This article is about 20th-century political blacklists. For 21st-century lists of unproduced screenplays, seeBlack List (survey).
Members of the Hollywood Ten and their families in 1950, protesting the impending incarceration of the Ten
"Hollywood Seven" redirects here. For television series from S Club 7, seeHollywood 7.
TheHollywood blacklist was the mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from working in the United States entertainment industry. Theblacklist began at the onset of theCold War andRed Scare, and affected entertainment production inHollywood,New York, and elsewhere.Actors,screenwriters,directors,musicians, and other professionals were barred from employment based on their present or past membership in, alleged membership in, or perceived sympathy with theCommunist Party USA (CPUSA), or on the basis of their refusal to assist Congressional orFBI investigations into the Party's activities.
Even during the period of its strictest enforcement from the late 1940s to late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit nor was it easily verifiable.[1][2] Instead, it was the result of numerous individual decisions implemented by studio executives and was not the result of formal legal statute. Nevertheless, the blacklist directly damaged or ended the careers and incomes of scores of persons working in film, television, and radio.[3]
Although the blacklist had no official end date, it was generally recognized to have weakened by 1960, the year whenDalton Trumbo – a CPUSA member from 1943 to 1948,[4] and also one of the "Hollywood Ten" – was openly hired by directorOtto Preminger to write the screenplay forExodus (1960).[4] Several months later, actorKirk Douglas publicly acknowledged that Trumbo wrote the screenplay forSpartacus (1960).[5] Despite Trumbo's breakthrough in 1960, other blacklisted film artists continued to have difficulty obtaining work for years afterward.
The Congressional action prompted a group of studio executives, acting under the aegis of theAssociation of Motion Picture Producers, to suspend without pay these ten film artists – initially labeled "The Unfriendly Ten" but soon changed to "The Hollywood Ten"[8] – and to pledge that "thereafter no Communists or other subversives would 'knowingly' be employed in Hollywood."[9] The blacklist eventually expanded beyond ten into the hundreds. On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet-style book entitledRed Channels was published. Focused on the field of broadcasting, it identified 151 entertainment industry professionals as "Red Fascists and their sympathizers" who had infiltrated radio and television.[10][11] It was not long before those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in the entertainment field.
The Hollywood blacklist was rooted in events of the 1930s and early 1940s, encompassing the depths of theGreat Depression, theSpanish Civil War, and the U.S.-Soviet alliance inWorld War II. The widespread economic hardships in the 1930s, as well as the rise of fascism in the world, caused a surge inCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) membership. Levels had remained below 20,000 until 1933 and then steadily grew during the decade until reaching 66,000 in 1939.[12] Although the CPUSA lost substantial support after theMoscow show trials of 1936–1938 and theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the organization's membership was still well above its pre-1933 levels.[13]
With this as a backdrop, the U.S. government began turning its attention to possible links between the CPUSA and Hollywood. Under then-chairmanMartin Dies, Jr., the HUAC released a report in 1938 claiming thatcommunism was pervasive in the movie industry. Two years later, Dies privately took testimony from a former Communist Party member, John L. Leech, who named forty-two movie professionals as Communists. After Leech repeated his charges in supposed confidence to a Los Angeles grand jury, many of the names were leaked to the press, including those of starsHumphrey Bogart,James Cagney,Katharine Hepburn,Melvyn Douglas andFredric March, among other Hollywood figures. Dies said he would "clear" those who cooperated by meeting with him in what he termed "executive session". Within two weeks of the grand jury leak, all those on the list except for actressJean Muir had met with the HUAC chairman. Dies "cleared" everyone except actorLionel Stander, who was fired by the movie studio,Republic Pictures, where he was under contract.[14]
Two majorfilm industry strikes during the 1930s had exacerbated tensions betweenHollywood producers and unionized employees, particularly theScreen Writers Guild, which formed in 1933.[15] In 1941, producerWalt Disney took out an ad inVariety, the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind acartoonists 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."[16] Inspired by Disney, California State SenatorJack Tenney, chairman of the state legislature'sJoint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked inVariety headlines.[16]
The wartime alliance between the United States and theSoviet Union brought the CPUSA newfound credibility. During the war, Party membership climbed back up to 50,000.[17] As World War II drew to a close, however, perceptions changed again, with communism increasingly becoming a focus of American fears and hatred. In 1945,Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of theneofascistAmerica First Party, began giving speeches inLos Angeles assailing the "alien minded Russian Jews in Hollywood."[18]Mississippi congressmanJohn E. Rankin, an HUAC member, 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, and we're going to follow through."[19][20]
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 theRepublican triumph in the 1946midterm elections, which saw theGOP take control of both theHouse andSenate, led to a major revival of institutional anti-communist activity, publicly spearheaded by the HUAC but with an investigative push byJ. Edgar Hoover and theFBI.[20] The following year, theMotion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), a political action group co-founded byJames Kevin McGuinness, issued a pamphlet written byAyn Rand and entitled "Screen Guide for Americans".[21] It advised film producers on the avoidance of "subtle communistic touches" in their films. The pamphlet's advice was encapsulated in 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'", and "Don't Glorify the Collective."[22]
