The Hollywood Blacklist Myth : September 2019

Doubtfully blacklisted: Madeleine Sherwood

Madeleine Sherwood was a Canadian and primarily a stage actress. She moved to the US in 1950. Virtually every site on the internet, as well as most newspapers, see to agree as one that Sherwood was blacklisted, yet no one seems to know when or where she was blacklisted. Based on her performance record, and bearing in mind that she was an unknown in 1950, she doesn’t seem to have every mossed a day of work in the decade of the 1950s.

1952

Guiding Light (TV Series)

Suspense (TV Series)

Repertory Theatre (TV Series)

Stage Play: The Chase.

1953

Stage play The Crucible.

Joseph Schildkraut Presents (TV Series)

Danger (TV Series)

1954

Stage play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The Secret Storm (TV Series)

1955

You Are There (TV Series)

Stage play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Mar 24, 1955 - Nov 17, 1956)

1956

Film. Baby Doll (uncredited)

1957

Decoy (TV Series)

Studio One in Hollywood (TV Series)

1958

Film version Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

1959

Stage play Sweet Bird of Youth

Finally, an actor who was actually blacklisted by the studios

A character actor, Corey made 70 films between 1938 and 1951. He was uncredited in 32 of them. The studios, not the government, blacklisted actor Jeff Corey Born Arthur Zwerling) after his obnoxious and confrontational appearance before the HUAC on September 21, 1951. An active communist named Marc Lawrence named Corey as a communist. To the press, Corey insisted that attended meetings but was never a member of the party, but he refused to answer the same question before Committee. He refused to remove his sunglasses before the Committee and refused to answer a series of questions put to him. When he was asked a question he didn’t like, he tried to involve the UN charter Bill of Rights, but the Committee refused to let him involve the right. “The UN” the chairman said “has nothing to do with this”

Warren Hymer: An actual case of blacklisting

Warren Hymer (February 25, 1906 – March 25, 1948) was the son of John Bard Hymer a playwright (who had nine Broadway plays to his credit) Warren’s mother, Eleanor, was an actress.

Hymer appeared in 129 films between 1929 and 1946, as well as the 1928 Broadway play, The Grey Fox. In most of his roles, he played a tough guy from the streets but actually, Hymer was a Yale University graduate.

In the late 1930s, Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn had Hymer removed from the studio after he showed up for work drunk. Hymer responded by breaking into Cohn's office and urinating on his desk. Cohn then blackballed him in the film industry, making it almost impossible for him to find work.

He died in LA a few years later.

Doubtfully blacklisted: Howard Duff

If you have to be blacklisted, be blacklisted like Howard Duff. Basically, during his blacklisting, he was never out of work. In 1950, Red Channel’s accused Duff of being an active member of the Hollywood Communist party. From 1950 through 1959, he made 18 films and one television film and 18 television shows. Between 1946 and 1949, he made eight films and was uncredited in one of them. In the entire decade of the 1960s, he made three films, had voice-over work in a fourth and made two TV movies. The 1950s, when he was supposed to have been blacklisted, were actually the highlight of his career.

1950

Woman in Hiding

Panther's Moon

Shakedown

Spy Hunt

The adventures of Sam Spade (Radio program)

Screen Guile Theater (Radio program)

The Ed Wynn Show (TV Series)

1951

The Lady from Texas

Charlie Wild, Private Detective (TV Series)

1952

Steel Town

Models Inc.

1953

Roar of the Crowd

Spaceways

Jennifer

The Ford Television Theatre (TV Series)

The Whistler (TV Series)

1954

Tanganyika

Private Hell 36

The Yellow Mountain

Schlitz Playhouse (TV Series)

The Ed Sullivan Show (TV)

Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Stars on Parade (Documentary short)

1955

Women's Prison

Climax! (TV Series)

Celebrity Playhouse (TV Series)

Lux Video Theatre (TV Series)

The Star and the Story (TV Series)

1956

Flame of the Islands

Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado

While the City Sleeps

The Broken Star

Studio 57 (TV Series)

Chevron Hall of Stars (TV Series)

Crossroads (TV Series)

Science Fiction Theatre (TV Series)

I love mystery. Unsold TV plot

Climax! (TV Series)

1957

Sierra Stranger

1957-1958 Mr. Adams and Eve (TV Series)

Target (TV Series)

The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series)

I've Got a Secret (TV Series)

1958

Teenage Idol (TV movie)

Teenage Idol (Producer credit)

Mr. Adams and Eve (TV series, producer credit)

The Linkletter Show (TV Series)

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (TV Series)

1959

The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

Alcoa Theatre (TV Series)

Bonanza (TV Series)

The George Burns Show (TV Series)

The Juke Box Jury (TV Series)

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (TV Series)

Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (TV Series)

Shimen Ruskin

In his 1953 testimony, the actor Lee J. Cobb, identified Ruskin as a member of the communist party. When called before the committee Ruskin danced around the question “Are you a member of the communist party?”

