lefty" Bell was a professional baseball pitcher from 1909 to 1916. He appeared in three Major League Baseball games for the Chicago White Sox in 1912. Bell was 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed 170 pounds....
, actor - Leonard BernsteinLeonard BernsteinLeonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, composer and conductor - Walter BernsteinWalter BernsteinWalter Bernstein is an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Early life:...
, screenwriter - Michael BlankfortMichael BlankfortMichael Blankfort was a Jewish-American screenwriter, author and playwright. He served as a front for the blacklisted Albert Maltz on the Academy Award-nominated screenplay of Broken Arrow . Among his own screenplays were The Juggler and The Caine Mutiny...
, screenwriter - Marc BlitzsteinMarc BlitzsteinMarcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...
, composer - True BoardmanTrue BoardmanTrue Boardman was an American film actor of the silent era. He appeared in 137 films between 1911 and 1919 before falling victim to the 1918 flu pandemic.-True Boardman:...
, screenwriter - Millen BrandMillen BrandMillen Brand was an American writer and poet. His novels Savage Sleep and The Outward Room, which addressed mental health institutions, were bestsellers in the 1960s and 1930s, respectively.-Career:...
, writer - Oscar BrandOscar BrandOscar Brand is a folk singer, songwriter, and author. In his career, spanning over 60 years, he has composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs...
, folk singer - Joseph Edward Bromberg, actor
- Himan BrownHiman BrownHiman Brown , also known as Hi Brown and Mende Brown, was an American producer of radio programs. Producing for the major radio networks and also for syndication, Brown worked with such actors as Helen Hayes, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles while creating...
, producer and director - John BrownJohn Brown (actor)John Brown was an English radio and film actor.He had major roles in several popular radio shows. He played Irma's love interest Al in My Friend Irma, Digby "Digger" O'Dell in The Life of Riley and "Broadway" in The Damon Runyon Theatre...
, actor - Abe BurrowsAbe BurrowsAbe Burrows was a Tony and Pulitzer-winning American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage.-Early years:...
, playwright and lyricist - Morris CarnovskyMorris CarnovskyMorris Carnovsky was an American stage and film actor born in St. Louis, Missouri. He worked briefly in the Yiddish theatre before attending Washington University in St. Louis...
, actor - Vera CasparyVera CasparyVera Caspary was an American writer of novels, plays, screenplays, and short stories. Her best-known novel Laura was made into a highly successful movie. Though she claimed she was not a "real" mystery writer, her novels effectively merged women's quest for identity and love with murder plots...
, writer - Edward ChodorovEdward ChodorovEdward Chodorov , was a Broadway playwright. As well, he was the author or the producer of over 50 motion pictures...
, screenwriter and producer - Jerome ChodorovJerome ChodorovJerome Chodorov was an American playwright and librettist.-Biography:He was born in New York City, and entered journalism in the 1930s. He is best known for his 1940 play My Sister Eileen, its 1942 screen adaptation, and the musical Wonderful Town, which based on his play. Joseph A. Fields was...
, writer - Mady ChristiansMady ChristiansMarguerita Maria "Mady" Christians was an Austrian actress who achieved a successful acting career in theatre and film, in the United States until she was blacklisted during the McCarthy period....
, actress - Lee J. CobbLee J. CobbLee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
, actor - Marc ConnellyMarc ConnellyMarcus Cook Connelly was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.-Biography:...
, playwright - Aaron CoplandAaron CoplandAaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, composer - Norman CorwinNorman CorwinNorman Lewis Corwin was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing...
, writer - Howard Da SilvaHoward Da SilvaHoward Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage...
, actor - Roger De Koven, actor
- Dean DixonDean DixonCharles Dean Dixon was an American conductor.Dixon was born in New York City, where he later studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. When early pursuits of conducting engagements were stifled because of racial bias , he formed his own orchestra and...
, conductor - Olin DownesOlin DownesOlin Downes was an American music critic.He studied piano, music theory, and music criticism in New York and Boston, and it was in those two cities that he made his career as a music critic—first with the Boston Post and then with the New York Times...
, music critic - Alfred DrakeAlfred DrakeAlfred Drake was an American actor and singer.-Biography:Born as Alfred Capurro in New York City, the son of parents emigrated from Recco, Genoa, Drake began his Broadway career while still a student at Brooklyn College...
, actor and singer - Paul DraperPaul Draper (dancer)Paul Draper was a noted American tap dancer and choreographer. Born into an artistic, socially prominent New York family, the nephew of Ruth Draper was an innovator in the arts. Despite the pressure his family put on him to become an engineer, Paul’s love for dance persisted and ultimately won out...
, actor and dancer - Howard DuffHoward DuffHoward Green Duff was an American actor of film, television, stage, and radio.Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team...
, actor - Clifford J. DurrClifford DurrClifford Durr was an Alabama lawyer who played an important role in defending activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras and who represented Rosa Parks in her challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance requiring the segregation of passengers on buses...