On July 29, 1946,William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder ofThe Hollywood Reporter (THR), titled his front-page "Tradeviews" column, "A Vote forJoe Stalin".[23] In the column, Wilkerson named as Communist sympathizersDalton Trumbo,Maurice Rapf,Lester Cole,Howard Koch, Harold Buchman,John Wexley,Ring Lardner Jr.,Harold Salemson, Henry Meyers, Theodore Strauss, andJohn Howard Lawson. Over the next two months, Wilkerson published more columns containing names of other suspected Communists and "fellow travelers" working in Hollywood. His daily column earned the moniker "Billy's Blacklist" or simply "Billy's List".[24][25] When Wilkerson died in 1962, hisTHR obituary stated that he had "named names, pseudonyms and card numbers and was widely credited with being chiefly responsible for preventing communists from becoming entrenched in Hollywood production – something that foreign film unions have been unable to do."[24] In a 65th-anniversary article in 2012, Wilkerson's son apologized forTHR's role in the blacklist and added that his father was motivated by revenge for his own thwarted ambition to own a film studio.[26]
In late September 1947, drawing upon the lists provided inThe Hollywood Reporter, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed 42 persons working in the film industry to testify at hearings.[27] The HUAC had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents were sneaking propaganda into American films.[24]
Of the people subpoenaed by the HUAC, 23 were deemed "friendly", some of whom had previously testified in closed HUAC sessions[20] at theBiltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.[28] The October hearings in Washington, D.C. began with appearances by 14 friendly witnesses, among themWalt Disney,Jack L. Warner,Gary Cooper,Ronald Reagan,Robert Taylor,Adolphe Menjou,[29] screenwriterJack Moffitt (who was later employed atTHR by Wilkerson), andMGM producer and story editorJames K. McGuinness.[28] Disney asserted that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one, and he named specific ex-employees as probable Communists.[29] Reagan, who was then president of theScreen Actors Guild, testified that a small clique within his union was using "communist-like tactics" in attempting to steer union policy, but that he did not know if those (unnamed) members were Communists or not, and that in any case he thought the union had them under control.[30] Adolphe Menjou declared: "I am a witch hunter if the witches are Communists. I am aRed-baiter. I would like to see them all back in Russia."[31]
Unlike the friendly witnesses, other leading Hollywood figures – including directorsJohn Huston,Billy Wilder, andWilliam Wyler; and actorsLauren Bacall,Lucille Ball,Humphrey Bogart,Bette Davis,Henry Fonda,John Garfield,Judy Garland,Sterling Hayden,Katharine Hepburn,Danny Kaye,Gene Kelly,Myrna Loy, andEdward G. Robinson – protested the HUAC and formed theCommittee for the First Amendment (CFA). A sizable CFA delegation flew to Washington, D.C. on a chartered plane in October to voice their opposition to the government's political harassment of the film industry.[32] A few CFA members, such as Hayden, had privately assured Bogart they were not Communists. During the HUAC hearings, a local Washington paper reported that Hayden was in fact a Communist. After returning to Hollywood, Bogart shouted at Danny Kaye, "You fuckers sold me out."[33][34] The CFA was attacked for being naïve. Under pressure fromWarner Bros. to distance himself from the purported HollywoodReds, Bogart negotiated a statement, syndicated inHearstnewspapers under the title "As Bogart Sees It Now", which did not denounce the CFA but said his trip to D.C. had been "ill-advised, even foolish."[33][35] Billy Wilder told the other committee members that "we oughta fold."[36]
Besides the twenty-three friendly witnesses, there were also nineteen "unfriendly" or "hostile witnesses" who announced they would not cooperate with the HUAC. Many of the nineteen were alleged to be CPUSA members. Thirteen of them were Jewish.[37] When the hearings for the "Hollywood Nineteen" commenced on Monday, October 27, the nation's attention was riveted, especially given the presence in Washington, D.C. of movie stars from the First Amendment Committee.[38]
As it turned out, only eleven of the nineteen were called to testify. One of them, émigré playwrightBertolt Brecht, decided after legal advice to answer the HUAC's questions, though he did so evasively and fled the U.S. the very next day, never to return.[39][40] The other ten refused to answer whether they were in the Screen Writers Guild or CPUSA, citing theirFirst Amendment right tofreedom of speech, opinion, and association. Most of the Ten challenged the legitimacy of the committee itself. John Howard Lawson said during his testimony: "I am not on trial here, Mr. Chairman. This committee is on trial here before the American people. Let us get that straight."[41] Among the questions they declined to answer was the one now generally rendered as, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of theCommunist Party?".[42][43] The HUAC formally charged the ten men withcontempt of Congress and began criminal proceedings against them in the fullHouse of Representatives.[44]
In light of the Hollywood Ten's defiance of the HUAC – in addition to refusing to answer questions, they also tried unsuccessfully to read opening statements decrying the House 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 theMotion Picture Association of America (MPAA), vowed 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."[39]
On November 17, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) voted to make its officers swear a loyalty pledge asserting each was not a Communist. 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, after a meeting of nearly 50film industry executives at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, MPAA President Johnston issued apress release that is today referred to as theWaldorf Statement.[45][b] The statement said the ten uncooperative witnesses would be fired or suspended without pay and not re-employed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. The first Hollywood blacklist was in effect.[46]
The HUAC hearings failed to turn up any proof that Hollywood was secretly disseminating Communist propaganda, but the industry was nonetheless transformed. The fallout from the inquiry was a factor in the decision byFloyd Odlum, the primary owner ofRKO Pictures, to leave the industry.[47] As a result, the studio passed into the hands ofHoward Hughes. Within weeks of taking over in May 1948, Hughes fired most of RKO's employees and virtually shut the studio down for six months while he had the political views of the remaining employees investigated. Then, just as RKO swung back into production,Hughes made the decision to settle a long-standingfederal antitrust suit against theBig Five studios. This was one of the crucial steps in the collapse of thestudio system that had governed Hollywood for a quarter-century.
