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5. Blacklisting Hollywood “Reds”
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| 113 5 Blacklisting Hollywood “Reds” In September 1947, Hedda Hopper planned to appear on a radio broadcast to debate the topic “Is There Really a Threat of Communism in Hollywood?” The very next month HUAC would hold its first post–World War II hearings to investigate Communism and subversion in the motion picture industry. These October hearings would feature the “Hollywood Ten” and lead to the establishment of the Hollywood blacklist to ensure that no persons espousing or supporting leftist, or even liberal, political ideas and efforts were employed in the motion picture industry. The months preceding the hearings were part of the “prelude to repression.”1 Hopper’s Red Scare politics contributed considerably to this repressive atmosphere, and her planned participation in this radio debate confirmed her prominence and power as a gossip columnist and an anti-Communist activist. She was to argue the affirmative position—that indeed there was a Communist threat in Hollywood —but the show’s producers were having trouble lining up her opposition . Arguing against the claim of Communist subversion in the motion picture industry would, according to news reports, “lend a pink tinge, but more important, no star yet approached wants to oppose Hedda Hopper.”2 Despite this fact, Hopper always felt on the political defensive, expected a hostile reception, and sought to buttress her position by practicing her gossip trade: making private talk public by exposing Communist beliefs among members of the film industry. In preparation for her appearance, she appealed to J. Edgar Hoover for “some facts to hurl back at the angry mob in the audience.” She hoped the FBI director would give her the names of Hollywood Communists, despite the fact that such information would have violated their civil liberties and right to keep their political affiliations private . “Naturally, I won’t be able to accuse certain stars of being registered Communists, as even those who are deny it, always have and always will.” But she believed “naming names,” and thus publicizing private information, was “the only way we’ll ever get rid of them.” With the aim of getting the confidential information she sought, Hopper wrote a letter to Hoover that 114 | Blacklisting Hollywood “Reds” was, at once, fawning, flattering, and sincere. “You’re so wise and have so many facts at your finger tips that I feel that I can call upon your friendship for help.” Hoover sent her a stack of articles in return, but they were hardly the confidential information she sought. Instead, they were all drawn from “records available to the public.”3 This exchange between Hopper and Hoover was only one of many between the gossip columnist and the FBI director, but it was characteristic of how the public and the private intersected in anti-Communist efforts and indicated the importance of gossip and its purveyors to those efforts in Hollywood, particularly the blacklist. The FBI leaked items about actual or accused Communists to Louella Parsons, Ed Sullivan, Walter Winchell, as well as Hopper, and Hopper was not the only Cold Warrior in celebrity journalism. Among her gossip colleagues, Winchell embraced “fashionable Red-baiting conservatism.” As Neal Gabler argues, “the image of Winchell as a journalistic Joseph McCarthy, slashing and burning his way through the American left,” dominated the 1950s.4 Like Hopper and Winchell, Ed Sullivan mobilized his readers and viewers in various anti-Communist campaigns . But Hopper’s main rival, Louella Parsons, was not nearly as involved in domestic anti-Communism. Although Parsons expressed concern about “the danger of the ‘Red Tide’” and supported the Hollywood blacklist, she also cautioned that “care must be taken that good Americans were not falsely accused.” With the support of the vast majority of her respondents, however, Hopper never worried about false accusations as she worked to establish, extend, and enforce the blacklist, busying herself with “exposing Reds in the name of patriotism.”5 Establishing the Hollywood Blacklist In her gossip column, Hedda Hopper devoted much attention to justifying a blacklist in the motion picture industry. Although Americans were fired or not hired due to their actual or assumed political opinions or associations in a wide range of areas, including all levels of government, the military, industry , public and higher education, and radio, television, and theatrical entertainment , the Hollywood blacklist received the most publicity and became the most famous. Its establishment in late 1947 not only signaled the stifling of social criticism and political dissent in Cold War America, but the accompanying national publicity meant it...