The Hollywood blacklist—more properly the entertainment industry blacklist, into which it expanded—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 simply humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist federal 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, naming 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.
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[edit] Overview
[edit] The blacklist begins (1947)
The Hollywood blacklist is rooted in events of the 1930s and the early 1940s. During that 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. While the party lost substantial support in the U.S. after the Moscow show trials of 1936–38 and the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, the subsequent World War II alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union brought the party new credibility. During the war, membership in the American Communist Party reached a peak of 50,000.[1]
Perceptions changed soon after the end of World War II, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. The "Second Red Scare" was spurred both by reports of Soviet repression in Eastern and Central Europe in the war's aftermath and the growth of conservative political influence in the U.S. following the Republican triumph in the 1946 Congressional elections, which saw the party take control of both the House and Senate. 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 (HUAC), which had declared its intention to investigate whether, as described by scholar Richard A. Schwartz, "Communist agents had succeeded in implanting Communist messages and values in Hollywood films."[2] This group of American movie professionals—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, of whom eleven were actually called before the committee. Of the eleven "unfriendly witnesses," one, emigré playwright Bertolt Brecht, ultimately chose to answer the committee's questions.[3] The other ten refused, citing their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. The crucial question they rebuffed is now generally rendered as "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"—such membership was not and had never been illegal.[4] (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. In October, with the hearings still under way, Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, declared that he would never "employ any proven or admitted Communist because they are just a disruptive force and I don't want them around."[5] Several Hollywood professionals, including Ronald Reagan, then head of the Screen Actors Guild, and Walt Disney, testified to HUAC 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."[6] On November 17, 1947, the Screen Actors Guild voted to make its officers swear to a non-Communist pledge. The following week, on November 24, 1947, 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.[7] The statement declared that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were both cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. The first Hollywood blacklist was now in effect.
[edit] 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 Odlum, the primary owner of RKO Pictures, to get out of the business.[8] 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 the spring of 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.[9]
The others remained silent and most were unable to obtain work in the American film and television industry for many years after. In the case of Adrian Scott, who had produced four of Dmytryk's films—Murder, My Sweet; Cornered; So Well Remembered; and Crossfire—and was one of those named by his former friend, his 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 pseudonyms 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.[10]
![The May 7, 1948, issue of the Counterattack newsletter warned readers about a radio talk show that had recently expanded its audience by moving from the Mutual network to ABC: "Communist Party members and fellow-travelers have often been guests on [Arthur] Gaeth's program."](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CounterattackMasthead.jpg)
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 names it claimed were all participants in the "Communist Conspiracy." Among the names on the Legion's list was that of well-known playwright Lillian Hellman.[11] Hellman had written or contributed to the screenplays of approximately ten motion pictures up to that point; she wouldn't 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.[12] 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, required of all its employees.[13]
[edit] 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 Parks 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.[14]
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.[15] 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.
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. 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 Stander was uttered by the actor Larry Parks during testimony before HUAC. "Do you know Lionel Stander?" committee counsel Frank S. Tavenner 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.[17]
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.[18]
Stander was clearly speaking of the committee itself.
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."[19] 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."[20]
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'd 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.'"[21] 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 screewnwriter 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."[22]
[edit] 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 Trumbo, 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.[23]
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 Rouge, starring José Ferrer, 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."[24]
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."[25] 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.[26]
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.[28]
The struggles attending the blacklist were played out metaphorically on the big screen in various ways. "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."[29] 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. While the film is still admired, its political subtext is now generally seen as a weak point; the Time Out Film Guide, for instance, argues that is "undermined" by its "embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers."[30]
[edit] Breaking the blacklist (1957–present)
A key figure in bringing an end to blacklisting was John Henry Faulk. 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 uniquely among the many victims of blacklisting, Faulk decided to sue AWARE in 1957.[31] 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: 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.[32] The following year, actress Betty Hutton insisted that blacklisted composer Jerry Fielding be hired as musical director for her new series, also on CBS.[33] 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.[34] 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.[35] Like Adrian Scott and Lillian Hellman, however, a number of those on the blacklist remained there for an extended period—Lionel Stander, for instance, couldn't find work in Hollywood until 1965.[36] 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."[37] And there were those more gravely haunted by the choice they'd made. Actor Sterling Hayden
As late as 2000, 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.told a reporter in 1963, "I was a rat, a stoolie, and the names I named of those close friends were blacklisted and deprived of their livelihood." [Hayden] was widely believed to have drunk himself into a near-suicidal depression decades before his 1986 death.[38]
