Myron Coureval Fagan
Encyclopedia
Myron Coureval Fagan was an American writer, producer and director for film and theatre. He arrived on Broadway
in 1907, where he quickly became one of the youngest playwrights in American Theater. Over the years, he worked in the theater with such luminaries as Alla Nazimova
, Douglas Fairbanks
, and John Barrymore
. He also directed plays for the top producers of the era such as Charles Frohman
, David Belasco
and others. Fagan also became the dramatic editor of The Associated Newspapers. Many of the actors including Humphrey Bogart
, Brian Donlevy
and Robert Ryan
whom Fagan directed or who appeared in his plays or screen adaptions later became stars in Hollywood.
, who starred in many of his productions.
In 1916 Fagan took a break from the theater to serve as Director of Public Relations for Republican
Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes
. When a similar offer was made in 1928 to him by Herbert Hoover
he turned it down.
In 1929 the talking picture
version of his play "The Great Power" earned the dubious record of being the shortest run of any movie at the Capitol Theatre, New York. It was replaced with a silent comedy film after only one performance.
He moved to Hollywood in 1930, where he served as a writer and director with Pathe Pictures, Inc., then owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, and also at 20th Century Fox
, and other Hollywood Film Studios.
In 1945, Fagan claimed he saw secret documents of the meetings in Yalta
, shown to him by author John T. Flynn
, that led him to write the plays 'Red Rainbow', and 'Thieves Paradise.' Written in 1945, 'Red Rainbow' portrays Roosevelt
, Stalin
and others in Malta plotting to deliver the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Berlin to Stalin. Left-wing groups in the New York opposed the production of the play and Fagan had difficulties getting financial backing to produce it. Fagan took the play to Hollywood where he encountered even more protests against it than he had in New York. "Red Rainbow"
In 1947 congressional hearings were held, where more than 300 famous stars, writers, and directors from Hollywood, Radio, and TV were investigated, many of whom were blacklist
ed as Communists. These hearings resulted in the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten.
In the late 1940s Fagan launched a one-man crusade against what he claimed was a "Red Conspiracy in Hollywood". Out of this crusade would come the Cinema Educational Guild.
In 1953, 'Red Rainbow' was produced by Bruce Fagan and staged for 16 performances at the Royale Theatre between 14 September and 26 September.
Written two years later, 'Thieves Paradise' portrays the same group plotting to create the United Nations as a Communist front for one world government.
Despite opposition, 'Thieves Paradise' opened at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood on December 26, 1947. It starred actor Howard Johnson who was subject to a campaign of harassment so bitter and intense that it sent him to St. Vincent's Hospital
with a nervous breakdown after six performances. Johnson's mother was also a subject of this campaign against him. These incidences were investigated and corroborated by both Actors' Equity and the American Board of Arbitration. Johnson, who had appeared in three films, never made another movie in Hollywood. 'Thieves Paradise' was also produced and staged at the El Patio theatre in Hollywood in April, 1948. It opened on April 12th, and, despite protest against it, was able to complete its run. This is also mentioned in an anti-communist speech, Luxurious Hollywood made in the same theater, on December 9, 1948, by an unknown reputed Hollywood insider wearing a black mask and calling himself Mr. X.
From this period onward Fagan did not produce any further work for stage or screen, instead he wrote anti-communist and racist pamphlets, such as Hollywood Reds are On the Run, and bulletins for the remainder of his life.
The Eleventh Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities of the California Legislature said this of Fagan's anti-Communist lists, "But those who realized their mistake and left the front organizations in disgust and disillusionment are often still carried as subversives on the Fagan lists, and therein lies the danger from any unofficial organization that undertakes to publish lists of alleged subversive organizations and individuals. They do not have the facilities, nor the authority, nor the experience to handle these matters in an expert fashion and therefore they produce an enormous amount of harm by falsely accusing individuals who are not only loyal but who have profited greatly by their unfortunate experiences in having been lured into Communist-front groups."
