Reuben Ship
Encyclopedia
The Investigator
The Investigator was a radio play written by Reuben Ship and first broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on May 30 of that year...
, which lampooned the Army-McCarthy Hearings
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy...
and the anticommunist paranoia of the Second Red Scare.
Biography
Reuben Ship was born to Sam and Bella Davis Ship in Plateau Mt. Royal, a neighborhood of MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
with a high immigrant population. Despite an early illness that left him sickly throughout his life, he was able to complete his secondary education and attend McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Montreal to study English literature. Upon his graduation in 1939, he began directing an amateur theater company affiliated with the local YMHA and YWHA. Many of these plays were anti-fascist and were intended to raise money for the war effort
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was at this theater group that Ship met his first wife, Ada Span.
Ship soon took control of another amateur theater group known as the New Theater Group, with Ada assisting him. Because this troupe typically put on leftist plays, they often found themselves under the surveillance of the "Red Squad
Red squad
In the United States, Red Squads were police intelligence units that specialized in infiltrating, conducting counter-measures and gathering intelligence on political and social groups during the twentieth century. Dating as far back as the Haymarket Riot in 1886, Red Squads became common in larger...
" of the Québec Provincial Police. Ship's most successful effort during that time was We Beg To Differ, a musical revue with lyrics by Ship and music by Mel Tolkin
Mel Tolkin
Mel Tolkin, né Shmuel Tolchinsky , was a television comedy writer best known as head writer of the seminal, live TV sketch comedy series Your Show of Shows during the Golden Age of Television. There he presided over a storied staff that at times included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and...
which poked fun at numerous Canadian political figures of the time. By this time Ship had begun touring the northeastern United States, and he eventually settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In 1944 he was hired by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
as a scriptwriter for a new radio sitcom, The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a long-run 1950s television series , and a 1958 Dell comic book...
. When the show was adapted for television in 1949-50, however, Ship's contract had expired and he was not rehired.
HUAC Investigation
On July 31, 1951, Ship was informed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service that his immigration status was under review, likely because two fellow members of the Radio Writers' Guild had named him as a Communist. Called before the House Un-American Activities CommitteeHouse Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
on September 24 of that year, he claimed that the government had no right to question him about his beliefs, at which he was labeled an uncooperative witness and subsequently dismissed. Eighteen months later, on January 12, 1953, he was deported to his native Canada, where he settled in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and got jobs at an advertising agency and writing radio programming for the CBC
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
, including The Night Before Christmas and The Man Who Liked Christmas. both in 1953.
The Investigator
On May 30, 1954, Ship's most important work, The InvestigatorThe Investigator
The Investigator was a radio play written by Reuben Ship and first broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on May 30 of that year...
, premiered. With the Army-McCarthy Hearings
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy...
having been on television in America for two months, Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
's methods of investigating Communist infiltration in the U.S. Army fascinated the public, and were a topic for heated debate. No doubt bitter about his own deportation and blacklisting, Ship crafted a satire of this process, along with its ringleader. The Investigator concerns a senator who shares many of McCarthy's mannerisms dying in a plane crash and arriving at the gates of heaven, where a tribunal must decide whether he is bound for heaven or hell. The cunning senator commandeers the tribunal and promptly begins rooting out subversives from "down there," creating chaos among the residents of heaven. Ultimately, in his hubris, he accuses God Himself of being a subversive, at which the Senator is banished to hell, where not even Satan himself will have him.
The Investigator proved to be tremendously popular, and bootleg copies began circulating throughout the United States and Canada. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
aired it in 1955, and the Australian Broadcasting Commission requested permission to air it as well. Despite this success, however, Ship decided to pursue his advertising career. In 1956 he moved to England.
Career in England
Ship did not find great success in advertising, so he soon returned to scriptwriting. He contributed to episodes of the British show My Wife's Sister, and it is speculated that he provided scripts to American networks under a pseudonym as well. He scripted two films, There Was a Crooked ManThere Was a Crooked Man (film)
There Was a Crooked Man is a 1960 British comedy film directed by Stuart Burge. It starred Norman Wisdom, Alfred Marks, Andrew Cruickshank, Reginald Beckwith, and Susannah York. This is the only Norman Wisdom film that has not had a television viewing or released on video/DVD...
and The Girl on the Boat
The Girl on the Boat
The Girl on the Boat is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse. The story first appeared as a serial in Woman's Home Companion in the United States, under the title Three Men and a Maid, from October to December 1921. It was first published as a book in the U.S. on April 26, 1922 by George H...
. By this point, his marriage to Ada Span had failed, and in 1960 he married another Canadian television personality, Elaine Grand. He wrote many more radio programs throughout his career, and oversaw a stage production of his play The Taxman Cometh for the CBC in 1969. He lived in England until his death in 1975.
Sources
- Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 88: Canadian Writers, 1920-1959, Second Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by W. H. New, University of British Columbia. The Gale Group, 1989. pp. 288-290.