Dark History of Hollywood: A Century of Greed, Corruption and Scandal behind the Movies (Dark Histories)

by Kieron Connolly

  Dedicated to exposing Communist conspiracies, the Dies Committee was led by congressman Martin Dies (pictured sitting centre). It was established by an alliance of Republicans and Democrats united in their hostility to Roosevelt’s New Deal.

  Congressman Martin Dies claimed that members of the Anti-Nazi League were, at best, Communist dupes and Hollywood was a ‘hotbed of Communism’.

  Paranoia was being stoked. In 1938, Texas Congressman Martin Dies made a national radio broadcast in which he claimed that members of the Anti-Nazi League were, at best, Communist dupes, and that he had a list of nearly 40 film personalities (which included Joan Crawford and Paul Muni), who were on record as contributors to what he loosely termed ‘Communist causes’. Hollywood, he told the Press, was a ‘hotbed of Communism’.

  The following year, another of Dies’s lists was leaked to the Press, stating that 40 Hollywood names, including Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, were Communists. Actor Lionel Stander was on this list and first appeared before the Dies Committee (the forerunner of the House Committee on Un-American Activities) in 1940. ‘They gave me a clean bill of health,’ he said later. ‘I swore I wasn’t a member of the Communist Party and had never been, and that was it … They professed to investigate un-American activities but what they actually did was to attack anyone and everyone who supported Roosevelt’s New Deal.’

  ‘ … what they actually did was to attack anyone and everyone who supported Roosevelt’s New Deal.’

  Corruption in the Unions

  As it turned out, everyone investigated by the Dies Committee was cleared to work, apart from Stander, who was fired. Why? The previous year he’d spoken out against corruption in the technicians’ union, the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), and had cited the criminal records of its president, George E. Browne, and IATSE’s Hollywood representative Willie Bioff (pronounced ‘buy off’). IATSE was universally recognized by the studios, making it the most powerful union, but it was also widely known that it was controlled by the Mafia through Browne and Bioff.

  Lionel Stander and Virginia Dale in No Time To Marry (1938). Stander managed to get himself blacklisted, not for being a member of the Communist Party (he wasn’t), but because he’d spoken out against the corruption of the studios.

  Herbert Sorrell established a rival union to IATSE in the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU). IATSE responded by accusing the CSU of being infiltrated by Communists. In turn IATSE was accused of being a studio front.

  So, as a reward for speaking out, Stander’s contract with Columbia wasn’t renewed and Columbia’s Harry Cohn stated that any studio that signed Stander would be subject to a $1000 fine from the Motion Pictures’ Producers Association. From 1939, Stander went to work for independent producers.

  Communist Europe

  During the 1930s, Hollywood liberals had been actively anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi, but the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact, by which the forces of Fascism and Communism in Europe teamed up, surprised everyone. Now, being an idealistic supporter of Communist ideals of common ownership and equality (if not actual Soviet Communism) became tainted with supporting Hitler’s aggressive expansionism and anti-Semitism in Europe. Furthermore, the Moscow show trials of 1936–8, where the old Bolshevik guard had been purged, exiled or executed by Stalin, had revealed to the West an uglier side to Soviet Communism. As a result, the Red Scare intensified, and, in 1941, Walt Disney took out advertisements in the trade newspapers on the danger of Communist agitators behind an animator’s strike.

  The Red Scare intensified, and, in 1941, Walt Disney took out advertisements in the trade newspapers on the danger of Communist agitators behind an animator’s strike.

  In the autumn of 1945, the Conference of Studio Unions called a strike of carpenters, set painters and other studio staff. Outside Warner Bros., the strike became violent, with armed police charging the picket lines.

  But was the target really Communists or the unions? According to director Edward Dmytryk, ‘The Hollywood Right-wing leaders wanted to stop the unions short.’ While there had been Communists active in the SWG and several actors had briefly been Party members, Dmytryk reckoned there were only about eight directors in the Directors Guild who were Communists and only 250 Communists in all Hollywood. (At its peak there were never more than 50,000 members of the Communist Party in the entire USA.)

