Hollywood blacklist

The Hollywood blacklist was the mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from working in the United States entertainment industry. The blacklist began at the onset of the Cold War and Red Scare, and affected entertainment production in Hollywood, 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 the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), or on the basis of their refusal to assist Congressional or FBI 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. 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. Although the blacklist had no official end date, it was generally recognized to have weakened by 1960, the year when Dalton Trumbo – a CPUSA member from 1943 to 1948, and also one of the "Hollywood Ten" – was openly hired by director Otto Preminger to write the screenplay for Exodus (1960). Several months later, actor Kirk Douglas publicly acknowledged that Trumbo wrote the screenplay for Spartacus (1960). Despite Trumbo's breakthrough in 1960, other blacklisted film artists continued to have difficulty obtaining work for years afterward.

Hollywood Ten and beyond

The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten left-wing screenwriters and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The ten men – Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo – had been subpoenaed by the committee in late September to testify about their Communist affiliations and associates. The contempt citation included a criminal charge that led to a highly publicized trial and conviction, with a maximum of one year in jail in addition to a $1,000 fine ($13,400 today). The Congressional action prompted a group of studio executives, acting under the aegis of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, to suspend without pay these ten film artists – initially labeled "The Unfriendly Ten" but soon changed to "The Hollywood Ten" – and to pledge that "thereafter no Communists or other subversives would 'knowingly' be employed in Hollywood." The blacklist eventually expanded beyond ten into the hundreds. On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet-style book entitled Red 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. It was not long before those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in the entertainment field.

History

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