Hollywood Blacklist Timeline

Drawing on lists provided in The Hollywood Reporter, HUAC subpoenaed 42 people working in the film industry to testify at its hearings.

Ten left-wing screenwriters and directors were cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions before HUAC. Their citations led directly to the first systematic Hollywood blacklist the following day.

The first systematic Hollywood blacklist began when major industry figures agreed to prevent the Hollywood Ten from working. The blacklist was an informal ban on suspected communists in the entertainment industry.

All ten members of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt of Congress in early 1948. Their convictions reinforced the industry’s willingness to deny work to people who refused to cooperate with HUAC.

After taking control of RKO, Howard Hughes fired most of the studio’s employees and virtually shut it down for six months while the political views of remaining employees were investigated.

Image source: RKO Pictures

Humphrey Bogart, a prominent member of the Committee for the First Amendment, published an essay in Photoplay vigorously denying that he was a communist sympathizer.

Image source: Humphrey Bogart

The American Legion’s Americanism Division issued a blacklist containing 128 people whom it claimed were part of a communist conspiracy.

Image source: American Legion

After the courts denied review, the ten men began serving prison sentences in 1950 for contempt of Congress.

Counterattack’s editors claimed that the publication had no affiliation with any government agency. However, its apparent access to FBI and HUAC files became especially evident when Red Channels appeared in June 1950.

A pamphlet-style book titled Red Channels was published. Its allegations about communist affiliations helped extend blacklisting from film into radio and television.

Hollywood Ten member Edward Dmytryk announced that he had once been a communist and was prepared to testify against others who had been members.

Image source: Edward Dmytryk

At a 1951 HUAC appearance, Dmytryk described his past Party membership and named names. His directorial career subsequently recovered.

With Congress under Democratic control, HUAC launched a second investigation into communism in Hollywood.

The Screen Writers Guild amended its screen-credit rules to authorize studios to omit the names of people who had failed to clear themselves before Congress. The agreement was intended to prevent a recurrence of the 1950 credit disputes.

The American Legion announced its disapproval of Moulin Rouge, starring José Ferrer, whom it regarded as insufficiently conservative despite his having already faced HUAC questioning.

Image source: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

After Red Channels named Jean Muir as a communist sympathizer, she was immediately removed from the cast of the television sitcom The Aldrich Family, where she had been cast as Mrs. Aldrich.

Image source: Jean Muir

Carl Foreman wrote High Noon after refusing to testify before HUAC. The film’s isolated marshal was interpreted as an allegory for Hollywood figures abandoned when political persecution returned.

Image source: High Noon

Although Edward Dmytryk and Frank Tuttle named him in spring 1951, Jules Dassin directed the Broadway play Two’s Company with Bette Davis in December 1952.

Image source: Jules Dassin

Albert Maltz had written the original screenplay for The Robe in the mid-1940s, but his name was absent when the film was released in 1953.

Image source: The Robe

After leaving prison, Hollywood Ten member Herbert Biberman directed Salt of the Earth. The film about Mexican-American mine workers was denounced as communist propaganda and received extremely limited U.S. exhibition.

Image source: Salt of the Earth (1954 film)

On the Waterfront became one of Hollywood’s most honored films, winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Elia Kazan, and Best Screenplay for Budd Schulberg.

Image source: On the Waterfront

Only about a dozen theaters in the United States exhibited Salt of the Earth in 1954, illustrating the continuing effect of blacklisting and anti-communist pressure.

Actor John Ireland reached an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit against Young & Rubicam after the advertising agency ordered him removed from the lead role in a sponsored television series.

Image source: John Ireland

Dassin’s French-made film Rififi opened at New York’s Fine Arts Theater in June 1956 and remained there for 20 weeks, demonstrating that blacklisted artists could sometimes work abroad.

Image source: Rififi

Blacklisted actor Norman Lloyd was hired by Alfred Hitchcock as an associate producer for the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was entering its third network season.

Image source: Norman Lloyd

A live CBS production of Wonderful Town appeared with the proper writing credit for blacklisted Edward Chodorov and his literary partner Joseph Fields.

Although the blacklist was generally recognized as weakened by 1960, other blacklisted film artists continued to have difficulty obtaining work for years afterward.

Several months after Preminger’s announcement, actor Kirk Douglas publicly acknowledged that Dalton Trumbo had written the screenplay for Spartacus.

Image source: Spartacus (film)

Director Otto Preminger publicly announced that Dalton Trumbo, a prominent member of the Hollywood Ten, would write the screenplay for Exodus. The announcement is generally regarded as a decisive weakening of the blacklist.

Image source: Dalton Trumbo

Spartacus premiered on October 6, 1960, becoming the first film to bear Trumbo’s name since he received story credit on Emergency Wedding in 1950.

Exodus followed in December 1960 and carried Dalton Trumbo’s name. Together with Spartacus, it marked the public breakthrough that weakened the Hollywood blacklist.

Image source: Exodus (1960 film)

John Henry Faulk won his lawsuit in 1962, an important legal victory associated with resistance to blacklisting and the dissemination of anti-communist accusations.

After William Wilkerson died in 1962, his Hollywood Reporter obituary credited him with helping prevent communists from becoming entrenched in Hollywood. In 2012, his son apologized for the paper’s role and said revenge and thwarted studio ambitions had motivated his father.

In 1963, actor Sterling Hayden stated that he had been a rat and a stoolie, regretting that the names he provided had led friends to be blacklisted and deprived of their livelihoods.

Image source: Sterling Hayden

Character actor Lionel Stander was unable to find film work until 1965, illustrating how the blacklist’s practical effects continued even after its public decline.

Image source: Lionel Stander

In his 1981 autobiography Hollywood Red, screenwriter Lester Cole affirmed that virtually all of the Hollywood Ten had joined the Communist Party USA at some point.

Image source: Lester Cole

For the 40th-anniversary re-release of Lawrence of Arabia in theaters and on DVD, guild pressure led to credits naming Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson as screenwriters.

Image source: Lawrence of Arabia (film)