Hollywood 10 Cited: The Red Scare Intensifies

The first blacklist in American entertainment history was not imposed by the government but by the industry itself, driven by fear. On November 24, 1947, the heads of major Hollywood studios met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and issued a declaration firing ten writers and directors who had refused to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The so-called Hollywood Ten lost their careers that day, and hundreds more would follow. HUAC had subpoenaed 43 members of the film industry in October 1947, demanding they answer whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party. Nineteen of the subpoenaed witnesses refused to cooperate. Ten were called to testify and cited the First Amendment rather than the Fifth, arguing that Congress had no right to investigate their political beliefs. They were loud, combative, and defiant. Ring Lardner Jr. told the committee: "I could answer, but I'd hate myself in the morning." The studios initially showed solidarity. A group of A-list celebrities including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and John Huston flew to Washington in support, forming the Committee for the First Amendment. But public opinion turned hostile, and the studios panicked. The Waldorf Statement declared that the ten would be fired "without compensation" and that no Communist or anyone refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations would be knowingly employed. The Hollywood Ten served prison sentences ranging from six months to a year for contempt of Congress. The broader blacklist that followed destroyed the careers of approximately 300 actors, writers, directors, and musicians over the next decade. Some worked under pseudonyms. Others moved abroad. Dalton Trumbo, one of the Ten, secretly wrote the screenplay for "Roman Holiday" under a front name, winning an Academy Award he could not publicly claim until 1993, years after his death.