, attorney - Richard Dyer-Bennett, folk singer
- José FerrerJosé FerrerJosé Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
, actor - Louise Fitch (Lewis), actress
- Martin GabelMartin GabelMartin Gabel was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Life and career:Gabel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth and Israel Gabel, who was a jeweler...
, actor - Arthur GaethArthur GaethArthur Gaeth was the first president of a mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Czechoslovakia starting in 1929. He was serving as a Mormon missionary in Germany when he was called to open the mission in Czechoslovakia...
, radio commentator - William S. GailmorWilliam S. GailmorWilliam S. Gailmor was an internationally known medical writer and lecturer.-References:...
, journalist and radio commentator - John GarfieldJohn GarfieldJohn Garfield was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner...
, actor - Will GeerWill GeerWill Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
, actor - Jack GilfordJack GilfordJack Gilford was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.-Early life:Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...
, actor and comedian - Tom GlazerTom GlazerThomas Zachariah "Tom" Glazer was an American folk singer and songwriter known primarily as a composer of ballads, including: "Because All Men Are Brothers", recorded by The Weavers and Peter, Paul and Mary, "Talking Inflation Blues", recorded by Bob Dylan, and "A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Anymore"...
, folk singer - Ruth GordonRuth GordonRuth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
, actress and screenwriter - Lloyd GoughLloyd GoughLloyd Gough was an American theater, film, and television actor.Born Michael Gough in New York City, he was a noted character actor...
, actor - Morton GouldMorton GouldMorton Gould was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six...
, pianist and composer - Shirley Graham, writer
- Ben GrauerBen GrauerBenjamin Franklin Grauer was an US radio and TV personality, following a career during the 1920s as a child actor in films and on Broadway. He began his career as a child in David Warfield's production of The Return of Peter Grimm. Among his early credits were roles in films directed by D.W....
, radio and TV personality - Mitchell Grayson, radio producer and director
- Horace Grenell, conductor and music producer
- Uta HagenUta HagenUta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...
, actress and teacher - Dashiell HammettDashiell HammettSamuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
, writer - E. Y. "Yip" Harburg, lyricist
- Robert P. Heller, television journalist
- Lillian HellmanLillian HellmanLillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
, playwright and screenwriter - Nat HikenNat HikenNat Hiken was an American television writer, producer, and songwriter who rose to prominence in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, writer and producer - Rose HobartRose HobartRose Hobart was an American actress.-Career:Born in New York City, her father was a cellist in the New York Symphony...
, actress - Judy HollidayJudy HollidayJudy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
, actress and comedienne - Roderick B. Holmgren, journalist
- Lena HorneLena HorneLena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, singer and actress - Langston HughesLangston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, writer - Marsha HuntMarsha Hunt (actress)Marsha Hunt is an American film, theater, and television actress who was blacklisted by Hollywood movie studio executives in the 1950s.-Career:...
, actress - Leo HurwitzLeo HurwitzLeo Hurwitz was an American documentary filmmaker. Among the films he directed were Native Land and Verdict for Tomorrow . He was blacklisted during the McCarthy period.- Source :* *...
, director - Charles Irving, actor
- Burl IvesBurl IvesBurl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
, folk singer and actor - Sam JaffeSam Jaffe (actor)Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...
, actor - Leon JanneyLeon JanneyLeon Janney was an American actor and radio personality between 1920 to 1980.-Career:Born Leon Ramon in Ogden, Utah, Janney made his first theatrical appearance at age two before an audience at the Pantages Theatre in his hometown...
, actor - Joe Julian, actor
- Garson KaninGarson KaninGarson Kanin was a prolific American writer and director of plays and films.-Film and stage career:...
, writer and director - George Keane, actor
- Donna Keath, radio actress
- Pert KeltonPert KeltonPert Kelton was an American vaudeville, movie, radio and television actress. She was the first actress who played Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and was a prominent comedic supporting film actress in the 1930s...
, actress - Alexander KendrickAlexander KendrickAlexander Kendrick was a broadcast journalist. He worked for CBS during World War II and was part of a second generation of reporters known as Murrow's Boys.- Kendrick Before CBS :Before hooking up with Edward R...
, journalist and author - Adelaide Klein, actress
- Felix Knight, singer and actor
- Howard KochHoward Koch (screenwriter)Howard E. Koch was an American playwright and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.-Early Years:...
, screenwriter - Tony Kraber, actor
- Millard LampellMillard LampellMillard Lampell was an American movie and television screenwriter who first became publicly known as a member of the Almanac Singers in the 1940s....
, screenwriter - John La Touche, lyricist
- Arthur LaurentsArthur LaurentsArthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...
, writer - Gypsy Rose LeeGypsy Rose LeeGypsy Rose Lee was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy.-Early life:...
, actress and ecdysiast - Madeline LeeMadeline Lee GilfordMadeline Lee Gilford was an American film and stage actress and social activist, who later enjoyed a career as a theatrical producer. Gilford was the widow of actor Jack Gilford, whom she married in 1949...
, actress - Ray LevRay LevRay Lev was an American classical pianist. One year after her birth in Rostov na Donau, Russia, her father, a synagogue cantor, and mother, a concert singer, brought her to the United States.-Life:...