In early 1948, all of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt. Following a series of unsuccessful appeals, the cases arrived before theSupreme Court. Among the submissions filed in defense of the Ten was anamicus curiae brief signed by 204 Hollywood professionals. After the court denied review, the ten men began serving their prison sentences in 1950. One of them, screenwriterDalton Trumbo, said during an interview for the documentary filmHollywood On Trial (1976):
As far as I was concerned, it was a completely just verdict. I had contempt for that Congress and have had contempt for several since. And on the basis of guilt or innocence, I could never really complain very much. That this was a crime or misdemeanor was the complaint, my complaint.[48]
Dmytryk cooperating with the HUAC
In September 1950, Hollywood Ten memberEdward Dmytryk announced that he had once been a Communist and was prepared to give evidence against others who had been as well. He was released from prison after five months.[49] Following his 1951 HUAC appearance, where he described his past Party membership and named names, his directorial career recovered.[50]
The other nine remained silent and most were unable to obtain work in American film and television for many years.Adrian Scott, who had produced four of Dmytryk's films – Murder, My Sweet;Cornered;So Well Remembered; andCrossfire – was one of those named by his former friend. Scott's next screen credit did not come until 1972 and he never produced another feature film. Some blacklisted writers managed to work surreptitiously (an option unavailable to actors, directors and producers), usingpseudonyms 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".[51]
Of the 204 who signed the amicus brief on behalf of the Hollywood Ten, 84 were themselves blacklisted.[52] There was a general chilling effect in the entertainment business. Humphrey Bogart, who had been a key member of the Committee for the First Amendment, felt compelled to write an essay, printed in the May 1948 issue ofPhotoplay magazine, that vigorously denied he was a Communist sympathizer.[53] TheTenney Committee, which had continued its state-level investigations, summoned songwriterIra Gershwin to explain his involvement with the First Amendment Committee because involvement alone was sufficient to arouse suspicion.[54]
The May 7, 1948, issue of theCounterattack newsletter warned readers about a radio talk show that had recently expanded its audience by moving from theMutual network toABC: "Communist Party members and fellow-travelers have often been guests on [Arthur] Gaeth's program."
A number of non-governmental organizations participated in enforcing and expanding the blacklist; in particular, theAmerican Legion, the conservative war veterans' group, was instrumental in pressuring the studios to ban Communists and fellow travelers. In 1949, the Americanism Division of the Legion issued its own blacklist – a roster of 128 people who it claimed were part of the "Communist Conspiracy". Among the names on the Legion's list was that of playwrightLillian Hellman.[55] Hellman had written or contributed to the screenplays of approximately ten motion pictures up to that point; she was not 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 publicationCounterattack, "The Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism", it declared that it was run by "a group offormer FBI men. It has no affiliation whatsoever with any government agency." Notwithstanding that claim, it seems the editors ofCounterattack had direct access to the files of both theFederal Bureau of Investigation and HUAC; the results of that access became widely apparent with the June 1950 publication ofRed Channels. ThisCounterattack 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.[56] A few of those named, such as Hellman, were already being denied employment in the motion picture, TV, and radio fields; the publication ofRed Channels meant that scores more were placed on the blacklist. That year,CBS instituted a loyalty oath which it required of all its employees.[57]
Jean Muir was the first performer to lose employment because of a listing inRed Channels. In 1950, Muir was named as aCommunist sympathizer in the pamphlet, and was immediately removed from the cast of the television sitcomThe Aldrich Family, in which she had been cast as Mrs. Aldrich. NBC had received between 20 and 30 phone calls protesting her being in the show.General Foods, the sponsor, said it would not sponsor programs that featured "controversial persons". Though the company later received thousands of calls protesting the decision, it was not reversed.[58]
In 1951, with the U.S. Congress now under Democratic control, HUAC launched a second investigation of communism in Hollywood. As actorLarry 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.[59]
Parks ultimately testified, becoming, albeit reluctantly, a "friendly witness", and found himself blacklisted anyway.