  US entry into World War II in 1941 led to a no-strike pledge by the unions, but in the autumn of 1945, a strike of carpenters, set painters and other studio staff turned violent outside Warner Bros. Armed police charged the picket lines, strikers fought back, fire hoses were turned on them and tear gas was used. Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild, led actors in breaking the picket lines. Again, it was claimed that it wasn’t just left-wing unions that were being defeated; Reagan went on record saying he’d ‘headed off this Communist takeover plot’, which, said writer Philip Dunne, ‘was sheer, absolute eyewash – it never existed’. In response to this perceived threat in Hollywood, in 1947 Walt Disney co-founded the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a political action group that issued a pamphlet advising producers on the avoidance of ‘subtle communistic touches’ in their films by following a list of commandments: wealth, free enterprise, industrialists and the profit motive were not to be besmirched, while the common man and the collective weren’t to be glorified.

  Ronald Reagan went on record saying he’d ‘headed off a Communist takeover plot,’ which, said writer Philip Dunne, ‘was sheer, absolute eyewash – it never existed’.

  John Parnell Thomas (second left) and members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948. Thomas himself later went to prison for corruption. Far right is the congressman for California and future President Richard Nixon.

  Un-American Activities

  Also in 1947, a more aggressive House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), chaired by Republican J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, targeted Hollywood. Parnell had become convinced that recent strikes had been inspired by Communism and told the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) that every Communist employed in Hollywood should be dismissed because they were dedicated to the overthrow of the American government and were using their films to achieve this. The MPAA responded that they’d do no such thing, but the following month Jack Warner called for ‘an all-out fight on the Commies’.

  The Hollywood Ten in 1948. They were known as the ‘unfriendly’ witnesses because they’d refused to give evidence before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. They were ultimately given prison sentences for contempt of Congress.

  That reduced the group to ten, who became famously known as the Hollywood Ten, all members of the Communist Party.

  With the help of the FBI in gathering information (as Ronald Reagan was passing names to them, they were also tapping phone lines, including that of actor Edward G. Robinson), HUAC issued subpoenas to 43 Hollywood people. These were divided into two groups to appear at Committee hearings. The first group became known as ‘friendly’ witnesses because they were willing to name fellow Hollywood workers who were believed to be Communist Party members – most of whom were. Along with being asked if they had ever been members of the Communist Party, witnesses were asked if they’d ever been members of the SWG, as if it were virtually the same thing.

  The second group consisted of 19 writers, producers, directors and actors who were suspected of Communist sympathies. They became known as the ‘unfriendly’ witnesses. After preliminary hearings in Los Angeles, 11 of the 19 ‘unfriendly’ witnesses were called to testify in Washington. German playwright Bertolt Brecht denied that he was a Communist and within hours flew back to Europe, settling in Communist East Germany. When Brecht left the US, that reduced the group to ten, who became famously known as the Hollywood Ten, all of whom had at one time been members of the Communist Party. They were, seven screenwriters: John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner Jr, Alvah Bessie,
Lester Cole, Samuel Ornitz and Albert Maltz; one producer: Adrian Scott; and two directors: Edward Dmytryk and Herbert Biberman.

  Dmytryk had had a successful career, but once the pink subpoena arrived, his life, and those of the other members of the Hollywood Ten, changed. ‘All of a sudden I was getting phone calls from my friends saying, “You’re not going to continue going with this man are you?”’, said Dmytryk’s wife, actress Jean Porter. ‘Some of his friends dropped away, some of my friends dropped away. He didn’t believe for one minute that he would be fired, but both our careers were affected.’

  A fightback against HUAC quickly began to take shape and many Hollywood names not directly under suspicion formed the Committee for the First Amendment.

  During the HUAC hearings the ‘unfriendly’ 19 stayed at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. ‘No foreign city could have been more alien and hostile,’ said their supporter, writer Howard Koch. ‘All our hotel rooms were bugged. When we wanted to talk with each other, we had to either keep twirling a metal key to jam the circuit or go out of doors.’