He likened the committee members to Nazi’s and was dismissed after, perhaps, ten minutes or less before the committee.

From 1938 through 1953, Ruskin was in a total of 45 films and two television series. He was uncredited in 37 of them. In the remaining 6, he had no speaking role was but given screen credit.

In 1965, Ruskin and 10 Hollywood writers, directors and actors shared in an $80,000 out‐of‐court settlement of a suit that had charged the Motion Picture Association of America and all its corporate members except United Artists, with maintaining a blacklist.

Hilda Simms may have been blacklisted by Hollywood for being black

It isn’t clear how any one could reach the conclusion that Hilda Simms (1918-1994) was blacklisted from Hollywood. Especially in a Hollywood which, at that time, rarely used black female actress outside of walk-on roles. It seems easier to blame the blacklist for her lack of work instead of racism in the film colony.

The United States Department of Justice denied her passport in 1955 and canceled her scheduled 14-week USO tour of the Armed Forces in Europe. Justice yanked her passport at the demand of the US Defense Department who were wary of her work with the New York Communist Party in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Defense thought it was best not to allow her on bases that contained sensitive material.

During World War 11, before the threat to the United States by the Communist world, Simms entertained troops and made War Bond tours. The Defense Department decision was based on speculation about her affiliation with the Communist Party in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The decision caused her dozens of lost opportunities and any chance of a film career evaporated. In 1960, Hilda penned an article titled "I'm No Benedict Arnold," which told her side of the story.

"If they think I’m a Communist, they're dead wrong,'' she said. "I am not now, nor have I ever been a Communist. I am not an enemy of my country. Both my husband and I have had security clearances time and time again in World War 11”

It was at this point, late 1955, that Simms career was supposedly ruined due her being blacklisted. She didn’t work in film or television for four years.

1944

Anna Lucasta (Broadway Aug 30, 1944 - Nov 30, 1946)

1949

Champion (Film)

Maid (uncredited)

1951

"Hassan" at the Cambridge Theatre in London, England

1953

The Joe Louis Story (Film)

1954

Black Widow (Film)

1955

Repertory Theatre (TV Series)

1960

The Cool World

The Cool World (2 performances).

1962-1964

Nurses (TV Program

1963

Radio, Host, Ladies Day, on New York's WOV.

1965

Director of the Creative Arts Program for the New York State Commission for Human Rights

1970s through the early 1990s,

vocational specialist at the Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation, where she created a "theatre therapy" program, and did other creative initiatives with participants in the clinics.

Janet Hasson

Naomi Robison

Naomi Robison was a highly active member of the Hollywood Communist party. Its not clear how she was blacklisted since she made only one film in her entire career, Caged, in 1950.

Edward Dmytryk

The problems we have with the Hollywood left

The problem we have with the Hollywood left is it's the notion that accepting differences is no longer good enough, you have to be complicit in them. The problem we have with the Hollywood left it's the notion that any differing opinion is a threat to your very way of existence but never the opposite. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the blatant hypocrisy of claiming to care about democracy well on abashedly striving to take control of every step of the political process. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the notion that any idea or opinion outside of your own ideology is morally repugnant and therefore needs to be silenced. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the notion that your goals must be achieved using everyone resources regardless on whether they agree. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is their supporting of rights situationally when convenient and the outright rejection of those rights when it's in it's the inconvenient for you. The problem we have with the Hollywood left isthat somehow you know what's best for me enough to allow the government to make that choice for me The problem we have with the Hollywood left it's their failure to see the irony in labeling anyone different than yourself as an extremist or a fundamentalist. Originally written by Jason Blood. Edited for this page.

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.

For the most part, front organizations assumed the character of either a mass or membership organization or a paper organization. Both solicited and used names of prominent persons. Literally hundreds of groups and organizations have either been infiltrated or organized primarily to accomplish the purposes of promoting the interests of the Soviet Union in the United States, the promotion of Soviet war and peace aims, the exploitation of Negroes in the United States, work among foreign-language groups, and to secure a favorable viewpoint toward the Communists in domestic, political, social, and economic issues. The first requisite for front organizations is an idealistic sounding title. Hundreds of such organizations have come into being and have gone out of existence when their true purposes have become known or exposed while others with high-sounding names are continually springing up. J. Edgar Hoover on the subject of Communist front organizations. March 26, 1947