The legal tactics of those refusing to testify had changed by this time. Instead of relying on the First Amendment, they invoked theFifth Amendment's shield against self-incrimination (although, 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" in one's HUAC testimony guaranteed membership on the industry blacklist.[60]
Historians sometimes distinguish between (a) the "official blacklist" – i.e., the names of those who were called by the HUAC and, in whatever manner, refused to cooperate or were identified as Communists in the hearings – and (b) thegraylist – those who were denied work because of their political or personal affiliations, real or imagined. The consequences of being on either list 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 onPoverty Row: ComposerElmer Bernstein, for instance, was called before the HUAC when it was discovered 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 asCat Women of the Moon.[61]
Anti-communist tract from the 1950s, decrying the "REDS of Hollywood and Broadway"
While there were film artists like Parks and Dmytryk who eventually cooperated with the HUAC, other friendly witnesses gave damaging testimony with less apparent hesitation or reluctance, most notably directorElia Kazan and screenwriterBudd Schulberg. Their willingness to describe the political leanings of their friends and professional associates effectively brought a halt to dozens of careers. After being named, a number of artists departed for Mexico or Europe to find employment. DirectorJules Dassin was among the best known of the Hollywood exiles. Briefly a Communist, he dropped out of the Party in 1939. He was blacklisted after Dmytryk and fellow filmmakerFrank Tuttle named him at HUAC hearings. Dassin left for France, and spent much of his remaining career in Greece.[62]
The HUAC hearings sometimes swept onto the blacklist those who had no plausible connection to the search for Communist infiltration. In his bookThe Great Fear about McCarthy-era purges,David Caute writes:
Particularly bewildered were the quite numerous victims whose names or faces were confused with those on the list. The actorEverett Sloane suffered because his name resembled that of the scriptwriter and self-professed former CommunistAllan E. Sloane; when the actressMadeline Lee, a specialist in radio baby noises, was blacklisted, three other actresses, innocent of all political activity, faced ruin – one because she was called Madeline Lee, one (Camila Ashland) because she resembled Madeline Lee and one (Madeleine Pierce) because she too was a proven baby-gurgler. John Cogley cited the case of an actor who spent four years trying to prove that he could not have served in theAbraham Lincoln Brigade.[63][64]
The hunt for subversives extended into every branch of the entertainment industry. In the field of animation, two studios in particular were affected:United Productions of America (UPA) fired a large portion of its staff, while the New York-based Tempo Productions was entirely destroyed.[65] HUAC investigations could destroy families as well. For example, screenwriterRichard Collins, after a brief period on the blacklist, became a friendly witness and abandoned his wife, actressDorothy Comingore, who refused to name names. After divorcing Comingore, Collins gained custody of the couple's young son and daughter.[66] The family's story was dramatized in the filmGuilty by Suspicion (1991), in which a character based on Comingore "commits suicide rather than endure a long mental collapse."[67] In real life, Comingore succumbed to alcoholism and died of a pulmonary disease at age 58. According to historiansPaul 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."[68]
For all that transpired in the HUAC hearings, the proof that Communists actually used Hollywood films as vehicles for subversion remained hard to come by. Schulberg reported how his manuscript for the novelWhat Makes Sammy Run? (later a screenplay also) had been subject to ideological critique by Hollywood Ten writerJohn Howard Lawson, whose comments he had solicited. But the significance of such interactions may have been exaggerated. As historianGerald Horne notes, many Hollywood screenwriters had joined or associated with the local CPUSA chapter not because of allegiance to communism, but because the CPUSA chapter "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 andRing 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.'"[69] Much of the onscreen evidence of Communist influence uncovered by the HUAC was flimsy at best. One witness rememberedLionel Stander, while performing in a film, whistling the left-wing "Internationale" as his character waited for an elevator. "Another noted that screenwriterLester Cole had inserted lines from a famous pro-Loyalist speech byLa 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."[70]
