Hollywood blacklist
The
Hollywood blacklist was a group of
film actors,
directors, and
screenwriters in the late
1940s and early
1950s, including at least ten who had been affiliated with the
Communist Party USA (CPUSA) at some point in their lives, who were investigated by the
House Un-American Activities Committee for
communist activities.
The day after ten writers and directors were cited for
contempt of Congress for refusing to give testimony, a Hollywood blacklisting policy was implemented by studio executives through the
MPAA in what has become known as the
Waldorf Statement.
The Hollywood blacklist stemmed from events dating back to the
1930s. During this era, the communist party had nearly 100,000 members in the United States, many of them young idealists.
Perceptions changed at the end of World War II. The "
Red Scare" saw communism become increasingly feared and hated by many in the United States, mostly because of the Soviet Union's brutal repression in Eastern and Central Europe following the War. In October of
1947, a number of suspected communists, deemed "subversives," working in the Hollywood film industry were summoned to appear before the
House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was investigating Communist influence in the
Hollywood labor unions. This group of American screenwriters, actors, and
directors were either alleged or admitted members of the
American Communist Party. Witnesses such as
Budd Schulberg and
Elia Kazan either felt it was patriotic to expose others or, out of fear for the consequences of non-compliance, implicated others as having had involvement with the party (referred to as "naming names"). Ten of those who were subpoenaed refused to give evidence, citing their
First Amendment rights. The
United States House of Representatives of the
80th Congress voted 346 to 17 on
November 24, 1947 to approve citations for
contempt of Congress. These men, soon dubbed the "
Hollywood Ten," were convicted in
1948 and following unsuccessful appeals and denial of review by the
Supreme Court, they served 6-month (in two cases) or 1-year prison terms in
1950.
Specifically, the "Hollywood Ten" were in part cited for contempt for their disdain for the proceedings and were considered by some as being disruptive of the committee's proceedings by making political statements while refusing to answer certain questions put to them by the committee concerning their alleged Communist affiliations and activities. Some of the questions they refused to answer were: "Are you a member of the
Screen Writers Guild?" and, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the
Communist Party?". Their unsuccessful defense was based on
First Amendment claims. However, although it might have been highly unpopular, being a member of the
American Communist Party was never illegal. Others were not charged after
legal counsel advised them instead to claim the right to refuse to answer in accordance with the
Fifth Amendment.
 |
HUAC hearings |
In response to the pressure, on November 17, 1947 the
Screen Actors Guild voted to make its officers take a non-communist pledge. Following a meeting of film industry executives at
New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel on November 25, 1947 (the day after the full House approved citations of contempt),
Eric Johnston, President of the
Motion Picture Association of America, issued a
press release on the executives' behalf that is today referred to as the
Waldorf Statement. The Statement declared the "Ten" would be fired or suspended and not rehired until they were acquitted or purged of contempt and had sworn that they were not communists. Because of their notoriety, they were unable to obtain work in the American film and television industry for many years. In 1952, the
Screen Writers Guild authorized the
movie studios to
omit from the screen the name of any individual who had failed to clear his name before Congress. Some of those blacklisted continued to write Hollywood films, using
pseudonyms or the names of friends who posed as the actual writers (those who allowed their names to be used were called "fronts").
The blacklisting by studio executives went hand in hand with the activities of
J. Edgar Hoover and the
FBI under his control. People such as
Bartley Crum, a
lawyer who defended some of the "Hollywood Ten" in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, were labeled as subversive or Communist sympathizers by others, and additionally targeted for investigation themselves. The FBI tapped Crum's phones, opened his mail, and put him under continuous surveillance. As a result, he lost most of his clients and, unable to cope with the stress from unrelenting harassment, committed suicide in 1959.
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Alvah Bessie, screenwriter#
Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director#
Lester Cole, screenwriter#
Edward Dmytryk, director#
Ring Lardner, Jr., journalist and screenwriter#
John Howard Lawson, writer#
Albert Maltz, author and screenwriter#
Samuel Ornitz , screenwriter#
Adrian Scott, screenwriter and film producer#
Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter and novelist
Following his blacklisting, Trumbo and others were able to continue working without
screen credit by using
pseudonyms or having a fellow member of the
MPAA submit their scripts to the studio in their name. This tactic enabled movies such as
The Bridge on the River Kwai to be completed. Several screenwriters moved to the
United Kingdom, where they were either able to find work in film and
television, or wrote scripts that were then sent surreptitiously to Hollywood studios. Some, like playwright
Arthur Miller and actor
John Randolph, were able to continue to work in
New York City, where theater owners and producers ignored the Hollywood studio bosses.
The first break in the blacklisting didn't come until 1960, when director
Otto Preminger announced he was hiring Trumbo to write
Exodus. Then, influential movie star
Kirk Douglas said he would give Trumbo full credit for writing
Spartacus, which president-elect
John F. Kennedy and his brother
Robert crossed
American Legion picket lines to see. Soon, producer
Martin Ransohoff and director
Norman Jewison gave Ring Lardner, Jr. screen credit for writing
The Cincinnati Kid, and things began to change, albeit more slowly for many. In later life, many of the "Hollywood Ten" continued to assert a right to political association and to allege they were victims of "red-baiting." In 1997, the
Writers' Guild of America unanimously voted to change the writing credits of 23 films made during the blacklist period.