, classical pianist - Philip LoebPhilip LoebPhilip Loeb , was an American stage, film, and television actor who was blacklisted under McCarthyism and committed suicide.- Background :...
, actor - Ella LoganElla LoganElla Logan was a Scottish-born actress and singer, who appeared on Broadway, recorded and had a nightclub career in the United States and internationally.-Early years:...
, actress and singer - Alan LomaxAlan LomaxAlan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, folklorist and musicologist - Avon LongAvon LongAvon Long was an American Broadway actor and singer.-Life:Long was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He performed in a number of Broadway shows, including Black Rhythm , Porgy and Bess , and Beggar's Holiday...
, actor and singer - Joseph LoseyJoseph LoseyJoseph Walton Losey was an American theater and film director. After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood...
, director - Peter LyonPeter LyonPeter Lyon is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League during the 1960s....
, television writer - Aline MacMahonAline MacMahonAline MacMahon was an American actress. Her career began on stage in 1921. She worked extensively in film and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed .-Early life:Aline Laveen MacMahon was born...
, actress - Paul Mann, director and teacher
- Margo, actress and dancer
- Myron McCormickMyron McCormickMyron McCormick was an American actor of stage, radio and film.McCormick was born as Walter Myron McCormick in Albany, Indiana....
, actor - Paul McGrathPaul McGrath (actor)Paul McGrath was an American film, television, Broadway, and Pittsburgh actor best known for his radio appearances in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and died in London, England.-See also:...
, radio actor - Burgess MeredithBurgess MeredithOliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
, actor - Arthur MillerArthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
, playwright - Henry MorganHenry Morgan (comedian)Henry Morgan was an American humorist. He is remembered best in two modern media: radio, on which he first became familiar as a barbed but often self-deprecating satirist, and on television, where he was a regular and cantankerous panelist for the game show I've Got a Secret...
, actor - Zero MostelZero MostelSamuel Joel “Zero” Mostel was an American actor of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version...
, actor and comedian - Jean MuirJean Muir (actress)Jean Muir was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born in Suffern, New York as Jean Muir Fullarton, she first appeared on Broadway in 1930, and was signed by Warner Brothers Studios three years later. She played opposite several famous actors - Warren William, Paul Muni, Richard...
, actress - Meg MundyMeg MundyMargaret "Meg" Mundy is an English-American actress. She was born in London, but moved to the United States in 1921.Mundy is the daughter of the Australian opera singer Clytie Hine who studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide, South Australia...
, actress - Lyn MurrayLyn MurrayLyn Murray was a composer, conductor, and arranger of music for radio, film and television.Born as Lionel Breeze in London, he arrived on American shores to found the Lyn Murray Singers, who became known throughout the United States as the featured group on CBS Radio’s Your Hit Parade...
, composer and choral director
- Ben Myers, attorney
- Dorothy ParkerDorothy ParkerDorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, writer - Arnold Perl, producer and writer
- Minerva PiousMinerva PiousMinerva Pious was an American radio, television and film actress. She was best-known as the malaprop-prone Pansy Nussbaum in Fred Allen's famous "Allen's Alley" current-events skits....
, actress - Samson RaphaelsonSamson RaphaelsonSamson Raphaelson was an American screenwriter and playwright.Born in New York City, Raphaelson worked on nine films with Ernst Lubitsch, including Trouble in Paradise , The Shop Around the Corner , Heaven Can Wait , and That Lady in Ermine...
, screenwriter and playwright - Bernard Reis, accountant
- Anne RevereAnne RevereAnne Revere was an American stage, film, and television actress.-Early life:Born in New York City, Revere was a direct descendant of American Revolution hero Paul Revere. Her father, Clinton, was a stockbroker, and she was raised on the Upper West Side and in Westfield, New Jersey...
, actress - Kenneth Roberts, writer
- Earl RobinsonEarl RobinsonEarl Hawley Robinson was a singer-songwriter and composer from Seattle, Washington. Robinson is probably as well remembered for his left-leaning political views as he is for his music, including the songs "Joe Hill", "Black and White", and the cantata "Ballad for Americans"...
, composer and lyricist - Edward G. RobinsonEdward G. RobinsonEdward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
, actor - William N. RobsonWilliam N. RobsonWilliam N. Robson was a director and producer of radio programs.-Career:Robson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University, graduating in 1928. Upon graudation he worked as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures, receiving screen credit for the 1933 film Private Jones.He...
, radio and TV writer - Harold Rome, composer and lyricist
- Norman RostenNorman RostenNorman Rosten was an American poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:He grew up in Hurleyville, New York and was graduated from Brooklyn College and New York University, and the University of Michigan, where he met Arthur Miller...
, writer - Selena RoyleSelena RoyleSelena Royle was an American stage, television and film actress.-Early life and career:Born in New York City, Royle's parents were playwright Edwin Milton Royle and actress Selena Fetter . She had an older sister Josephine Fetter Royle . She turned to acting despite the objections of her parents...