Others have argued that Communists did affect the film industry by suppressing production of works they politically opposed. In aReason magazine article entitled "Hollywood's Missing Movies", Kenneth Billingsley cites a case where Trumbo "bragged" in theDaily Worker about quashing films with anti-Soviet content: among them were proposed adaptations ofArthur Koestler's anti-totalitarian booksDarkness at Noon andThe Yogi and the Commissar, which described the rise of communism in Russia, andVictor Kravchenko'sI Chose Freedom.[71] Authors Ronald and Allis Radosh make a similar point inRed Star over Hollywood that prominent anti-Communist books were only influential "in the rare intellectual atmosphere of the East Coast" but were kept apart from Hollywood's consideration.[72]
In 1952, theScreen Writers Guild – founded in 1933 by three future members of the Hollywood Ten – amended itsscreen credit rules to authorize the studios to omit the names of any individuals who had failed to clear themselves before Congress.[73] This agreement prevented a recurrence of what happened in 1950. That's when the blacklistedDalton Trumbo inadvertently received screen credit for having written, years earlier, the story on which the screenplay forColumbia Pictures'Emergency Wedding was based. But "lapses" of that kind were not repeated. There were no more instances of film accrediting of blacklisted individuals until 1960. For example, the name ofAlbert Maltz, who had written the original screenplay forThe Robe in the mid-1940s, was nowhere to be seen when the movie was released in 1953.[74]
As William O'Neill notes, pressure was maintained even on those who had ostensibly been cleared:
On December 27, 1952, the American Legion announced that it disapproved of a new film,Moulin Rouge, starringJosé 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 ofToulouse-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".[75]
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 co-operate with HUAC."[76]Orson Bean recalled that he had briefly been placed on the blacklist after dating a member of the Party, despite his own politics being conservative.[77]
During this same period, a number of powerful newspaper columnists covering the entertainment industry, includingWalter Winchell,Hedda Hopper,Victor Riesel,Jack O'Brian, andGeorge Sokolsky, regularly suggested names that should be added to the blacklist.[78] ActorJohn Ireland received an out-of-court settlement to end a 1954 lawsuit against theYoung & Rubicam advertising agency, which had ordered him dropped from the lead role in a TV 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 non-conformist, or worse, has been used against show business personalities, and that a screening system is at work determining these [actors'] availabilities for roles."[79]
Storm Center, the first Hollywood movie to overtly take onMcCarthyism, was released in 1956.Bette Davis "plays a small-town librarian who refuses, on principle, to remove a book calledThe Communist Dream from the shelves when the local council deems it subversive."[80]
The Hollywood blacklist had long gone hand in hand with the Red-baiting activities ofJ. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Adversaries of HUAC such as lawyerBartley Crum – who defended Hollywood Ten members in front of the committee – were themselves branded as Communist sympathizers and targeted for investigation. The FBI tapped Crum's phones, opened his mail, and placed him under continuous surveillance. As a consequence, he lost most of his clients and, unable to cope with the stress of ceaseless harassment, committed suicide in 1959.[81] 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 theCivil Rights Movement and the opposition tonuclear weapons testing.[82][83]
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 westernHigh Noon (1952), in which a town marshal (played, ironically, by friendly witnessGary Cooper) finds himself deserted by the good citizens of Hadleyville (read: Hollywood) when a gang of outlaws who had terrorized the town several years earlier (read: HUAC) returns."[84] Cooper's lawman cleaned up Hadleyville, but Foreman was forced to leave for Europe to find work. Meanwhile, 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 eightAcademy Awards, including Oscars for Best Film, Kazan's direction, and Schulberg's screenplay. The film featuredLee J. Cobb, an actor known to have named names.Time Out Film Guide argues thatOn the Waterfront is "undermined" by its "embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers."[85]
After his release from prison,Herbert Biberman of the Hollywood Ten directedSalt of the Earth (1954). For this project, he and the newly formed Independent Productions Corporation worked in New Mexico, outside thestudio system, with a group of blacklisted professionals: producerPaul Jarrico, writerMichael Wilson, and actorWill Geer. The film, which concerns a strike by Mexican-American mine workers – with an ahead-of-its-time subplot "about the growing feminist consciousness of the workers' wives"[86] – 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. In 1954, only about a dozen theaters in the U.S. exhibitedSalt of the Earth.[87]
Jules Dassin was one of the first to successfully defy the blacklist. Although he was named byEdward Dmytryk andFrank Tuttle in spring 1951,[88] Dassin still managed to direct in December 1952 the Broadway playTwo's Company withBette Davis. In June 1956, his French-made filmRififi opened at the Fine Arts Theater in New York[89] and stayed for 20 weeks.
