The “Hollywood Ten," as the men were known, are sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges. The contempt charges stemmed from the refusal of the 10 men to answer questions posed by HUACThe House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public ...https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › House_Un-American_Activiti...
Hollywood Ten
The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). These people were subpoenaed to appear before HUAC in October.
The group, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, were voted in contempt of Congress in November and sentenced to prison for six months to a year. They were blacklisted by the Hollywood studios.
What Were the Hollywood Ten Accused of? The Hollywood Ten were accused of being members of the Communist Party or being sympathetic to communism. These accusations were aligned with HUAC's "un-American activities" policy but none of the accusations were actually crimes.
Kirk Douglas, who died Wednesday at age 103, played an instrumental role in helping end the Hollywood blacklist against suspected communist sympathizers, along with the movie director Otto Preminger. Douglas worked to have the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo credited for the 1960 film "Spartacus," in which Douglas starred.
The “Hollywood Ten," as the men were known, are sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges. The contempt charges stemmed from the refusal of the 10 men to answer questions posed by HUAC as to whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party.
As the anticommunism crusade subsided in the early 1960s, the Hollywood blacklist was slowly discontinued. Hollywood itself has commemorated the days of the blacklist in films like Guilty by Suspicion (1991) and The Front (1976).
The blacklist era kicked off in 1947, when famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and several other filmmakers known as the “Hollywood Ten” were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and asked a now-famous question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Trumbo had indeed been ...
The hearings resulted in contempt of Congress charges against the “Hollywood 10,” a group of filmmakers, mostly screenwriters, who refused to cooperate with the committee and were ultimately jailed and banned from working for all of the major studios.
In the context of the 1940s and 1950s, a blacklist was a list of persons whose opinions or associations were deemed politically inconvenient or commercially troublesome, thereby subjecting them to either difficulty finding work or termination from employment.
It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists".
The Chamber entered into a contract with the City of Los Angeles Parks Department to repair and rebuild the sign. The contract stipulated that "LAND" be removed to spell "Hollywood" and reflect the district, not the "Hollywoodland" housing development.
The Hollywood blacklist was designed to keep out people in the entertainment industry who were either Communists or believed to be sympathizing with this cause. The existence of this list can be tied to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), an organization dating back to 1918.
The blacklist enabled the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to establish in its place a system far better suited for business in postindustrial, postwar America and far more suitable ethnically and politically for doing business with the federal government in the 1940s and 1950s.
The Hollywood Blacklist came into being in 1947 when the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began to summon certain Hollywood entertainment professionals on the suspicion that their work was communist-inspired.
Hollywood then started a blacklist policy, banning the work of about 325 screenwriters, directors and actors who the committee had not yet cleared. Some people were able to keep working, whether it was through pseudonyms or crediting their friends.
After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to Joseph McCarthy's gradual loss of public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false, and sustained opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren on human rights grounds.
Hollywood figures, including film stars Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, and Edward G. Robinson, are named in a FBI report as Communist Party members. Such reports helped to fuel the anticommunist hysteria in the United States during the late-1940s and 1950s.
In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers. During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine.
McCarthyism was characterized by a deep fear and suspicion of communism in the United States. Blacklisting in Hollywood happened in the late 1930's but wasn't until 1947 that hearings were held to investigate Communism in Hollywood. Yes McCarthyism and blacklisting in Hollywood could happen again.
The investigation into Hollywood and the blacklist emboldened HUAC, and the importance of uncovering suspected communists became a rallying cry.
The thriller series continues to be a ratings success. Good news, The Blacklist fans!
Hollywood Ten, in U.S. history, 10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations, and, after spending time in prison for contempt of Congress, were mostly ...
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was a little-known junior senator from Wisconsin until February 1950 when he claimed to possess a list of 205 card-carrying Communists employed in the U.S. Department of State.