, actress - Coby Ruskin, TV director
- Robert St. John, journalist
- Hazel ScottHazel ScottHazel Dorothy Scott was an internationally known, American jazz and classical pianist and singer.-Early years and education:...
, jazz and classical musician - Pete SeegerPete SeegerPeter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, folk singer - Lisa Sergio, radio personality
- Artie ShawArtie ShawArthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....
, jazz musician - Irwin ShawIrwin ShawIrwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
, writer - Robert Lewis ShayonRobert Lewis ShayonRobert Lewis Shayon was a writer and producer for WOR and for the CBS Radio in New York City. He was also a teacher at the Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Pennsylvania.-Biography:...
, former president of radio and TV directors' guild - Ann Shepherd, actress
- William L. ShirerWilliam L. ShirerWilliam Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist, war correspondent, and historian, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a history of Nazi Germany read and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years...
, journalist - Allan Sloane, radio and TV writer
- Howard K. SmithHoward K. SmithHoward Kingsbury Smith was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original Edward R. Murrow boys.-Early life:...
, journalist - Gale SondergaardGale SondergaardGale Sondergaard was an American actress.Sondergaard began her acting career in theatre, and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse...
, actress - Hester Sondergaard, actress
- Lionel StanderLionel StanderLionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...
, actor - Johannes Steel, journalist
- Paul StewartPaul Stewart (actor)Paul Stewart was an American character actor known for his tough, guttural voice. He frequently portrayed villains and mobsters throughout his lengthy career....
, actor - Elliott Sullivan, actor
- William Sweets, radio personality
- Helen TamirisHelen TamirisHelen Tamiris was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher.-Biography:A founder of American Modern Dance, Tamiris originally trained in free movement at the Henry Street Settlement. She danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and the Bracale Opera Company before studying briefly...
, choreographer - Betty Todd, director
- Louis UntermeyerLouis UntermeyerLouis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.-Life and career:...
, poet - Hilda Vaughn, actress
- J. Raymond Walsh, radio commentator
- Sam WanamakerSam WanamakerSamuel Wanamaker was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London...
, actor - Theodore WardTheodore WardTheodore Ward was a leading African-American playwright of the first half of the 20th century.-Biography:Ward was the sixth out of eleven children. A prolific writer, Ward wrote over thirty plays...
, playwright - Fredi WashingtonFredi WashingtonFredericka Carolyn "Fredi" Washington was an accomplished dramatic film actress, most active in the 1920s- 1930s. Fredi was a self-proclaimed Black woman, who chose to be identified as such, and wished for others to do so as well...
, actress - Margaret WebsterMargaret WebsterMargaret Webster was an American-born theater actress, producer and director. Through her parents, she held dual US/UK citizenship.-Career:...
, actress, director and producer - Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, actor, writer and director - Josh WhiteJosh WhiteJoshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
, blues musician - Irene Wicker, singer and actress
- Betty Winkler (Keane), actress
- Martin Wolfson, actor
- Lesley WoodsLesley WoodsLesley Woods was an American stage and television actress.-Biography:She was born on August 22, 1910 and began her career in Broadway shows, including "A Case of Libel". She was married to Richard McMurray. Sam McMurray is her stepson. She was a member of Theatre West.She appeared in: Young Dr...
, actress - Richard YaffeRichard YaffeRichard Yaffe , was a journalist and founding editor in chief of Israel Horizons magazine. He was also a special correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System. In 1950 he was part of the Hollywood blacklist. He died in New York Hospital in 1986 of pneumonia.-References:...
, journalist
Other persons first blacklisted after June 1950
- Eddie AlbertEddie AlbertEdward Albert Heimberger , known professionally as Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid.Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing...
, actor - Lew Amster, screenwriter
- Richard AttenboroughRichard AttenboroughRichard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, director and producer - Norma Barzman, screenwriter
- Sol Barzman, screenwriter
- Orson BeanOrson BeanOrson Bean is an American film, television, and Broadway actor. He appeared frequently on televised game shows in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including being a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth....
, actor - Albert Bein, screenwriter
- Harry BelafonteHarry BelafonteHarold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, actor and singer - Barbara Bel GeddesBarbara Bel GeddesBarbara Bel Geddes was an American actress, artist and children's author. She is best known for her role in the television drama series Dallas as matriarch Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Ewing. Bel Geddes also starred in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the role of Maggie...
, actress - Ben Bengal, screenwriter
- Seymour Bennett, screenwriter
- Leonardo Bercovici, screenwriter
- Herschel BernardiHerschel BernardiHerschel Bernardi was an American film, Broadway, and television actor....
, actor - John BerryJohn Berry (film director)John Berry was an American film director, who went into self-exile in France when his career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist.-Early Life:...
, actor, screenwriter and director - Henry Blankfort, screenwriter
- Laurie Blankfort, artist
- Roman BohnenRoman BohnenRoman Bohnen was a stage and film actor.Born Roman Aloys Bohnen in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bohnen attended the University of Minnesota, where he was a cheerleader. He cheered so vigorously that it changed his voice for the rest of his life. After graduating in 1923 with a B.A., Roman served his...
