The Hollywood Ten

In November 1947, the 25th precisely, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy “declared” war against the REDS in the USA with the first Hollywood blacklist. This list was populated by ten writers and directors that refused to answer to the House of Committee on Un-American Activities. There were all fired from the studios they were working for, this event is called the Waldorf Statement. The statement declared that the ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists.

The Hollywood Ten consisted of:

Alvah Bessie, screenwriter

Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director

Lester Cole, screenwriter

Edward Dmytryk, director

Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter

John Howard Lawson, screenwriter

Albert Maltz, screenwriter

Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter

Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter

Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter

Excepting, Edward Dmytryk who accepted to acknowledge his past partisanship and to name names, the rest of the Ten had to stop working. They had to use pseudonyms or the name of their friends in the work they were signing. One of the most famous case is the request by Christopher Trumbo on December 19 2011, son of Dalton, on his death bed for an investigation to get the name of his father as the screenwriter of Roman Holiday made in 1953.

The same Dalton Trumbo was one of the causes of the breaking of the list with the full endorsement by Otto Preminger for Exodus and Kirk Douglas on the Spartacus script. The later film was his first screen credit since 1950 for Emergency Wedding. Between the two credits, Trumbo worked on approximately seventeen pictures including: Roman Holiday, Gun Crazy, He Ran All the Way, The Prowler, They Were so Young, The Boss, The Brave One, The Green-eyed Blonde, From the Earth to the Moon, and Cowboy. 

Imagine, Dalton Trumbo was one of the most famous names of this group of suspected Reds. He continued his career and had to hide his signature from the brilliant work he did. Multiply this by ten and you have a complete waste of talent and recognition. This post is dedicated to those blacklisted of the Hollywood Ten and the Red Channel. This is also a statement against any kind of censorship.