Between 1967 and 1968 Fagan recorded 'The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations', three LP records allegedly documenting the activities of a secret society known as The Illuminati
.
Fagan's LPs were dubbed to compact cassette by a group calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. The recordings have since been copied to mp3
format and made freely available on the Internet.
Myron C. Fagan died on 12 May 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Source: Internet Broadway Database
Source: Internet Movie Database
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1907, where he quickly became one of the youngest playwrights in American Theater. Over the years, he worked in the theater with such luminaries as Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...
, Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, and John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
. He also directed plays for the top producers of the era such as Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
, David Belasco
David Belasco
David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...
and others. Fagan also became the dramatic editor of The Associated Newspapers. Many of the actors including 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....
, Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American film actor, noted for playing tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best known films are Beau Geste and The Great McGinty...
and Robert Ryan
Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
whom Fagan directed or who appeared in his plays or screen adaptions later became stars in Hollywood.
Biography
He was married to actress Minna GombellMinna Gombell
Minna Gombell was an American film actress of the 1930s and 1940s.She had a very successful stage career from 1912 before being signed by Fox film company in the late twenties. Her first film was Doctor's Wives in which she played under the name of Nancy Gardner, a name given to her by Fox...
, who starred in many of his productions.
In 1916 Fagan took a break from the theater to serve as Director of Public Relations for 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...
Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
. When a similar offer was made in 1928 to him by Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
he turned it down.
In 1929 the talking picture
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
version of his play "The Great Power" earned the dubious record of being the shortest run of any movie at the Capitol Theatre, New York. It was replaced with a silent comedy film after only one performance.
He moved to Hollywood in 1930, where he served as a writer and director with Pathe Pictures, Inc., then owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, and also at 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, and other Hollywood Film Studios.
In 1945, Fagan claimed he saw secret documents of the meetings in Yalta
Yalta
Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...
, shown to him by author John T. Flynn
John T. Flynn
John Thomas Flynn was an American journalist best known for his opposition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and to American entry into World War II.-Career:...
, that led him to write the plays 'Red Rainbow', and 'Thieves Paradise.' Written in 1945, 'Red Rainbow' portrays Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, 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...
and others in Malta plotting to deliver the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Berlin to Stalin. Left-wing groups in the New York opposed the production of the play and Fagan had difficulties getting financial backing to produce it. Fagan took the play to Hollywood where he encountered even more protests against it than he had in New York. "Red Rainbow"
In 1947 congressional hearings were held, where more than 300 famous stars, writers, and directors from Hollywood, Radio, and TV were investigated, many of whom were blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed as Communists. These hearings resulted in the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten.
In the late 1940s Fagan launched a one-man crusade against what he claimed was a "Red Conspiracy in Hollywood". Out of this crusade would come the Cinema Educational Guild.
In 1953, 'Red Rainbow' was produced by Bruce Fagan and staged for 16 performances at the Royale Theatre between 14 September and 26 September.
Written two years later, 'Thieves Paradise' portrays the same group plotting to create the United Nations as a Communist front for one world government.
Despite opposition, 'Thieves Paradise' opened at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood on December 26, 1947. It starred actor Howard Johnson who was subject to a campaign of harassment so bitter and intense that it sent him to St. Vincent's Hospital
St. Vincent's Hospital
St Vincent's Hospital or St. Vincent Hospital may refer to:in Australia*St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne*St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney*St Vincent's Hospital in Ireland*St. Vincent's University Hospital, Dublinin the United States...
with a nervous breakdown after six performances. Johnson's mother was also a subject of this campaign against him. These incidences were investigated and corroborated by both Actors' Equity and the American Board of Arbitration. Johnson, who had appeared in three films, never made another movie in Hollywood. 'Thieves Paradise' was also produced and staged at the El Patio theatre in Hollywood in April, 1948. It opened on April 12th, and, despite protest against it, was able to complete its run. This is also mentioned in an anti-communist speech, Luxurious Hollywood made in the same theater, on December 9, 1948, by an unknown reputed Hollywood insider wearing a black mask and calling himself Mr. X.
