by Jerry Ludwig
I don’t get down to L.A. much, but I talk to Kathleen and my nephews a couple of times a week and they come up to visit several times a year. They love it as much as I do. I’ve lost touch with almost all the other people I knew in Hollywood. But not all.
David Weaver phoned me after an item ran in Variety that I was resigning and going north to Montana. He wished me well. Thought that was the last I’d hear from him, but he called me in Whitefish a month later. Just to chat. We’ve been talking every few weeks ever since. David and Jana are doing fine. They’re married now.
Ironically, Leo provided her dowry. His movie, Against The Wind, was finished off in style by Rex Gunderson and was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It lost to Ben-Hur, but the picture made oodles of money and both Gundersons hogged the credit. Mark was promoted to head of development for the low-to-medium-budget unit. Jana guilted him into pushing David’s script through into production. She was associate producer and, of course, Rex directed. It’ll be released at Christmas, but advance word is so good that Mark is already taking bows for his boldness in making a movie about a pacifist. He’s promising to let her direct the new screenplay David’s writing. Hollywood promises, so who knows? But sometimes dreams come true.
They came up for a visit last summer. Called it a second honeymoon. Did some fishing and hiking. Not much else to do around here. The best thing was, I could see Jana isn’t scared of me anymore. That night when David sent her to see me, she was terrified I would betray them both. She described what they had put together about Harry Rains and what David’s plan was—to try to get him to confess on tape and then we could move in for the arrest. I didn’t mention that I had backup insurance. The shotgun mike. I got Alcalay to marshal his troops, but agree to hold them back until I gave the signal. Afterwards, I was too ashamed to mention to the kids the temptations I wrestled with on that roof. They’re grateful to me. But I owe David and Jana so much. They helped me discover who I am.
Being sheriff means rescuing stranded motorists caught in the winter snows, or breaking up a barroom brawl, usually by locking up both combatants and kicking them loose in the morning. That’s what passes for major crime.
Lately I’ve been courting, as they call it around these parts, a lovely, independent woman named Lorraine Korwin, who teaches Civics and American History at the high school. Marriage is a possibility, although she teases me that the idea of the Sheriff and the School Marm seems too much like the plot of an old cowboy movie.
Occasionally, I tell her about the days in Hollywood, usually just funny stories. Recently I opened up enough to tell her more about my HUAC experiences and the question that had haunted me back then: “If I’d been in their place, those people I was trying to convince to turn on one another in order to save themselves, what would I have done?”
My school marm asked, “Did you ever find out?”
“Yeah. One night in a drive-in theater, I remembered why I first wanted to be a G-Man.”
ADDENDUM
I remember the first time I saw the word: Blacklist.
I was barely a teenager, living in the far reaches of Brooklyn, New York. A rough neighborhood. One spring morning I was walking to my junior high school—the most distinguished graduates were Danny Kaye, the comedian, and Anthony Esposito, the gangster, who went to the electric chair when I was in sixth grade.
Already I was in love with the movies. They provided an escape into other worlds. By the time I was twelve, I also had found my way into Manhattan (a subway ride cost only a nickel) and become an autograph hunter. Another escape. Standing at the stage door for “A Streetcar Named Desire” to get Marlon Brando’s signature or outside the “21” Club to thrust my autograph book at Burt Lancaster (never imagining that in a handful of years I would be working on movies with each of them).
Anyway, I’m a teenager walking to school and my eye was caught by the front page of the New York Daily News, then the largest circulation paper in the nation. The face of Larry Parks, one of my favorite actors, filled half the page. After a “B” picture career, he had shot to stardom (as they say) playing the Oscar-nominated title role in The Jolson Story. It was unusual to see a movie star on the front page of the Daily News, space usually reserved for ballplayers, presidents, and axe murderers.
