Doubtfully blacklisted: Joshua Shelley



Joshua Shelley: To be very clear, if Shelley was blacklisted, it was the studios who blacklisted him because of his union activities within the Actor Guild. However, if in fact Shelley was ever blacklisted (He was named as a communist union activist by Counter Attack Magazine in 1953) he was a very busy blacklisted actor.  Unlike most actors, he was seldom unemployed in the 1950s.

It should also be made clear that Shelley was, for the first 25 years of his career, a stage actor. He had been in five broadways plays prior to 1950 and was steadily employed on stage in Broadway from 1944 through 1949. He had 4 TV credits prior to 1950 and 2 flim credits. Of his 71 screen credits over the length of his career, only 4 were film.   

In August of 1955 Shelley was called before the HUAC. He was arrogant and combative, lying to the committee that he had been in “Thousands of radio shows and hundreds of TV and stage shows.”  He refused to say if he was a Communist working in the Hollywood studio unions and chastised the Committee for “trying to bring fear into the ranks of the Actors Equity”

1950
Repertory Theatre (TV Series)
Starlight Theatre (TV Series)
 Don Ameche's Musical Playhouse (TV Series)
The Liar (May 18, 1950 - May 27, 1950)

1949-1951
Studio One in Hollywood (TV Series)

1951-1952
Danger (TV Series)
Four Twelves Are 48 (Jan 17, 1951 - Jan 18, 1951)

 1952
Police Story (TV Series)
Schlitz Playhouse (TV Series)
The Plot to Kidnap General Washington (TV Movie)
Treasury Men in Action (TV Series)
Mister Peepers (TV Series)
The Doctor (TV Series)
Omnibus (TV Series)
Video Theatre (TV Series)

1954
On Your Toes (Oct 11, 1954 - Dec 04, 1954)Stage  play
The Girl in Pink Tights (Mar 05, 1954 - Jun 12, 1954)Stage play

1955
Play Phoenix '55 (May 23, 1955 - Jul 17, 1955) Stage play

1957
Play Simply Heavenly (Aug 20, 1957 - Oct 12, 1957) Stage play
Directed

1958
Decoy (TV Series)
The Plymouth Playhouse (TV Series)

1959
Play of the Week (TV Series) Director


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


Thank you, you're a good man.


"Useful Idiots" Jane Fonda, sort of the dean of useful idiots.


"Useful Idiots": Eric McCormack



'Will & Grace' star Eric McCormack slammed after calling for blacklisting of Trump donors in Hollywood



By Joseph A. Wulfsohn
"Will & Grace" star Eric McCormack drew comparisons to the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy on Friday after calling for the boycotting of those in Hollywood who attend an upcoming California fundraiser for President Trump.
Canadian-born McCormack, 56, said he wants the Trump donors' names revealed so "the rest of us can be clear about who we don’t wanna work with."
Trump plans to attend the Sept. 17 fundraiser in Beverly Hills during a trip to California that will also include visits to the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego, The Hollywood Reporter wrote Thursday.
Tickets for the Beverly Hills event, scheduled during the week of the Emmy Awards, will reportedly start at $1,000, with packages for couples costing as much as $100,000.
Hosts for the event will reportedly be Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, RNC co-chairman Tommy Hicks Jr., Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and Trump Victory finance chairman Todd Ricketts.
In a Twitter message on Friday, McCormack asked that the Hollywood Reporter name names when it comes to fundraiser attendees.
"Hey, @THR, kindly report on everyone attending this event," he wrote, "so the rest of us can be clear about who we don't want to worrk with. Thx."
 Soon after his tweet appeared, McCormack was blasted on social media, with many of his critics drawing comparisons to McCarthy, whose Cold War efforts to oust Communists from Washington, Hollywood and othere spheres of influence resulted in a Hollywood blacklist of those whose loyalty to the U.S. was questioned.
"Hey @jack is this tweet threatening to "blacklist" American Citizens in Hollywood okay for the good of society?" former "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
"How wonderfully fascist of you @EricMcCormack! Yes, how dare anyone in a FREE COUNTRY actually be FREE to support someone that you don’t or have an opinion that differs from yours," actress Maeve Quinlan reacted. "Anyone that doesn’t get in line with your opinion should absolutely be blacklisted from work."
Hey @jack is this tweet openly threatening to “blacklist” American Citizens in Hollywood okay for the good of society? Just asking for a friend.  https://twitter.com/ericmccormack/status/1167309987393110016 …
McCormack is best known for playing Will Truman in the hit NBC comedy, which was revived for three seasons. His co-star, Debra Messing, is also an outspoken critic of Trump and Republicans.