From this period onward Fagan did not produce any further work for stage or screen, instead he wrote anti-communist and racist pamphlets, such as Hollywood Reds are On the Run, and bulletins for the remainder of his life.
The Eleventh Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities of the California Legislature said this of Fagan's anti-Communist lists, "But those who realized their mistake and left the front organizations in disgust and disillusionment are often still carried as subversives on the Fagan lists, and therein lies the danger from any unofficial organization that undertakes to publish lists of alleged subversive organizations and individuals. They do not have the facilities, nor the authority, nor the experience to handle these matters in an expert fashion and therefore they produce an enormous amount of harm by falsely accusing individuals who are not only loyal but who have profited greatly by their unfortunate experiences in having been lured into Communist-front groups."
Between 1967 and 1968 Fagan recorded 'The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations', three LP records allegedly documenting the activities of a secret society known as The Illuminati
Illuminati
The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...
.
Fagan's LPs were dubbed to compact cassette by a group calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. The recordings have since been copied to mp3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format and made freely available on the Internet.
Myron C. Fagan died on 12 May 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Plays
| 1923 | Thumbs Down |
| 1924 | Two Strangers From Nowhere |
| 1925 | Mismates |
| 1926 | The Little Spitfire |
| 1927 | Jimmie's Women |
| 1928 | A Great Power |
| 1929 | Indescretion |
| 1930 | Nancy's Private Affair |
| 1930 | Peter Flies High |
| 1953 | A Red Rainbow |
Source: Internet Broadway Database
Motion pictures
| 1926 | Mismates (writer) |
| 1929 | The Great Power (writer, editor and cinematographer) |
| 1931 | Smart Woman (writer, adapted from his play 'Nancy's Private Affair') |
| 1931 | A Holy Terror (writer) |
Source: Internet Movie Database
Books and articles
| 1932 | Nancy's Private Affair, A comedy in three acts |
| 1932 | Peter Flies High, A comedy in three acts |
| 1934 | The Little Spitfire, A comedy-drama in three acts |
| 1948 | Red stars in Hollywood: Their helpers, fellow travelers, and co-conspirators |
| 1948 | Moscow over Hollywood written by Dan Gilbert, published by Cinema Educational Guild |
| 1949 | Moscow marches on in Hollywood (News-bulletin/Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1950 | Reds in the Anti-Defamation League (Cinema Educational Guild. News-bulletin, May 1950) |
| 1950 | Reds in "crusade for freedom!" (News bulletin) |
| 1950 | Hollywood reds are on the run! |
| 1950 | Documentation of the Red stars in Hollywood. |
| 1950 | Reds in the Anti-Defamation League. |
| 1951 | What is this thing called anti-semitism? (News-bulletin / Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1951 | Saga of Operation Survival (News-bulletin / Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1953 | Hollywood backs U.N. conspiracy |
| 1954 | Red Treason on Broadway (Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1956 | United Nations "on trial" in Washington, D.C (News-bulletin) |
| 1962 | Must we have a Cuban "Pearl Harbor?" (News-bulletin / Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1964 | How Hollywood is brainwashing the people (News-bulletin / Cinema Educational Guild) |
| 1964 | Civil rights, most sinister tool of the great conspiracy (News-Bulletin) |
| 1965 | How greatest white nations were mongrelized, then negroized: That is the fate planned for the American people (News-bulletin) |
| 1966 | The UN already secret government of U.S.!: Our recall project can smash it! (News-bulletin) |
| 1966 | The complete truth about the "United Nations" conspiracy! (News-bulletin) |
| 1967 | You must decide fate of our nation!!!: The Negro (CFR) plot is our greatest menace! (News-bulletin) |
| 1969 | Proofs of the great conspiracy and how to smash it!!! (News-bulletin / Cinema Educational Guild) |