  Subversive Cinema?

  Naturally, a fightback against HUAC quickly began to take shape and many Hollywood names not directly under suspicion, such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, John Huston and Philip Dunne, formed the Committee for the First Amendment, and all flew to Washington to protest at the undemocratic nature of HUAC.

  ‘We were so angry that headline-hunting Congressmen would use Hollywood and motion pictures as a step to their own self-glorification,’ said actress Marsha Hunt. Since the film-makers who had appeared before HUAC had been accused of inserting Communist propaganda into their films, their supporters called press conferences to explain how difficult that would have been. ‘You’d have to have been some kind of great magician to be able to get any real Communist propaganda into a film,’ Edward Dmytryk later wrote, ‘because the people who financed our pictures were the bankers, and they were all good one hundred percent American capitalists. It’s crazy to think that I could have put propaganda into a film that the common man would understand but that the capitalists wouldn’t. Besides, Communistic manifestos are very dull drama.’

  ‘It’s crazy to think that I could have put propaganda into a film that the common man would understand but that the capitalists wouldn’t.’

  Hollywood was divided. On the Right was Disney’s Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, represented, among others, by Cecil B. DeMille, John Wayne and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and on the Left the Committee for the First Amendment. Many of the newspapers were highly critical of HUAC. ‘We do not believe the committee is conducting a fair investigation,’ read an editorial in the New York Times. ‘We think the course upon which it is embarked threatens to lead to greater dangers than those with which it is presently concerned.’ In fact, the hearings generated such bad publicity for HUAC that they were cut short, with eight of the ‘unfriendly’ 19 not being heard. That, however, did not improve things for the Hollywood Ten. ‘Once we were subpoenaed,’ Edward Dmytryk said, ‘we were all broke within six months, because we couldn’t work.’

  The Hollywood Ten

  It’s possible that the Hollywood Ten would have fared better if they’d handled the HUAC hearings differently. Rather than being united over pleading their right to free speech in the First Amendment and saying nothing else (as once intended), their responses to the questions were evasive, verbose, disorganized and antagonistic towards the Committee.

  Made up of Hollywood figures, the Committee for the First Amendment flew to Washington in October 1947 to support the Hollywood Ten. At the bottom of the steps are Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

  Despite the efforts of the Committee for the First Amendment to protect freedom of speech, when Congress cited the Ten for contempt, the studios quickly buckled under pressure from their New York financiers.

  ‘I think they were extremely foolish and had very bad legal advice,’ said Philip Dunne, part of the Committee for the First Amendment who tried to advise the Ten. ‘When you’re in the lion’s den, don’t make the lion any madder than he is – to begin with, use the chair, in this case the First Amendment.’

  On 24 November 1947, Congress voted to cite the Hollywood Ten for contempt, and three days later, the Hollywood studios announced in the ‘Waldorf Statement’ that the film industry would not ‘knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method’. Philip Dunne called it ‘a complete surrender to what I like to call un-Americans’.

  In Los Angeles, studio heads Samuel Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, Harry Cohn and Dore Schary opposed the decree, but pressure from their financial backers in New York prevailed. Prompted by HUAC, Hollywood had quickly attacked itself. One didn’t have to be guilty; suspicion was enough. The studios ‘were frightened at the thought of boycotts of their films,’ said actor Gregory Peck. ‘Anything that threatened the box office threatened them; they were certainly not courageous.’

  Congress voted to cite the Hollywood Ten for contempt, and three days later, the Hollywood studios announced that the film industry would not ‘knowingly employ a Communist’.