A key figure in bringing an end to blacklisting wasJohn Henry Faulk. Host of an afternoon comedy radio show, Faulk was a leftist active in theAmerican Federation of Television and Radio Artists union. He was scrutinized byAWARE, Inc., a private firm that examined individuals for signs of "disloyalty" and Communist sympathies. Marked by AWARE as unfit, Faulk was fired by CBS Radio. Almost alone among blacklisting's victims, he decided to sue AWARE.[90] Though his case which began in 1957 dragged through the courts for years, the suit itself was an important symbol of the building resistance to the status quo.[91]
The initial cracks in the blacklist were evident on television, specifically at CBS. In 1957, blacklisted actorNorman Lloyd was hired byAlfred Hitchcock as an associate producer for the anthology seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presents, then entering its third season on the network.[92] On November 30, 1958, a live CBS production ofWonderful Town, based on short stories written by then-CommunistRuth McKenney, appeared with the proper writing credit of blacklistedEdward Chodorov, along with his literary partner, Joseph Fields.[93] The following year, actressBetty Hutton insisted that blacklisted composerJerry Fielding must be hired as musical director for her new series, also on CBS.[94]
The first big break in the Hollywood blacklist followed soon after. On January 20, 1960, directorOtto Preminger publicly announced that Dalton Trumbo, one of the best known members of the Hollywood Ten, would be the screenwriter of Preminger's forthcoming filmExodus.[95] Six and a half months later, withExodus still to debut,The New York Times reported thatUniversal Pictures would give Trumbo screen credit for his writing work onSpartacus, a decision now recognized as being largely made by the film's star/producerKirk Douglas.[96] On October 6,Spartacus premiered – the first movie to bear Trumbo's name since he had received story credit onEmergency Wedding in 1950. In the period from 1947 to 1960, Trumbo had written or co-written approximately 17 motion pictures without credit.Exodus followed in December 1960, also bearing Trumbo's name. The blacklist was clearly coming to an end, but its effects continued to reverberate into the next century.[97]
John Henry Faulk won his lawsuit in 1962. With this court decision, the private blacklisters and those who enforced entertainment industry blacklists were put on notice that they werelegally liable for the professional and financial damage they caused, which helped bring a halt to "smear" publications likeCounterattack.[98] However, a number of blacklistees, such as Adrian Scott and Lillian Hellman, remainedpersonae non gratae for several more years. The character actor Lionel Stander could not find film work until 1965.[99] Hollywood Ten screenwriters John Howard Lawson and Lester Cole, who did not renounce communism in later life, were never "un-blacklisted".[100][101]
Some of those who named names, like Kazan and Schulberg, argued afterward that they had made an ethically proper decision. Others, like actorLee J. Cobb and directorMichael 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."[102] A few "informers" were haunted by the choice they made. In 1963, actorSterling Hayden declared,
I was a rat, a stoolie, and the names I named of those close friends were blacklisted and deprived of their livelihood.[103]
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."[103]
Because the Hollywood blacklist was (apart from theWaldorf Statement) largely an unspoken phenomenon,[104] it was possible subsequently to deny or revise what had happened. In a 1980 interview with journalistRobert Scheer, U.S. presidential candidate and former SAG president Ronald Reagan was asked for his recollections about the blacklist. In his view, the film industry "had responded to Communist domination of several unions and Communist efforts to take over the industry. They had 'gotten into positions where they could destroy careers, and did destroy them. There was no blacklist in Hollywood. The blacklist in Hollywood, if there was one, was provided by the Communists.'"[27][105]
In the 1990s and 2000s, theWriters Guild pursued the correction of screen credits in movies of the 1950s and early 1960s to accurately reflect the contributions of blacklisted writers such asCarl Foreman andHugo Butler.[106] Due to guild pressure, the credits forLawrence of Arabia (1962) on its 40th anniversary re-release in 2002 (both for theatres andDVD) were finally altered to read "Screenplay byRobert Bolt andMichael Wilson".[107][108] On December 19, 2011, the guild, acting on a request for an investigation made by his dying sonChristopher Trumbo, confirmed that Dalton Trumbo would get full credit for his story and screenplay for the romantic comedyRoman Holiday (1953), almost sixty years after the fact.[109]
On September 27, 1947, the HUAC subpoenaed the following nineteen individuals in an effort to investigate "subversive" elements in the entertainment industry:[20][110]
The HUAC claimed these men were affiliated with the CPUSA and had injected Communist propaganda into their films. Although the claims were never substantiated, the investigators demanded the "Hollywood Nineteen" admit their political beliefs and name names of other Communists. Due to illnesses, scheduling conflicts, and exhaustion from the chaotic hearings, only the first eleven in the list were called to testify. Brecht, the one foreigner in the group, pretended to cooperate and then fled for Europe. The other ten refused to answer questions about their membership in the Screen Writers Guild or Communist Party. The HUAC charged them with contempt of Congress and they were immediately blacklisted. The ten Americans who testified were referred to as the "Unfriendly Ten" but soon were more commonly known as the "Hollywood Ten".[111][112]
In 1947, belonging to the CPUSA did not yet constitute a crime, and the committee's right to investigate people's beliefs and associations was legally problematic. As their defense, the Ten relied on the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of thought (and the right to keep one's thoughts private), but the committee charged the men with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions. Subsequent witnesses (exceptPete Seeger) tried different defense strategies.[113]
Acknowledging the potential for punishment, the Ten resisted the HUAC's authority. They yelled at the chairman and treated the committee with indignation. Upon receiving their contempt citations, they assumed the Supreme Court would overturn the rulings, which did not turn out to be true. As a result, they were convicted of contempt and fined $1,000 each, and served prison terms ranging from six months to a year. In keeping with the harsh political atmosphere of the time, the Hollywood Ten were likely the first Americans ever imprisoned for contempt of Congress, amisdemeanor offense.[114][115]
Martin Redish has suggested the First Amendment's right of free expression was wielded in these cases more to protect the powers of the Congressional accusers than to protect the rights of the accused.[116] After seeing the ineffectiveness of the First Amendment-based defense adopted by the Hollywood Ten, later defendants opted to plead the Fifth Amendment (against self-incrimination).