, actor - Allen BoretzAllen BoretzAllen Boretz , was an American songwriter, playwright and screenwriter. The great success of his and John Murray's Broadway hit Room Service led to offers from Hollywood, and he wrote and co-wrote screenplays from the late 1930s through the 1940s.His film credits include It Ain't Hay , Step Lively...
, screenwriter and songwriter - Phoebe BrandPhoebe BrandPhoebe Brand was an American actress, who was blacklisted along with her husband, Morris Carnovsky, in the McCarthy era.-Early life:...
, actress - John BrightJohn BrightJohn Bright , Quaker, was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, associated with Richard Cobden in the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League. He was one of the greatest orators of his generation, and a strong critic of British foreign policy...
, screenwriter - Phil Brown, actor
- Harold Buchman, screenwriter
- Sidney BuchmanSidney BuchmanSidney Robert Buchman was a screenwriter and producer who worked on 38 films from the late 1920s to the early 1970s. He is also sometimes credited as Sydney Buchman.-Career:...
, screenwriter - Luis BuñuelLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, director - Val Burton, screenwriter
- Hugo ButlerHugo ButlerHugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...
, screenwriter - Alan CampbellAlan Campbell (screenwriter)Alan K. Campbell was an American writer, actor, and screenwriter. He and his wife, Dorothy Parker, were a popular screenwriting team in Hollywood from 1934 to 1963....
, screenwriter - Charles Chaplin, actor, director and producer
- Maurice Clark, screenwriter
- Richard CollinsRichard J. CollinsRichard "Dick" Collins was an American producer, director and screenwriter prominent in Hollywood during the 1950s and 1960s. He worked on several notable programs including Bonanza, General Electric Theater, Matlock and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre...
, screenwriter - Charles CollingwoodCharles Collingwood (journalist)Charles Collingwood was a television newscaster.Born in Three Rivers, Michigan, Collingwood graduated from Deep Springs College and Cornell University and in 1939 received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. After working in London for United Press, Collingwood was hired by Edward R...
, radio commentator - Dorothy ComingoreDorothy ComingoreDorothy Comingore was an American film actress, best known for her portrayal of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles's critically acclaimed movie Citizen Kane...
, actress - Jeff CoreyJeff CoreyJeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, actor - George Corey, screenwriter
- Irwin Corey, actor and comedian
- Oliver CrawfordOliver CrawfordOliver Crawford was an American screenwriter and author who overcame the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy Era of the 1950s to become one of the entertainment industry's most successful television writers...
, screenwriter - John CromwellJohn Cromwell (director)Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...
, director - Charles Dagget, animator
- Danny DareDanny DareDanny Dare was an American choreographer, actor, director, writer, and producer of the stage, screen, and film....
, choreographer - Jules DassinJules DassinJulius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
, director - Dolores del RíoDolores del RíoDolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
, actress - Karen DeWolf, screenwriter
- Howard Dimsdale, writer
- Ludwig DonathLudwig DonathLudwig Donath , was an Austrian actor who appeared in many American films.-Life:Donath graduated from Vienna's Academy of Dramatic Art and became a prominent actor on the stage in Berlin. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he returned to Vienna and was active there in theater and film and until the...
, actor - Arnaud d'UsseauArnaud d'UsseauArnaud d'Usseau was a playwright and B-movie screenwriter who is perhaps best remembered today for his collaboration with Dorothy Parker on the play The Ladies of the Corridor.-Career:...
, screenwriter - Phil Eastman, cartoon writer
- Leslie EdgleyLeslie Edgley-Works:*Fear No More, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1946, 202p.**Reprinted by Ace, 1953, bound dos-à-dos with Hal Braham , Never Kill A Cop*The Angry Heart, Garden City, N.Y., Published for the Crime Club by Doubleday, 1947, 190p....
, screenwriter - Edward EliscuEdward EliscuEdward Eliscu was a lyricist, playwright, producer and actor. He attended the City College of New York where he attained a Bachelor of Science degree. He then began acting in Broadway plays...
, screenwriter - Faith Elliott, animator
- Cy EndfieldCy EndfieldCyril Raker Endfield was an American screenwriter, film director, theatre director, author, magician and inventor, based in Britain from 1953.- Biography :...
, screenwriter and director - Guy EndoreGuy EndoreSamuel Guy Endore , born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished...
, screenwriter - Francis Edward FaragohFrancis Edward FaragohFrancis Edward Faragoh was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 20 films between 1929 and 1947. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1931 for Best Writing, Adaptation for Little Caesar...
, screenwriter - Howard FastHoward FastHoward Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.-Early life:Fast was born in New York City...
, writer - John Henry FaulkJohn Henry FaulkJohn Henry Faulk from Austin, Texas was a storyteller and radio show host. His successful lawsuit against blacklisters of the entertainment industry helped to bring an end to the Hollywood blacklist.-Early life:...
, radio personality - Jerry FieldingJerry FieldingJerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...
