Louis Untermeyer, poet:
Untermeyer, born wealthy, was 65 years old in 1950 when he was booted off of
the first season of the TV show “What’s my line.” But to be clear, Untermeyer was an academic
editor, poet, and teacher, he was not a member of the Hollywood scene, he
didn’t lose an acting career. His appearance on “What’s my line” was his only
film credit. But was he blacklisted from a future in TV? No, because I can’t
see where a 65-year-old poet would go in Hollywood.
Untermeyer would later lie and
say he had no communist leaning. But he wrote for Marxist magazines such as The
Masses and The Liberator, published by the Workers Party of America. Later he
wrote for the independent socialist magazine The New Masses. He was also a card-carrying member of the
League of American Writers, which was largely a communist front.
He was named during the hearings
by the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigating communist
subversion. The Catholic War Veterans and other organizations demanded that
Goodson-Todman, producers of the show “What’s my line”, remove Untermeyer from
the program and began a boycott of the program. The shows sponsor, Jules
Montenier, demanded that Untermeyer be taken off of the program.
For the next and a half,
according to Untermeyer’s fellow traveler Arthur Miller, Untermeyer e refused
to leave his home in Brooklyn or speak to anyone on the phone, making all and
any attempts to find more work on TV difficult at best.
Untermeyer's work as a poet,
speaker and editor went on, uninterrupted.
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.