Phil Brown played was a member of the communist-controlled Group
Theatre and later help to found the Actors' Laboratory Theatre in LA. The story
is that Brown was blacklisted in 1952, according to him, by labor leader Roy
Brewer and The American Legion.
We’ll never know if he was actually blacklisted because he fled to
England in 1953 and stayed there until 1993. According to Brown, Ronald Reagan,
as President of the Screen Actors Guild, outed him as a member of the communist
party.
From 1941 through 1949, he appeared in 18 films and was uncredited
in two of those. He was mostly a bit player throughout his film and TV career.
He appeared in no film in 1950, 1951 or 1952, the years before he claimed to
have been blacklisted. During those years, Brown worked on stage in Europe.
Brown was obnoxious. Once at a London theater, he sat behind Elia
Kazan, who had named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Brown
loudly berated Kazan to the audience around him.