, composer - Carl ForemanCarl ForemanCarl Foreman, CBE was an American screenwriter and film producer who wrote the notable film High Noon. He was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, producer and screenwriter - Anne FroelickAnne FroelickAnne Froelick Taylor was an American screenwriter from 1941 to 1950, and later a playwright and novelist. Her screenwriting career ended when she was identified as a communist by two witnesses at a hearing before the HUAC....
, screenwriter - Lester Fuller, director
- Bert Gilden, screenwriter
- Lee Gold, screenwriter
- Harold Goldman, screenwriter
- Michael GordonMichael Gordon (film director)Michael Gordon was an American stage actor and stage and film director.-Life and career:Gordon was born in Baltimore and raised in a middle class Jewish community. He was a member of the Group Theatre , and was blacklisted as a Communist in the days of McCarthyism...
, director - Jay GorneyJay GorneyJay Gorney was an American theater and film song writer. He was born Abraham Jacob Gornetzsky in Białystok, Russia on December 12, 1894. In 1906, he witnessed the Bialystock pogrom which forced his family into hiding for nearly two weeks, after which they fled to the United States...
, screenwriter - Lee GrantLee GrantLee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...
, actress - Morton Grant, screenwriter
- Anne Green, screenwriter
- Jack T. Gross, producer
- Margaret Gruen, screenwriter
- David HilbermanDavid HilbermanDavid Hilberman was an American cartoon animator and one of the founders of classic 1940s animation.Hilberman worked for Walt Disney Studios and helped animate Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi. His involvement in unionizing colleagues and organization of the 1941 Disney strike cost him...
, animator - Tamara Hovey, screenwriter
- John HubleyJohn HubleyJohn Hubley was an American animation director, art director, producer and writer of traditional animation films known for both his formal experimentation and for his emotional realism which stemmed from his tendency to cast his own children as voice actors in his films.- Biography :Hubley was...
, animator - Edward Huebsch, screenwriter
- Ian McLellan HunterIan McLellan HunterIan McLellan Hunter was an English screenwriter, most noted for fronting for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo as the credited writer of Roman Holiday in 1953. Hunter was himself later blacklisted.-Roman Holiday:...
, screenwriter - Kim HunterKim HunterKim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...
, actress - John IrelandJohn Ireland (actor)John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...
, actor - Daniel James, screenwriter
- Paul JarricoPaul JarricoPaul Jarrico was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.-Early years:...
, producer and screenwriter - Gordon KahnGordon KahnGordon Kahn was an American author and screenwriter who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He is the father of broadcaster and author Tony Kahn.-Life:...
, screenwriter - Victor KilianVictor KilianVictor Arthur Kilian was an American actor who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s....
, actor - Sidney KingsleySidney KingsleySidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...
, playwright - Alexander KnoxAlexander KnoxAlexander Knox was a Canadian actor and author of adventure novels set in the Great Lakes area during the 19th century.-Biography:...
, actor
- Mickey KnoxMickey Knox (actor)Abraham "Mickey" Knox is an American actor, screenwriter, film producer and novelist. He is associated with the Hollywood blacklist when he was forced to move to Italy to work. As an actor, he currently has 78 listed credits. Quentin Tarantino named his lead character after him in the film...
, actor - Lester Koenig, producer
- Charles KorvinCharles KorvinCharles Korvin was a film and television actor. The Piešťany, Hungary-born actor moved to the United States in 1940 after studying at the Sorbonne. Korvin made his stage debut on Broadway in 1943 using the name Geza Korvin...
, actor - Hy KraftHy KraftHyman Solomon Kraft , aka Hy Kraft or H.S. Kraft, was an American screenwriter, playwright, and theatrical producer....
, screenwriter - Constance Lee, screenwriter
- Robert LeesRobert LeesRobert Lees was an American television and film screenwriter. Lees was best known for writing comedy, including several Abbott and Costello films.-Life and career:...
, screenwriter - Carl Lerner, editor and director
- Irving LernerIrving LernerIrving Lerner Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting his start in film by making documentaries for the anthropology department. In the early 1930s, he was a member of the Workers Film and Photo League, and later,...
, director - Lewis Leverett, actor
- Alfred Lewis LevittAlfred Lewis LevittAlfred Lewis Levitt was an American screenwriter and television scriptwriter. He attended New York University, and served in a camera unit of the United States Air Force during the Second World War. Following the war, Levitt was the screenwriter for such films as The Boy with Green Hair , Mrs...
, screenwriter - Helen Slote Levitt, screenwriter
- Mitch Lindemann, screenwriter
- Norman LloydNorman LloydNorman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....
, actor - Ben MaddowBen MaddowBen Maddow was a prolific screenwriter and documentarian from the 1930s through the 70s. Educated at Columbia University, Maddow began his career working within the American documentary movement in the 30s.In 1936 he co-founded the short-lived left-wing newsreel The World Today...
, screenwriter - Arnold ManoffArnold ManoffArnold Manoff was an American screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s....
, screenwriter - John McGrewJohn McGrewJohn Burton McGrew was an American animator, painter and musician. Although best known for working at Warner Bros. Cartoons, where he was the studio's first designated layout artist, working under Chuck Jones, he was also known as a member of the Hollywood blacklist.McGrew trained at the Chouinard...