"Useful idiots" Debra Messing


Debra Messing faces backlash for response to 'sick' tweet directed at Mitch McConnell, Dana Loesch over mass shootings

Image result for debra messing, ugly


By Tyler McCarthy | Fox News

Debra Messing faces backlash for 'sick' tweet directed at Mitch McConnell, Dana Loesch
'Will & Grace' star Debra Messing is in hot water after firing off an incendiary tweet to Mitch McConnell after this past weekend's horrific mass shootings.
Debra Messing is facing backlash over a tweet that many took to be inciting violence against Sen. Mitch McConnell and former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch.
Messing has been vocal on Twitter following the two mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio which took the lives of dozens of people this past weekend. The "Will and Grace" star quickly found herself in hot water after she tweeted a response to a user's tweet that some called "sick."
 “If I get killed in a mass shooting please cremate me and throw my ashes into Mitch McConnell’s and Dana Loesch’s eyes while I’m still smoldering,” the tweet read. The liberal star said in reply: "THIS. Yesssssssssss."
Users who saw the tweet were quick to call out the 50-year-old actress for her remark.
 “Debra -- people from all political leanings consume your shows and enjoy you and them.  Why would you take a deep dive into the disgusting by reacting like this to a horrific tweet?  Take a breath. Get out of the Hollywood mindset for a second and be a person. Thanks,” one user wrote.
 “I loved Will & Grace ( it should have been the Jack & Karen show ) but you’re obviously a sick person. Please seek help. Seriously,” another commented.
 “You have an amazing opportunity to be an inspiration to people, yet you use your voice in this way. Seems like a waste. God bless!” someone else noted.
 "Cremate the remains of her fallen acting career," another user wrote.
 "I don’t like Mitch, but this is in very poor taste," someone else wrote.
 Messing, however, was undeterred by the negative reception to her tweet. She continued to post a slew of retweets and messages calling for gun control and for GOP leaders to take action throughout the weekend.
Earlier on Monday, she promoted a sound bite from her appearance on Alyssa Milano’s“Sorry Not Sorry” podcast in which she called for President Trump’s impeachment.
“This is my statement about whether impeachment is the appropriate road to take against the sitting President,” she captioned the sound clip. “It was given before the devastating and preventable 4 mass shootings in the last 24 hours. I should have included the blocking of background checks as another dereliction. Please don’t bother wishing me death or attack me . This is my account, it’s my opinion, if you don’t like to hear it, don’t follow me.”
Messing did not immediately return Fox News' request for comment.

Doubtfully blacklisted: Marth Scott




Martha Scott was  confused with the singer Hazel Scott and according to popular legend “her career suffered greatly because of it”  ….but, according to her work record, that doesn’t appear to be the case 


1959
Ben-Hur
The United States Steel Hour (TV Series)
Markham (TV Series)
Playhouse 90 (TV Series)
The Arthur Murray Party (TV Series)

1958
Matinee Theatre (TV Series)
The 12th Annual Tony Awards (TV Special)

1957
Eighteen And Anxious
Sayonara
1950-1957 Robert Montgomery Presents (TV Series)
"Cloud 7" on Broadway.
Modern Romances (TV Series)

