Minerva Pious, actress. Pious is
said to have been blacklisted in1950 and if she was blacklisted, she was
blacklisted from radio because Pious was a radio actor who avoided film. "Minnie could do a million things,"
said writer Bob Weiskopf "Nice lady. She had a physical affliction—she had
a bad hip, a severe limp. She was very concerned about television; she never
worked very much. But radio was fine”
Regardless, between 1950 and 1951, she
appeared on three television shows and a fourth in 1956. She appeared in only
four films in her entire career, two in the 1940s and two in the 1950s (1955
and 1957)
But was she blacklisted from
radio? I don’t know. By the early 1950s, scripted radio programs were dying
off, a death hastened by the rise of popular music which drew millions of young
listeners and millions more in advertising dollars. By 1962, virtually all
scripted radio programs were gone.
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.