Harry Morgan, and only Harry
Moran, said he was “briefly” blacklisted after his name appeared in Red
Channels. According to Morgan he was never a communist and was listed because
his ex-wife Isobel Gibb was a leftist.
Morgan wrote “All her information
came from friends whose conversation leaned sharply away from their relatively
high incomes, which, apparently, they found to be embarrassing in a world that
harbored poor people. Their chosen method of being helpful was to attend
meetings at one another's homes and discuss the problems of the hungry hordes
after dinner. I am not trying to be amusing; it's what they really did. A Party
member was usually invited to lead the discussions. I was apolitical. To some,
that meant that I was either stupid or "inner-directed"—which meant
according to them that I didn't care about my fellow man. What I really didn't
care about was the four or five of her friends who later became known as the
Hollywood Ten.”
Morgan and Gibb were married in 1946
and separated in 1948.
Morgan then spoke at the 1947
Radio Correspondents' Association Dinner in front of an audience that included
J. Edgar Hoover and President Truman. He made the two uncomfortable several
times over the course of his speech. The biggest blow came with his remark,
"Whenever it is quiet in Washington, you can count on the Un-American
committee to issue a report. Maybe sometime later, when it has a chance, it
will start gathering the facts."
The fact was Morgan wasn’t
popular with the public and others in the business didn’t much like him either.
The fact that he once punch his wife in the face didn’t help or his comments on
women (Women should be very attractive and never taught to read. The trouble
with the average woman is that she's a little below average. Since 90% of the
women one meets seem to be constantly auditioning to become morons, and since
half these people are women, it figures that 90% of them aren't too bright
either.)