While the Hollywood Ten were the most high-profile screenwriters and directors blacklisted, many others, including some of Hollywood's most famous and successful writers, found themselves unable to work in their fields during the time of the Red Scare, while others had their careers all but destroyed. Most estimates indicate that the blacklist involved approximately 325 employees in film and related industries. However, according to Carl Foreman's son,
Jonathan Foreman, a
lawyer,
historian, and editorial writer and senior film critic for the
New York Post, there were 500 or so victims of the Hollywood blacklist. Dalton Trumbo said of it: "the blacklist was a time of such evil, no one survived untouched."
In 1950 the Hollywood Ten were featured in a short documentary named
The Hollywood Ten. It simply consisted of each member of the Hollywood Ten making a short speech directly in front of the camera, denouncing
Senator McCarthy's methods and the blacklisting.
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Allen Adler, screenwriter
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Larry Adler, actor and musician
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Edgar Barrier, actor
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Orson Bean, actor
*
Barbara Bel Geddes, actress
*
Harry Belafonte, actor and singer
*
Herschel Bernardi, actor
*
Walter Bernstein, screenwriter
*
John Berry, actor, screenwriter and director
*
Marc Blitzstein, composer
*
Allen Boretz, songwriter
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Lloyd Bridges, actor
*
J. Edward Bromberg, actor
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Sidney Buchman, screenwriter
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Hugo Butler, screenwriter
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Morris Carnovsky, actor
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Charles Chaplin, actor, director and producer
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Jerome Chodorov, writer
*
Aaron Copland, composer
*
Jeff Corey, actor
*
John Cromwell director
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Jules Dassin, director
*
Roger De Koven, actor
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Paul Draper, actor and dancer
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Hanns Eisler, composer
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Cy Endfield, screenwriter and director
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John Henry Faulk, radio personality
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Jerry Fielding, composer
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Carl Foreman, producer and screenwriter
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John Garfield, actor
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Betty Garrett, actress
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Will Geer, actor
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Jack Gilford, actor
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Bernard Gordon, screenwriter
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Lloyd Gough, actor
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Lee Grant, actress
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Dashiell Hammett, writer
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E. Y. "Yip" Harburg, composer
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Sterling Hayden, actor
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Lillian Hellman, playwright
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Marsha Hunt, actress
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Sidney Kingsley, playwright
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Sam Jaffe, actor
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Paul Jarrico, producer and screenwriter
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Gordon Kahn, screenwriter
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Pert Kelton, actress
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Victor Kilian, actor
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Howard Koch screenwriter
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Alexander Knox, actor
*
Arthur Laurents, writer
*
Marc Lawrence, actor
*
John Howard Lawson, writer
*
Canada Lee, actor
*
Robert Lees, screenwriter
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Louise Lewis, actress
*
Philip Loeb, actor
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Joseph Losey, director
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Arnold Manoff, screenwriter
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Robert A. McGowan, screenwriter and director
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Burgess Meredith, actor
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Arthur Miller, playwright
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Karen Morley, actress
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Zero Mostel, actor
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Jean Muir, actress
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Clifford Odets, writer
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Dorothy Parker, writer
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Larry Parks, actor
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Leo Penn, actor
*
Abraham Polonsky, screenwriter and director
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John Randolph, actor
*
Maurice Rapf, screenwriter
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Anne Revere, actress
*
Rosaura Revueltas, actress
*
Frederic I. Rinaldo, screenwriter
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Martin Ritt, actor and director
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Paul Robeson, actor and singer
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Brian Eubanks,lawyer
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Edward G. Robinson, actor
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Edwin Rolfe, poet
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Robert Rossen, screenwriter
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Jean Rouverol, actress and writer
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Waldo Salt, screenwriter
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Pete Seeger, folk singer
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Irwin Shaw, writer
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Joshua Shelley, actor
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Howard Da Silva, actor
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Gale Sondergaard, actress
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Lionel Stander, actor
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Frank Tarloff, screenwriter
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Dorothy Tree, actress
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Louis Untermeyer, poet
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Orson Welles, actor, writer and director
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Michael Wilson, screenwriter
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Richard N. Wright, writer
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Nedrick Young, actor and screenwriter
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Senator Margaret Chase Smith - On June 1, 1950, Smith gave her
Declaration of Conscience in the U.S. Senate[
1]
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Zero Mostel's testimony before HUAC â€" including a segment from a 1955 HUAC hearing.
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James J. Lorence:
The Suppression of Salt of the Earth. How Hollywood, Big Labor, and Politicians Blacklisted a Movie in Cold War America. University of New Mexico Press: 1999. ISBN 0-8263-2027-9 (cloth) ISBN 0-8263-2028-7 (paper)
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Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood*
Martin Redish:
The Logic of PersecutionMemoirs about the blacklist years were written by several of the individuals who were blacklisted:
Hollywood Exile, or, How I Learned To Love the Blacklist -
Bernard GordonI'd Hate Myself In The Morning: A Memoir -
Ring Lardner, Jr.Back Lot: Growing Up With The Movies -
Maurice RapfInside Out : A Memoir of the Blacklist -
Walter BernsteinRefugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years -
Jean RouverolAll around gangster -
Brett ReedWild animals -
Cory ParksU.S. BOMBS -
Chuck Briggs*
The Waldorf Conference: The Meeting That Began the Blacklist*
Cobblestone Entertainment websitesite*
List of books on the Hollywood blacklist *
Hanns Eisler in the McCarthy era 