Public support for the Hollywood Ten wavered, as everyday citizen-observers were never really sure what to make of them. Some of the blacklistees wrote about their experiences. John Howard Lawson, the Hollywood Ten's unofficial leader, published a book attacking the film industry for its capitulation to the HUAC. While mostly blaming the studio executives, he also defended the Ten and castigated Edward Dmytryk for being the only member to recant and cooperate with the committee.[117]
In his 1981 autobiography,Hollywood Red, screenwriter Lester Cole affirmed that virtually all of the Hollywood Ten had joined the CPUSA at some point.[118] Other members of the Hollywood Ten, such asDalton Trumbo[119] andEdward Dmytryk,[120] publicly admitted to being Communists while testifying before the committee.
When Dmytryk wrote his memoir about the Hollywood blacklist, he denounced the Ten and defended his decision to work with the HUAC and name names. Characterizing himself as the "odd man out", he claimed to have left the CPUSA well before he was subpoenaed. He condemned the Ten's legal strategy of defying Congress, and regretted staying with the group for as long as he did.[121]
^ The following transcript excerpt from the interrogation of screenwriterJohn Howard Lawson by HUAC chairmanJ. Parnell Thomas gives an example of the tenor of some of the exchanges:
Thomas: Are you a member of the Communist Party, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Lawson: It is unfortunate and tragic that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of American— Thomas: (pounding gavel) That is not the question. That is not the question. The question is: Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Lawson: I am framing my answer in the only way in which any American citizen can frame his answer to a question which absolutely invades his rights. Thomas: Then you refuse to answer that question; is that correct? Lawson: I have told you that I will offer my beliefs, affiliations, and everything else to the American public, and they will know where I stand. Thomas: (pounding gavel) Excuse the witness— Lawson: As they do from what I have written. Thomas: (pounding gavel) Stand away from the stand— Lawson: I have written Americanism for many years, and I shall continue to fight for the Bill of Rights, which you are trying to destroy. Thomas: Officer, take this man away from the stand— [Applause and boos.][280][281]
^ At least a couple of recent histories incorrectly give December 3 as the date of the Waldorf Statement: Ross (2002), p. 217; Stone (2004), p. 365. Among the many 1947 sources that establish the correct date, there is aNew York Times article with the lengthy title, "Movies to Oust Ten Cited For Contempt of Congress; Major Companies Also Vote to Refuse Jobs to Communists – 'Hysteria, Surrender of Freedom' Charged by Defense Counsel; Movies Will Oust Ten Men Cited for Contempt of Congress After Voting to Refuse Employment to Communists", which appeared on the newspaper's front page on November 26.[282]
^ To illustrate how arbitrary the blacklist could be, Victor Navasky relates what happened to screenwriterMichael Blankfort. He had contributed to theDaily Worker andNew Masses and was named as a Communist byLouis Budenz. But because Blankfort insisted during his testimony that he never joined the CPUSA, he told the committee he had no names to give them. However, he was friendly and cooperative in all other ways. He was excused without being thanked. His lawyerMartin Gang immediately went up to the chairman of the hearing,Francis Walter, and said he had forgotten to thank Blankfort. As Blankfort recalls, "Walter called the court reporter of the Committee over and told him to put in a thank you so that I could be clear of the blacklist, and that's what he put down." As a result of this one insertion in theCongressional Record, Blankfort was never blacklisted and in fact served as a "front" for Albert Maltz's Academy Award-nominated screenplay forBroken Arrow (1950).[283]
^ Madeline Lee – who was married to actor Jack Gilford, also listed byRed Channels – was frequently confused with another actress of the era namedMadaline Lee.[284]
^ Four months after refusing to cooperate with the HUAC, Dagget appeared again before the committee and named names.[285]
^ In 1951, Dare appeared before the HUAC, lied about having never been a Communist, and continued to work in the entertainment industry. He was blacklisted two years later for his involvement inMeet the People, a 1939 theatrical production. Soon afterward, he recanted his earlier testimony and named names.[286]
^Caute, David (1979).The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. Touchstone. p. 530.ISBN0671248480.Most of the victims were never explicitly informed why they could no longer find work.