It wasn’t a very interesting photo. Parks looked upset, but all he was doing was sitting at a table talking into a microphone. I bought the paper and read the story and discovered that Larry Parks had admitted before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington, D.C., to having been at one time, years before, a member of the Communist Party. I didn’t understand exactly the significance of all that. But I figured if Larry Parks was in Washington, maybe he’d come to New York and I might get his autograph.
That didn’t happen, but I followed the news stories and a day later John Wayne was quoted as saying that Larry Parks had made a clean breast of his past, apologized for what he’d done, and apparently that was that. Except it wasn’t. The next day Hedda Hopper, in her nationally syndicated gossip column. said John Wayne was wrong and what Larry Parks had done could never be forgiven. Turns out, she was right. Parks’ acting career was over. Additional news stories explained that although he was deemed a “friendly witness” by HUAC, nevertheless he now had been “blacklisted.” That was the first time I saw the word. The newspaper explained that meant he could not make movies any more.
The next time I saw Larry Parks was in real life a dozen years later. I had moved to L.A. and initiated my own career in movieland (which is to say, I’d gotten a few lower rung jobs) and my parents had followed me west. They rented an apartment in Santa Monica and while I was visiting them one day, their landlord stopped by to collect the rent. It was Larry Parks, who had gone into the real estate business. I told him how much I’d enjoyed his performances. He said thanks, but seemed almost embarrassed to be reminded of those days. I never did get his autograph.
* * *
HUAC had ended its forays into filmland by the late 1950s, but more than the memories lingered on. The effects were pervasive. Just review the blandness of the general run of movies made during those years—even as apolitical (but socially conscious) a picture as The Blackboard Jungle was denounced as Commie propaganda; its director, Richard Brooks (I worked with him later, too), was accused of being anti-American. Those few movies that dealt with the blacklist spoke in code: High Noon, it was whispered, was really about McCarthyism, disguised as a Western; The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers masked it as a sci-fi thriller.
At that time I was a journalism major in college—City College of New York—and the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) had become synonymous with the blacklist. Witnesses who refused, on whatever constitutional grounds, to answer his questions were deprived of their livelihoods. As editor of the student newspaper, I wrote an editorial protesting the firing of CCNY professors for long-forgotten political memberships. No proof seemed required that a math teacher, for example, had ever tried to sneak Marxist doctrine into his algebra equations before he was fired. However, the biggest fish caught in McCarthy’s net was an Army captain who allegedly had been a Commie and now was a dentist stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Then McCarthy overreached and went to war against the U.S. Army, accusing top-ranking officials of subversion and hinting at treason. During those hot summer days I was working as a copy boy at the Associated Press in Rockefeller Center. TV sets blared in the newsroom while the Army-McCarthy Hearings were in session. A bedrock Boston lawyer challenged the Senator: “At long last, sir, have you no decency?” Our teletype machines clacked the details of McCarthy’s downfall to media all around the world. It was like a Frank Capra movie. Scary, emotional, finally a heart-warming but powerful happy ending. It’s all over now. Safe to come out.
But it wasn’t.
The blacklist still reigned. Hundreds of Americans had been smeared as evil suspects in a dark Communist conspiracy. They lost their jobs; some lost their lives. Unimagina
ble betrayals occurred. Marriages were destroyed, as were treasured friendships. Brother had been turned against brother. Native born citizens had been forced to flee their country and go into exile.
* * *
Initially I came to L.A. seeking a job as a reporter and instead was hired as an apprentice publicist with one of the leading independent film production companies of the day. I shared an office with an affable young man who had less experience than I did—he had none—but was being paid more money. He explained to me the secret of his success. His father was a nationally known, fiercely right wing political columnist. One of the name partners of our company was a former Communist who had testified before HUAC as a “friendly” witness and named names. Hiring the columnist’s son was further proof of his repentance. “They’re all shit-scared of my Daddy,” my roommate giggled.