, animator - Ruth McKenneyRuth McKenneyRuth McKenney was an American author and journalist, best remembered for My Sister Eileen, a memoir of her experiences growing up in Ohio and moving to Greenwich Village with her sister Eileen McKenney. This was later adapted as the musical Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein.-Early life:McKenney...
, writer - Bill MeléndezBill MelendezJosé Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Meléndez was a Mexican-American character animator, film director, voice artist and producer, known for his cartoons for Warner Brothers, UPA and the Peanuts series...
, animator - John "Skins" Miller, actor
- Paula MillerPaula MillerPaula Jean Miller is an American politician of the Democratic Party. Since 2005 she has been a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 87th district in the city of Norfolk...
, actress - Josef Mischel, screenwriter
- Karen MorleyKaren Morley-Life and career:Born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa, Morley lived there until she was thirteen years old. When she came to Hollywood, she attended Hollywood High School, and she later graduated from UCLA....
, actress - Henry Myers, screenwriter
- Mortimer Offner, screenwriter
- Alfred Palca, writer and producer
- Larry ParksLarry ParksLarry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
, actor - Leo PennLeo PennLeo Z. Penn was an American actor and director, and father of musician Michael Penn and actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn.-Early life:...
, actor - Irving PichelIrving PichelIrving Pichel was an American actor and film director. He married Violette Wilson, daughter of Jackson Stitt Wilson, a Methodist minister and Socialist mayor of Berkeley, California. Her sister was actress Viola Barry...
, director - Louis Pollock, screenwriter
- Abraham PolonskyAbraham PolonskyAbraham Lincoln Polonsky was an American film director, Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter, essayist, and novelist blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s, in the midst of the McCarthy era.-Early life:...
, screenwriter and director - William PomeranceWilliam PomeranceMortimer William Pomerance was an animator who worked for Walt Disney Studios. He worked first as a business manager of cartoonists, and then was a business agent for the Screen Actors Guild...
, animation executive - Vladimir PoznerVladimir PoznerVladimir Aleksandrovich Pozner , was a Russian-Jewish émigré to the United States. During World War II he spied for Soviet intelligence while being employed by the United States Government....
, screenwriter - Stanley PragerStanley PragerStanley Prager was an American actor and a television and theatre director.Born in New York City, Prager began his career as the stage manager for the Broadway production The Skin of Our Teeth in 1942...
, director - John RandolphJohn Randolph (actor)John Randolph was an American film, television and stage actor.-Early life:Randolph was born Emanuel Hirsch Cohen in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants Dorothy , an insurance agent, and Louis Cohen, a hat manufacturer...
, actor - Maurice Rapf, screenwriter
- Rosaura RevueltasRosaura RevueltasRosaura Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican star of screen and stage, and a dancer, author and teacher.-Early life:...
, actress - Robert L. RichardsRobert L. RichardsRobert L. Richards was a film screenwriter.Richards worked on a number of notable films of the 1940s and 1950s including Winchester '73, Johnny Stool Pigeon, and Act of Violence. His radio work included writing for the Suspense series which aired on the CBS network from 1942 until 1962...
, screenwriter - Frederic I. Rinaldo, screenwriter
- Martin RittMartin RittMartin Ritt was an American director, actor, and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City.-Early career and influences:...
, actor and director - W. L. River, screenwriter
- Marguerite RobertsMarguerite RobertsMarguerite Roberts was an American screenwriter, one of the highest paid in the 1930s. After she and her husband John Sanford refused to testify in 1951 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she was blacklisted for nine years and unable to get work in Hollywood...
, screenwriter - David Robison, screenwriter
- Naomi Robison, actress
- Louise Rousseau, screenwriter
- Jean Rouverol (Butler)Jean RouverolJean Rouverol is an American author, actress and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, actress and writer - Shimen Ruskin, actor
- Madeleine Ruthven, screenwriter
- Waldo SaltWaldo SaltWaldo Miller Salt was an American screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.-Early life and career:...
, screenwriter - John Sanford, screenwriter
- Bill Scott, voice actor
- Martha ScottMartha ScottMartha Ellen Scott was an American actress best known for her roles as mother of the lead character in numerous films and television shows.-Early life:...
, actress - Joshua ShelleyJoshua ShelleyJoshua Shelley was one of the actors blacklisted by movie studios as a result of the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of the Communist Party in Hollywood in 1952. He did not begin to again work regularly in Hollywood until 1973 when his career restarted.-External links:...
, actor - Madeleine SherwoodMadeleine SherwoodMadeleine Sherwood is a Canadian actress of stage, film and television. She is widely known for her portrayals of Mae/Sister Woman and Miss Lucy in both the Broadway and film versions of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth...
, actress - Reuben ShipReuben ShipReuben Ship was a Canadian playwright and screenwriter best known for his 1954 radio satire The Investigator, which lampooned the Army-McCarthy Hearings and the anticommunist paranoia of the Second Red Scare.-Biography:...