  HANNS EISLER

  ONE OF HUAC’S first targets was German composer Hanns Eisler, whose entry visa in 1939 had been helped by Eleanor Roosevelt. By attacking Eisler, it was possible to besmirch both Hollywood and Eleanor Roosevelt, and thereby the ‘the un-Americanism’ of her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  A member of the Communist Party when he lived in Germany, Eisler had had his work with playwright Bertolt Brecht banned by the Nazi Party and had gone into exile. After travelling for a number of years, he made his way to Hollywood, where he worked on numerous film scores. At his HUAC hearing, one of the witnesses said: ‘My purpose is to show that Mr. Eisler is the Karl Marx of communism in the musical field.’ To which Eisler replied: ‘I would be flattered.’

  Despite no evidence being found that Eisler was plotting a Communist takeover, he was ordered to be deported from the US. In 1948, when Eisler and his wife were about to fly from New York, he read out a statement: ‘I leave this country not without bitterness and infuriation. I could well understand it when in 1933 the Hitler bandits put a price on my head and drove me out. They were the evil of the period; I was proud at being driven out. But I feel heartbroken over being driven out of this beautiful country in this ridiculous way.’ On his experience with HUAC he said: ‘As an old anti-Fascist it became plain to me that these men represent fascism in its most direct form.’ Eisler lived in Communist East Germany for the rest of his life, although he became increasingly at odds with the system.

  With falling box office figures and the rise of television in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Hollywood studios were perhaps more willing to sacrifice some of their best talent to appease the witch-hunt.

  Perhaps some of the willingness for the studios to bow to the pressure of HUAC was their weakened financial status in the late 1940s, having been forced by law to sell off their cinema chains and no longer being able to dictate the length of actors’ contracts. When the box office attendances also began to free fall, they’d have further cause for worry. The studios’ backers might not have been sympathetic to HUAC, but with a Republican-held House and Senate from 1946, with HUAC gathering muscle and under attack financially, placating the voices in Washington at the cost of the Hollywood Ten probably seemed an easier choice.

  Impact of the Blacklist

  Howard Koch, one of the screenwriters of Warner Bros.’ Casablanca (1942), was one of those named by Jack Warner at HUAC. Koch had never been a Communist but after he’d been outspoken during a strike, Warner had taken a dislike to him, and for Koch and many others, speaking up for a left-leaning union would be met with accusations of being a Communist.

  Although Hollywood denied that there was a blacklist, contracts were being broken by the studios using t
he morals cause, while those who protested at the witch-hunts quickly risked being accused themselves of being sympathetic to Communists. Coming under pressure from Warner Bros. because of his association with the Committee for the First Amendment, Humphrey Bogart placed huge advertisements in the trade papers stating that he was not, and never had been, a Communist. Even Ring Lardner Jr was fired from working on a script at Fox.

  … contracts were being broken by the studios using the morals cause, while those who protested at the witch-hunts quickly risked being accused themselves of being sympathetic to Communists.

  Howard Koch also placed an advertisement denying that he’d ever been a Communist, but that he reserved the right not to say that to HUAC because it was none of their business. He called on the Hollywood community to remain firm. It did. Unfortunately not with Koch but against him, and anybody else who might be thought to have Communist sympathies. He was never told he was on the blacklist, but, as he later said, ‘The telephone stopped ringing. That’s all. I knew what that meant.’ When some members of the Directors Guild of America proposed a motion of resistance to HUAC, they were turned upon by other members bullying them and threatening to take down their names. ‘That was the most disgusting exhibition I’ve ever seen,’ Edward Dmytryk later claimed. ‘All the in-betweens were scared to death.’ The motion was withdrawn.

  Jail Sentence

  Having fought the contempt citations for two and a half years through the courts, in 1950, the Hollywood Ten were denied by the Supreme Court a hearing for an appeal and were imprisoned for between six months and a year. Chained together in handcuffs and leg irons, Albert Maltz and Edward Dmytryk were sent to the prison camp at Mill Point, West Virginia. Elsewhere Ring Lardner Jr and Lester Cole found themselves in prison alongside J. Parnell Thomas, the former chair of HUAC, who was now serving a sentence for putting non-existent workers on the government payroll and claiming their salaries himself. ‘It was very entertaining to see him there,’ said Lardner Jr.