In the years that followed, as I moved from studio to studio and network to network, advancing from publicist, to publicity director, to TV and film writer and eventually as producer-writer, showrunner, and now, as a novelist, I came into contact both professionally and socially with literally dozens of those who had been caught up in the maelstrom called the blacklist. I met survivors from all sides of the political spectrum. Those who gave names. Those who were named. Those who prospered, those whose lives were derailed or destroyed. I knew their wives and husbands and their children, who were of my generation. Some were willing to talk about it, some weren’t.
* * *
In time, I knew two of the Hollywood Ten, who had gone to prison for Contempt of Congress for invoking the First Amendment and refusing to answer HUAC’s questions about their personal beliefs. One of the two was the writer who eventually did more than any other single person to break the blacklist by dint of his talent, diligence and snarky sense of humor. The other was the only director in the group, who had served his jail sentence and then recanted before the Committee; after naming names he was allowed to work again. It was the only ticket to ride available in those days.
The parents of my best friend (and frequent writing partner) were blacklisted when he was a child. His mother killed herself and his father took him to Europe in order to survive economically. They couldn’t come back for nearly ten years.
I knew Lillian Hellman, who famously lectured HUAC that she “will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” She was blacklisted but managed to outlive HUAC and be restored to her position as one of America’s most respected playwrights. I worked on two of the movies made from her stage triumphs and she encouraged me in my ambitions. “You want to write, then don’t talk about it—do it.” Decades later, I wrote about her and her relationship with Dashiell Hammett in an award winning teleplay, Dash and Lilly (which starred Sam Shepard and Judy Davis).
I spent a week in Utah with Elia Kazan, the superstar stage and film director. He was visiting the location where his wife, Barbara Loden, was starring with Burt Reynolds in a movie I’d written. Kazan was as magnetic a figure as I’ve ever encountered. We spent a lot of time together and talked about many things, but the blacklist was not one of them. I obliquely tried once, but he gave me his craggy I-see-where-you’re-going smile and interrupted me halfway into the first sentence. “Hey, kid, I’m saving all that for my book.” Eventually he did write his memoir and it is a fascinating document though it only partially explains how he brought himself to be a “friendly” witness testifying against the friends of his idealistic youth.
* * *
In 1963, I was in charge of publicity for a director-oriented company that was the major supplier of films for United Artists. The names on the lobby directory read like a roll call of the notable film-makers of that time: Billy Wilder, William Wyler, John Sturges, Blake Edwards, John Frankenheimer, Norman Jewison. One morning I was called to the offices of the great Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here To Eternity). He was preparing a picture for the company based on James Michener’s mammoth novel, Hawaii and had a press announcement he wanted me to release. We had just signed a screenwriter.
When I walked into the office, Zinnemann indicated the couch where a white haired man in a blue blazer with gold buttons, was seated. He had an almost military bearing, belied by sparkling inquisitive eyes enlarged behind black rimmed glasses, the face dominated by a Hussar’s handlebar white mustachio.
“This is Dalton Trumbo,” Zinnemann said.
The introduction was superfluous. I’d never met him, but by then Trumbo was a media figure. Once renowned as arguably the best and surely the best paid writer in Hollywood, later reviled as one of the Hollywood Ten who went to prison for defying HUAC, he emerged from jail as he always had been: fractious, gifted, funny, and determined not to be destroyed. He become almost a one-man black market, specializing in quality screenplays at bargain basement prices while laboring in uncredited anonymity.
But Hollywood enjoys nothing more than idle gossip. So after a while, word began to seep out. No specifics, of course. But rumors had it that many—if not most—of the best written new movies had either been written or rewritten by Trumbo. Mischievously, he never confirmed or denied when reporters called. Then the writing Oscar at the 1957 Academy Awards ceremony was won by The Brave One, a touching little film about a Mexican lad who sets out to save his childhood pet from the bull ring. The credited writer, Robert Rich, did not run up to the microphone. His absence was explained to the vast audience: Mr. Rich was at the hospital where his wife was about to give birth. By the next morning, the cat was pretty much out of the bag. There was no Mr. Rich (let alone a Mrs. Rich). The Oscar-winning screenplay had been written by Dalton Trumbo. This time his jocular evasions were ignored. Although official credit would not officially place his name on The Brave One until years later, the blacklist had become a laughing stock. Trumbo’s Revenge, some called it.