^Buhle, Mari Jo; Buhle, Paul; Georgakas, Dan, eds. (1990). "Communist Party, USA".Encyclopedia of the American Left. New York: Garland Publishing. p. 152.ISBN978-0824047818.OCLC20997216. Buhle and Georgakas write that during the CPUSA's peak year of 1942, membership reached 85,000.
^"Screen Guide for Americans"(PDF). Beverly Hills, CA: The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. 1947 – via Michigan State University Libraries.
^Cohen, Karl F. (2004) [1997].Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. pp. 169–170.ISBN0-7864-0395-0.
^"Testimony of Ronald Reagan and Walter E. Disney". History Matters. Archived fromthe original on 30 June 2015. Reagan's first wife, actressJane Wyman, later said – as reported by Joe Morella in his 1985 biography of Wyman – that Reagan's political accusations against colleagues and friends led to tension in their marriage, eventually resulting in their divorce.
^Billingsley, Kenneth Lloyd (1998).Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s. Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing. pp. 191–195.ISBN978-0761513766.
^Griffin, Sean, ed. (2011).What Dreams Were Made Of: Movie Stars of the 1940s. Rutgers University Press. p. 92.ISBN978-0813549637.
^Radosh, Ronald; Radosh, Allis (2005).Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left. San Francisco: Encounter Books. pp. 161–162.LCCN2005047324.
^Dmytryk, Edward (1996).Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 59.ISBN978-0809319992.In the early days of the Martin Dies Committee ... the question had simply been, Are you a member of the Communist Party of the United States? As a countermeasure, the Party adopted a rule that automatically cancelled a Communist's membership the moment the question was asked. He could then answer 'No' without perjuring himself. The final wording ... was adopted to circumvent the Party's tactic.
^Buhle, Paul; Wagner, David (2003a).Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950–2002. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1-4039-6144-1.
^Susman, Gary (August 19, 2004)."Goodbye". EntertainmentWeekly.com.Archived from the original on 2011-09-22. Retrieved2009-02-27."Composer Elmer Bernstein Dead at 82". Today.com (Associated Press). August 19, 2004.Archived from the original on 2017-04-20. Retrieved2009-02-27.
^McGilligan, Patrick; Buhle, Paul (1997).Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 413.ISBN0-312-17046-7.
^Christensen and Haas (2005), pp. 116–117 ("screened in only eleven theaters"); Weigand (2002), p. 133 ("arranged showings of the film in only fourteen theaters").
^Walsh, David (3 April 2008)."Jules Dassin, victim of the anti-communist witch-hunt, dies at 96". World Socialist Web Site. Archived fromthe original on 30 September 2012.the anti-communist frenzy of the 1950s ... crippled artistic and intellectual life in the US for decades. The film industry still suffers from the purge of left-wing and critical spirits.
^Cole 1981, pp. 399–401. Commenting on the late 1960s & early '70s, Cole wrote: "The Blacklist was still in effect for some, certainly for John Howard Lawson and myself.... The Un-American Activities Committee was gone, but its ghost was alive and well in Hollywood."
^"Lawrence of Arabia".Art of the Title. Retrieved30 October 2025. Interview with Grover Crisp ofSony Pictures who oversaw the alteration of the screenplay credit.
^Redish, Martin (2005).The Logic of Persecution: Free Expression and the McCarthy Era. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 132.
^Lawson, John Howard (1953).Film in the Battle of Ideas(PDF). New York: Masses & Mainstream. p. 12.These absurdities ['red influence' over film content] were endorsed by stoolpigeon witnesses such as Dmytryk and Kazan, who eagerly testified about left-wing interference with their 'artistic integrity.'
^Cole, Lester (1981).Hollywood Red: The Autobiography of Lester Cole. Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press. p. 267.ISBN978-0878670857.
^Schneir, Walter; Schneir, Miriam (16 April 2009). "Cables Coming in from the Cold".The Nation.Bernstein is mentioned by his real name in a singleVenona message from 1944, which states that he has 'promised to write a report on his trip.'
^Canham, Kingsley; Denton, Clive (1976).The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 5: King Vidor, John Cromwell, Mervyn LeRoy. London: Tantivy Press; A. S. Barnes. p. 104.ISBN0-904-20811-7. Cromwell's name was "mentioned several times during the [HUAC] hearings."
^Abrams, Earl B. (September 1, 1952). "'Red' Probings; More Details Expected".Broadcasting Telecasting. p. 27,88. Retrieved August 5, 2025. "Among those charged with pro-Communist ideology were Ira Marion, eastern region RWG vice president, and the following members of the guild council: Sam Moore, Robert Cenedella, George Fass, Philo Higley, Ernest Kinoy, Dave Kogan, Sig Miller, Norman Ober, Addie Richton, Howard Rodman and Jack Bentkover."
^Boyer (1996); Navasky (1980), p. 74; Cogley (1956), p. 124.
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