Doubtfully Blacklisted: John Ireland



John Ireland, actor who was said to have been blacklisted in Hollywood after  June 1954. Ireland was a Canadian who dated actress Tuesday Weld when she was 16 years old and he was 45. From 1945 through 1992, Ireland was credited with 214 stints as an actor, director or voice-over artist. He made 44 films in the 1950s, almost all of them after 1954 when he was supposedly blacklisted. The reality is that Ireland had been picked to star in a TV series,
The Adventures of Ellery Queen. Shortly before shooting was Ireland was released from the show. Ireland sued for breach of contract and slander against the program’s producers, Norvin Productions.
According to Ireland, Norvin dismissed him for having once been a communist to which Ireland answered “I am an actor and a director. I don’t know anything about politics. I am frank to admit it. My one political activity has been to vote on election day just like any other American.”
Norvin later admitted that they dumped Ireland because he had recently entered into an agreement to endorse a tobacco product in competition of one of the show’s sponsors and settled the case out of court and issued a retraction saying that Ireland was “a loyal American citizen who has never committed any act which would reflect unfavorably upon his character or patriotism.”

Just because someone’s name appeared in Red Channels, that doesn’t mean they were blacklisted. It just means there name appeared in Red Channels.
Just because a person said they were blacklisted doesn’t mean they were. Many people in Hollywood have lied about being blacklisted over the years.
If  a person was actually blacklisted…and not many were actually blacklisted….it was the studios and TV sponsors who blacklisted them. Not the United States federal government.
If a person claims the blacklist ruined their career, they should be able to prove they had a career before the blacklist.