1947 October 20

HUAC Opens Hearings on Communists in Hollywood

 

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on this day opened its famous hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. The hearings are most famous for the confrontation with the “Hollywood Ten,” witnesses who refused to answer questions about their political associations and were eventually convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to prison.

The hearings began with a series of “friendly” witnesses who argued that there was Communist influence. The “friendly” witnesses included President of Screen Actors Guild and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who testified on October 23, 1947.

The most famous part of the hearings involved a stormy confrontation that began on October 27, 1947, between the committee and a group of the “unfriendly” witnesses, screenwriters and directors who opposed HUAC and refused to answer the committee’s questions about their political beliefs and associations. In the end, ten witnesses, who are now referred to as the “Hollywood Ten,” were cited for contempt of Congress and sent to prison. All of them were immediately blacklisted by the Hollywood studios. See the announcement of the blacklist on December 3, 1947.

One of the Hollywood Ten was Ring Lardner, Jr., who later wrote the acclaimed movie M.A.S.H., and who appeared before the committee on October 30, 1947. Another was Dalton Trumbo, who testified on October 28, 1947, and who won the Oscar for Best Original Story on March 27, 1957, under the pseudonym of “Robert Rich,” which he used to evade the blacklist.

HUAC conducted a second set of investigations of Hollywood in 1951 and 1952, with over 30 days of hearings. The 1951-52 investigations were far more damaging than the Hollywood Ten hearings in 1947. Members of the Hollyood Ten lost the court appeals of the contempt citations and were sentenced to prison. No court decisions had established a First Amendment right to refuse to testify before an investigating committee. As a result, many witnesses in 1951 cooperated with HUAC and provided names of people they said were communists. Faar more careers were destroyed than in 1947. A number of witnesses left the country to work in England or Europe.

The Hollywood Ten confrontation is probably the most famous event in the entire 37-year history of HUAC. The House of Representatives abolished HUAC on January 14, 1975.

Read the great new book: Thomas Doherty, Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (2018)

See the dramatic HUAC confrontations:
Dalton Trumbo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFR4RIyekis

Herbert Biberman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds2SDTFXIgM

Read about the Hollywood blacklist: Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960 (1980)

Learn more about the history of HUAC: http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac

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