Ralph Bell, actor. (Born Ralph Scognamiglio)
Arthur Miller claimed that Bell’s wife, actress and noted kook, Pert Kelton had
lost her part on the TV show Cavalcade of Stars, where she played the first
Mrs. Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners when it still a 10-20 minute sketch. It
became a program in 1955. Kelton was dropped and replaced by Audrey Meadows.
The show's producers said that Kelton’s health problems, heart issues, as the
reason for her being taken from the show. When the program’s cast went on tour
in 1952, Kelton collapsed in Detroit and had to be placed in and an oxygen
tent.
The caustic Kelton blamed the
loss of the role on Blacklisting, but according to Henry Miller not only was
she not political, she never voted in her life. So someone surmised that she
had lost the role because Ralph Bell had taken part in a May Day rally on some
point in his life. But again, according to Henry Miller, who was Bell’s summer
neighbor, Ralph Bell, largely a stage actor up until the 1950s, harbored no
political leanings at all.
When Kelton was named in Red
Channels, she filed a libel suit against Red Channel’s publishers asking for
$3000,000. It was her argument that since she had been named in Red Channels
her income ….on an average….had dropped from $15,000 to $46.00 Red Channel’s
publishers took her up on the court challenge, and Pelton dropped the
suit.
The fact of the matter is, in
show business, one the rumors about ill-health, especially heart issues, starts
to make the rounds, careers start to falter. Kelton’s health was never
good….she converted to Christian Science to combat her ill-health…and Kelton
age at the time, in her fifties, ancient by show business standards, affected
her career more than being named in Red Channels did.
The fact was that Kelton remained
on Cavalcade of Stars until its final season. The actor who played the upstairs
neighbor, Trixie, was also replaced on the program. Pelton appeared on the TV
program The Honeymooners in the 1960s when Alice was played by Shelia Mac Rae,
the fourth actor to play that role. Pelton was constantly ill, suffered from
seizures and would die suddenly from a heart attack in 1968. Kelton also worked
in theater from 1954-1955, the Bad Seed, and from 1957 through 1961 in The
Music Man. Basically, she was rarely out of work.
As for Bell, who was named in Red
Channels, his record shows that the so-called Blacklist didn’t much affect his
career. In 1950 he appeared on the TV program Pulitzer Prize Playhouse, and the
series, The Web. In 1951-1955, he portrayed Lt. Travis Rogers on NBC Radio's
"Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator" In1952, he appeared on
Guiding Light. In 1954, he appeared in the program Inner Sanctum. In 1956-1957, he appeared on The Edge of
Night and The Edge of Night. He was an actor on the 1959 program Deadline. From
1953 through 1961, he wrote scripts and occasionally acted on The Loretta Lynn
Show and in 1957, he was a writer on the George Sanders Mystery Theater He became a national board member of the
Screen Actors Guild in early 1965 and remained on the board through 1994.
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.