1956
The Ten Commandments
1956-1957 Goodyear Playhouse (TV Series)
1956 Kraft Theatre (TV Series)

1955
The Desperate Hours
Modern Romances (TV Series)
TV Reader's Digest (TV Series)
Hollywood Preview (TV Series)
The Colgate Comedy Hour (TV Series)

1954
Center Stage (TV Series)
"The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker" on Broadway


1953
Suspense (TV Series)
Medallion Theatre (TV Series)
Willys Theatre Presenting Ben Hecht's Tales of the City (TV Series)
The Revlon Mirror Theater (TV Series)
"The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker" on Broadway
"The Male Animal" on Broadway


1952
Armstrong Circle Theatre (TV Series)
Betty Crocker Star Matinee (TV Series)
"The Male Animal" on Broadway
"The Number" on Broadway.


1951
When I Grow Up
Somerset Maugham TV Theatre (TV Series)
The Clock (TV Series)
Lights Out (TV Series)
When I Grow Up
Lux Video Theatre (TV Series)
"The Number" on Broadway.
The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series)
We, the People (TV Series)
Showtime, U.S.A. (TV Series)
Your Show of Shows (TV Series)

1950
Nash Airflyte Theatre (TV Series)
Penthouse Party (TV Series)





John Randolph. Blacklisted from an early career he didn't have




John Randolph (Emanuel Hirsch Cohen) started in theater in the 1930s in the Federal Theatre Project. In the mid-1930s he spent his summers at the Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut which was the summer home of the Group Theatre. He made his Broadway debut in 1938. He was on active duty from 1941 through 1945.
“How could you not become radicalized during the Depression?” he asked. “You’d have to be an idiot not to be radical with 17 million unemployed. Also, I went to a wonderful college, City College of New York, and the ferment there was extraordinary.
“It opened up a communist point of view, Socialism, Marxism, Henry George, all that. There’s nothing wrong with absorbing new ideas and testing them.”
Randolph and his wife were active in AFTRA, SAG and in Actor's Equity, were elected members of union boards and became vice presidents at various times during their careers.
Although he didn’t appear before the HAC until 1955, he claimed to have been blacklisted from working in Hollywood films and in New York film and television and radio after 1948, however the record shows otherwise. He later changed the date of his alleged blacklisting to 1952 which better jibes with the record.

When Randolph appeared before the HUAC, with his wife, they refused to answer questions and cited the Fifth Amendment protection against testifying against themselves.
Randolph balked at answering any questions about possible Commie membership during his four years in the Air Force or when he was a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He also refused to say whether there was a "Communist caucus" within AFTRA.
It is difficult to see how he was blacklisted from a career he never had until very late in life. He was a stage actor by choice. He worked on Broadway almost non-stop, from 1950 through 1963.

The Sound of Music (Nov 16, 1959 - Jun 15, 1963)
Triple Play (Apr 15, 1959 - May 16, 1959)
The Sound of Music (Off Broadway 1959)
The Visit (May 05, 1958 - Nov 29, 1958)
Miss Isobel (Dec 26, 1957 - Feb 08, 1958)
The Wooden Dish (Oct 06, 1955 - Oct 15, 1955)
The Time of Your Life (Jan 19, 1955 - Jan 30, 1955)
House of Flowers (Dec 30, 1954 - May 21, 1955)
All Summer Long (Sep 23, 1954 - Nov 13, 1954)
Madam, Will You Walk (Dec 01, 1953 - Jan 10, 1954)
Room Service (Apr 06, 1953 - Apr 18, 1953)
The Grey-Eyed People (Dec 17, 1952 - Dec 20, 1952)
Seagulls Over Sorrento (Sep 11, 1952 - Sep 20, 1952)
Paint Your Wagon (Nov 12, 1951 - Jul 19, 1952)
Peer Gynt (Jan 28, 1951 - Feb 24, 1951)
The Golden State (Nov 25, 1950 - Dec 16, 1950)
Come Back, Little Sheba (Feb 15, 1950 - Jul 29, 1950)

Previously he worked on Broadway from 1938 until 1948 and continued to work in theater until 1991.

