Much has been made of actor Cliff
Carpenter, an admitted communist, being blacklisted. The problem is,
Clifford had one TV role in 1951, where
he appeared as himself and one uncredited role in a forgotten 1937 film.
According to Clifford, in 1942,
during a union meeting, he spoke out against what he saw as the unjust treatment of actor Philip Loeb, who had
been listed in Red Channels on June 22, 1950.
Red Channels said that Loeb had
signed petitions in the 1930s defending the Soviet government and being a
member of the Council for Pan-American Democracy, an organization that
campaigned against the Jim Crow laws in America. Loeb was then fired from the show “The Goldbergs”
on request of the shows sponsor, General Foods. Loeb was paid off to leave the
show.
Then Elia Kazan and Lee J. Cobb
gave information on Loebs radical political activity in the 1930s. Cobb
testified that he did not know if Loeb was a former member of the American
Communist Party but he accused him of working with Sam Jaffe to control a
left-wing caucus in the Actors Equity Association.
Loeb later killed himself.
Clifford worked, nonstop, on
Broadway through the 1950s. He continued to work steadily in radio, where he
was a long-established star, from 1950 through 1956.