Hollywood on trial : McCarthyism's war against the movies

This is the true story of how J. Parnell Thomas, chairman of the UnAmerican Activities Committee made a national name for himself by ruining the lives of hundreds of people in the movie industry. Two years later, Thomas would be jailed for embezzling government money, but in August 1953 he was riding high. Hollywood on Trial relates the story of the victims of this witchhunt. Through the Committee many of Hollywood's leading lights were denied the right to work. Stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson were denied the passports that would have allowed them to leave America, Oscar-winning writers were forced to give their scripts to others to offer in their own names and then share the proceeds. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, and John Huston went to Washington in defense of the "Hollywood Ten", the first writers to be blacklisted, yet when Bogart and Bacall were questioned, they too buckled. The humiliations continued until the end of the 1950s. The scars, however, have remained to this day. "This book reveals the true story behind one of cinema's darkest episodes: how actors, directors and moguls were subpoenaed to name names and answer the '$64,000 question': 'are now you or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?' The book charts the generation of actors who found their livelihood ruined by being 'blacklisted' and the writers forced to hire 'fronts' to continue to work; how Arthur Miller was offered the chance to have his hearing dropped in return for a photo-opportunity with Marilyn Monroe; and how Kirk Douglas's naming of Dalton Trumbo as the writer of Spartacus signalled the end of this extraordinary era." "Painstakingly researched and drawing on numerous new interviews, Hollywood on Trial is the definitive account of how political paranoia shaped cinema for a decade."--Jacket