What little film work he did between 1948 and 1951 was mostly as an uncredited extra on television and almost all of that happened in 1951 and 1948. He was in two films only, in 1948, The Naked City where he played an uncredited Police dispatcher and in 1951’s Fourteen Hours where he was uncredited.

1951 Danger (TV Series)
1951 The Web (TV Series)
1951 Repertory Theatre (TV Series, 3 different appearances)
1951 Treasury Men in Action (TV Series)
1951 Kraft Theatre (TV Series)

1949 Hands of Mystery (TV Series)

1948-1949 Actor's Studio (TV Series, 3 appearances in what were essentially filmed stage plays)

 1949 The Clock (TV Series, 2 appearances)



Doubtfully blacklisted" Tony Kraber




Tony Kraber had been seen on and Off-Broadway since 1927. He was a founding member of the Group Theater, producing such triumphs of the 1930's as the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Men in White,'' Saroyan's ''My Heart's in the Highlands'' and Odets's ''Waiting for Lefty.''
In 1952, director Elia Kazan accused Kraber of being a Communist at a hearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He said Kraber drafted him into the party and that they had been in the same Communist unit. Called before the HUAC in 1955, Kraber refused to respond to the question of being a member of the communist party.
 The popular sentiment is that Kraber was blacklisted as a result. If he was blacklisted, it wasn’t from the screen. He barely had a career in film. In 1951, he was the narrator for a film short “Secure the blessing.” He didn’t appear on screen again until 1974 in the TV mini-series The American Parade. Otherwise, his film work was limited to documentaries and there were scant few of those.
His stage work, he was almost exclusively a stage actor, went untouched by any blacklisting. From 1935 through 1939, he appeared on Broadway nine times. From 1940 through 1949, he appeared on the stage once. And from 1952 through 1956  he acted as a stage manager/actor  in four large productions as well as one 1954 stage production at White Lake Lodge in New York state and various full dress cabaret dinner and dance performances across the country.
He also recorded several albums in the 1950s.
Bear in mind, Kraber was 50 years old when he refused to testify before the HUAC, an age when roles begin to shrink for actors on stage or screen.
Kraber was executive assistant in the CBS networks short wave division from 1942 to 1948, when he went to the Dumont Television Network. He returned to CBS in September of 1949, as a producer in its television division. In December of 1949, he became assistant director of special events for CBS Radio.
Kraber said he was fired from the network in 1951 and accused the HUAC  of having been instrumental in getting him fired from CBS. For their part CBS said that Kraber “resigned by mutual consent” in September of 1951, a full year before Kazan identified him as a power in the New York communist party.



Hollywood traitors by Allan H. Ryskind, a well researched and well written read.




Myth: HUAC uncovered very few Communists in Hollywood. Fact: So somewhere between 200 and 300 qualifies as “very few?” Don’t think so.

Myth: Even If there were a few Hollywood Communists, they were not influential. Fact: Then why were John Wayne, Morrie Ryskind, Walt Disney and Ayn Rand concerned that “it looked as if Communists were in control of the industry?” Communists were ensconced in key positions of motion picture unions and studios.

Myth: Hollywood writers were not subversive because during World War II, they turned out patriotic documentaries. Fact: Virtually every writer appearing before HUAC hid behind the First or Fifth Amendment when asked about Communist affiliations and activity.

Myth: Writers did not favor force or violence in changing the United States into a Soviet America. Fact: Some did by refusal to deny or declined to say whether they would support the United States if the Soviets launched an unprovoked attack.

Myth: The “innocents” were harassed by “Sen. Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee.” Fact No. 1: Joe McCarthy never investigated Hollywood. Fact No. 2: McCarthy, as a senator, never was permitted to be a member (let alone chairman) of a House Committee. Anyone claiming otherwise either is trying to cement a “big lie,” or needs a refresher course in grade-school civics.

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