Doubtfully blacklisted: Mady Christians, actress Marguerite Maria "Mady" Christians born January 19, 1892.





An Austrian national. She died in 1951 at age 59. She moved to the United States in 1933 and began her film career in Hollywood. She appeared in Dalton Trumbo’s Tender Comrades in 1943. She started her US film career in 1934 and ended it in 1949. During that time, she made a total of 12 films, three television appearances, and 13 stage roles. The claim that she was fired by the networks and blacklisted by the studios is simply that, a claim but a claim without evidence.
 Christians was 51 years old when she finished her last film,  ancient by Hollywood standards, especially for women, to say nothing of her broad German accent. Hollywood casting directors simply like Christians. When “Watch on the Rhine” was remade, Betty Davis was chosen for the role Christians had once had. The casting director was quoted as saying that Christians reading for the role was uninspired. The same thing happened when Hollywood filmed “I Remember Mama” the role Christians had made famous on state went to Irene Dunn who was better box office.
Christians had been a supporter of the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, a communist front, which landed her on the pages of Red Channels. Also, the FBI learned through an informant that Christians, at the height of the cold war, was a secret but active member of the Communist Party. The FBI’s surveillance on Christians, which began in 1950, a year before her death,  was limited to collecting newspaper clipping and occasional phone recording, both of which Christian would have been unaware of. The constant claim that the bureau “hounded her” isn’t true as her FBI record indicates. Her FBI file is open to the public.
Several writers on the left have made the preposterous claim that the stress caused by being investigated as a Communist contributed to the cerebral hemorrhage that killed her. She had been ill for two weeks prior to her death and had left the touring company of The Black Chiffon due to poor health. According to the show’s producer, Gabe Rubin, she had suffered a heart attack while in New York.
It was the very far left publication, The Daily Compass, that started the story, as a matter of opinion, that blacklisting killed Christians. (The Compass said that blacklisting also killed actor John Garfield,  Edward Bromberg and Canada Lee. John Garfield, born Jacob Julius Garfinkle, died of heart attack after playing several strenuous sets of tennis against his doctor’s orders. Garfield had a long history f heart problems that kept secret from the studios and the public. On the day he died, when he started to feel chest pains, he refused to allow his family or friends to phone a doctor. Canada Lee had uremia and died of kidney disease while in a coma. Edward Bromberg died of a heart attack at age 48. He had been suffering from heart disease well before he refused to testify before the HUAC)

Screen Credits

1951
The Black Chiffon (Stage play)
I Remember Mama (Stage play)

1950
The Clock (TV Series)

1949
The Ford Theatre Hour (TV Series)
Repertory Theatre (TV Series)

1948
All My Sons
Letter from an Unknown Woman

1944
Address Unknown

1943
Tender Comrade

1937
Seventh Heaven
The Woman I Love
Heidi

1936
Come and Get It

1935
Escapade
Ship Cafe

1934
A Wicked Woman
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.