, screenwriter - Viola Brothers Shore, screenwriter
- George Sklar, playwright
- Art Smith, actor
- Louis Solomon, screenwriter and producer
- Ray SpencerRay SpencerRaymond Spencer was an English professional footballer who represented England at Schools level. He was born in Kings Norton, Birmingham....
, screenwriter - Janet Stevenson, writer
- Philip Stevenson, writer
- Donald Ogden StewartDonald Ogden StewartDonald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...
, screenwriter - Arthur Strawn, screenwriter
- Bess TaffelBess TaffelBess Taffel Boyle was an American screenwriter, whose career was effectively ended after she was identified as a member of the Communist Party during the McCarthy period. She wrote only a few television scripts from 1969 to 1974, before she ended her career entirely...
, screenwriter - Julius Tannenbaum, producer
- Frank Tarloff, screenwriter
- Shepard Traube, director and screenwriter
- Dorothy TreeDorothy TreeDorothy Tree was an American actress, voice teacher and writer. She appeared in a wide range of character roles in at least 49 motion pictures between 1927 and 1951....
, actress - Paul Trivers, screenwriter
- George Tyne, actor
- Michael Uris, writer
- Peter ViertelPeter ViertelPeter Viertel was an author and screenwriter.-Biography:He was born to Jewish parents in Dresden, Germany, the writer and actress Salka Viertel and the writer Berthold Viertel. In 1928, his parents moved to Santa Monica, California where Viertel grew up with his brothers, Hans and Thomas...
, screenwriter - Bernard VorhausBernard VorhausBernard Vorhaus was an American film director born in New York City.The Harvard University graduate, in addition to directing thirty-two films, was also the mentor to future film director David Lean, some of whose work as a film editor early in his career was on Vorhaus pictures...
, director - John Weber, producer
- Richard Weil, screenwriter
- Hannah WeinsteinHannah WeinsteinHannah Weinstein was an American journalist, publicist and left-wing political activist who moved to Britain and became a television producer. She is best known for having produced The Adventures of Robin Hood television series in the 1950s...
, producer - John Wexley, screenwriter
- Michael WilsonMichael Wilson (writer)Michael Wilson was an Academy Award winning American screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism....
, screenwriter - Nedrick YoungNedrick YoungNedrick Young was a screenwriter often blacklisted during the 1950s and 1960s. He is credited with writing the screenplay for Jailhouse Rock in 1957, which starred Elvis Presley....
, actor and screenwriter - Julian Zimet, screenwriter
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Further reading
- Berg, Sandra (2006). "When Noir Turned Black" (interview with Jules DassinJules DassinJulius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
), Written By (November) (available online). - Bernstein, Walter (2000). Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist. New York: Da Capo. ISBN 0-306-80936-2
- Briley, Ronald (1994). "Reel History and the Cold War", OAH Magazine of History 8 (winter) (available online).
- Georgakas, Dan (1992). "Hollywood Blacklist", in Encyclopedia of the American Left, ed. Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press (available online). ISBN 0-252-06250-7
- Kahn, Gordon (1948). Hollywood on Trial: The Story of the 10 Who Were Indicted. New York: Boni & Gaer (excerpted online). ISBN 0-405-03921-2
- Leab, Daniel J., with guide by Robert E. Lester (1991). Communist Activity in the Entertainment Industry: FBI Surveillance Files on Hollywood, 1942–1958. Bethesda, Maryland: University Publications of America (available online). ISBN 1-55655-414-1
- Murray, Lawrence L. (1975). "Monsters, Spys, and Subversives: The Film Industry Responds to the Cold War, 1945–1955", Jump Cut 9 (available online).
- "Seven-Year Justice", Time, July 6, 1962 (available online).
External links
- Albert Maltz's HUAC Testimony transcript of the writer's testimony (preceded by excerpts of actor Ronald Reagan's testimony—see below for link to complete Reagan transcript)
- "Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses" detailed examination of legal issues involved in HUAC proceedings by historian Ellen Schrecker
- "McCarthy Era Blacklist Victims, Peace Groups, Academics, and Media File Amicus Briefs in CCR Case" news release focused on 2009 brief filed by former blacklistees including Irwin Corey in Holder v. Humanitarian Law ProjectHolder v. Humanitarian Law ProjectHolder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U. S. ____ , was a case decided in June 2010 by the United States Supreme Court regarding the USA PATRIOT Act which prohibits material support to groups designated as terrorists...
Supreme Court free speech case - Ronald Reagan's HUAC Testimony transcript of the actor's testimony of October 23, 1947
- "Seeing Red" transcript of excerpts from PBS documentary The Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist and interview by NewsHourThe NewsHour with Jim LehrerPBS NewsHour is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. The show is produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, a company co-owned by former anchors Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil, and Liberty Media, which owns a 65% stake in the...
correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth with two blacklisted artists, writer/producer Paul JarricoPaul JarricoPaul Jarrico was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.-Early years:...
and actress Marsha HuntMarsha Hunt (actress)Marsha Hunt is an American film, theater, and television actress who was blacklisted by Hollywood movie studio executives in the 1950s.-Career:...