* * *
The fissure in the facade of the blacklist became a chasm scant months later when producers Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger gave screen credit to Trumbo for writing Spartacus and Exodus. Despite dire threats, when those films opened, no picket lines appeared at the theaters and both movies were financial successes. Trumbo was back. Once again the most in-demand and highest paid writer in town. Under his own name.
While he was adapting Hawaii, Trumbo and I would often lunch in the small, communal executive dining room on the Samuel Goldwyn lot. He was still keeping up his end of past agreements, still protecting the names of the producers who had hired him in the dark days, as well as the names of the films he had authored and the names of other writers who had risked their own careers by “fronting” many of those screenplays with their names and passing along the proceeds that kept Trumbo and his family afloat. But in other ways he was willing to discuss HUAC.
I can still recall him telling me that despite the general impression that he had stonewalled the Committee, he had actually offered them an opportunity to look into his innermost thoughts. “When I testified, I brought along a stack of scripts—every produced screenplay I had written—and invited them to comb through every page and cite specific instances of un-American propaganda.” But HUAC didn’t accept the offer. They were there to write headlines, not read scripts.
* * *
Time out for a little romance. Actually a Big Romance. In Hollywood there is a screenplay device known as the meet-cute. It’s the unlikely coincidence that brings together the boy and the girl. So here is a classic that never made it onto the Silver Screen. Just into the history books.
Once upon a time there was an actress named Nancy Davis. Matter of fact, there were two actresses with the same name. One was a society deb with a promising career as an M-G-M contract player, while the other was a little known but apparently Leftish L.A. actress. Enough confusion for the society deb-cum-starlet to find herself on the blacklist. Frightened, she asked a friend for advice. The friend suggested Nancy contact her friend Ronald Reagan, who in addition to being a mid-range movie star and a stellar force in the Screen Actors Guild, also had pull w
ith a powerful ad hoc organization that had taken upon itself (with the acquiescence of the moguls) the authority to evaluate the “Americanism” of people in the industry.
So Miss Davis met Mr. Reagan and he was successful in resolving Miss Davis’ problem. She was removed from the blacklist. And a romance ensued. Some years later my wife and I were in Washington attending a White House luncheon at which the president presented medals of distinction to various legendary figures in the arts. As I watched the First Lady gaze adoringly up at the President, I couldn’t stop thinking this was the Ultimate Meet Cute: “When Ronnie Met Nancy.”
* * *
That was one way to get off the Blacklist. Here’s another, only sort of similar: It’s the mid-Sixties. I’m a freelance TV writer, sitting in the living room of my West L.A. apartment with a new friend I met at a beach party in Malibu. Knew the name, now I know the man. Abram S. Ginnes. Everyone calls him Abe.
He wrote a number of the most memorable episodes of Naked City, a series that inspired me to try to write scripts. It was the show that always ended with the Narrator intoning, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.” At the time we met, Abe was in Hollywood writing a big movie for United Artists. But he’s recalling his years on the blacklist. “How did you finally manage to go back to work?” I ask him.
“Because of a secretary who was a bad speller. There was a separate blacklist in New York for television and whenever a producer wanted to hire a writer or an actor or a director, they had to submit the name for approval by one of the Madison Avenue advertising agencies that controlled TV. ‘Red Channels,’ a list compiled by an upstate New York supermarket owner who threatened to boycott food brands that sponsored shows employing any of those on the list, was the ad industry’s Bible. So I’d been denied work that way for years, but then this one time there was a new secretary and she submitted ‘Abe Guinness’—like Alec—not Abram S. Ginnes, like me. The name went through, I got the job, wrote the script, there were no protest letters, the sky didn’t fall, no product boycott, and by accident, after eight years, I was back in business.”