It was the casting call no one in Hollywood wanted to receive. In October 1947, when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convened a hearing in Washington, D.C., to investigate subversive activities in the entertainment industry, 41 screenwriters, directors and producers were subpoenaed. Most witnesses were “friendly” — that is, willing to respond to the committee’s central question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” And those who confessed to membership were offered the opportunity to name “fellow travelers,” thereby regaining their good standing with the committee and, by extension, the American film industry.

Ten witnesses — all current or former party members — banded together in protest, refusing to cooperate on First Amendment grounds (freedom of speech, right of assembly, freedom of association) and affirming that HUAC disagreed: It found the so-called Hollywood Ten in contempt of Congress, fined them each $1,000 and sentenced them to up to a year in federal prison. All 10 artists also were fired by a group of studio executives — and the era of the Hollywood blacklist began.

The Hollywood Ten in November 1947 waiting to be fingerprinted in the U.S. Marshal's office after being cited for contempt of Congress. Front row (from left): Herbert Biberman, attorneys Martin Popper and Robert W. Kenny, Albert Maltz, Lester Cole. Middle row: Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornitz. Back row: Ring Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott.

1. Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976): Screenwriter and novelist, an outspoken communist who was also a resoundingly successful capitalist — at the time of his blacklisting, he was the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood. Won two Oscars while blacklisted, for Roman Holiday (1953, using fellow screenwriter Ian McLellan Hunter’s name, with his consent) and The Brave One (1956, using the fictitious name “Robert Rich”). Helped shatter the blacklist with his credited work on Spartacus (1960) and Exodus (1960). Also wrote Lonely Are the Brave, Johnny Got His Gun (which he directed and adapted from his own novel) and Papillon.


In a 1970 speech to the Screen Writers Guild, Trumbo said, “The blacklist was a time of evil, and … no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil. Caught in a situation that had passed beyond the control of mere individuals, each person reacted as his nature, his needs, his convictions and his particular circumstances compelled him to. There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides … none of us — right, left or center — emerged from that long nightmare without sin.”


2. Ring Lardner Jr. (1915-2000): Reporter and screenwriter from a writing family including famed sportswriter and humorist Ring Lardner (Sr.) and John Lardner. Notable scripts include Laura, Woman of the Year and MASH, the latter two winning him Oscars. Prominently helped break the blacklist with his credit on The Cincinnati Kid (1965). Lardner claimed he won an Oscar via a front during the blacklist, but refused to specify for which film.


In response to HUAC’s infamous question about whether he was or had been a communist, Lardner said, “I could answer the question exactly the way you want, but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.” He also said, in 1947, “Only an act can be a crime, never an idea.”


3. Herbert Biberman (1900-1971): Screenwriter and director (Salt of the Earth), an early advocate for war against Germany following that nation’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The film One of the Hollywood Ten (2000) tells the HUAC story from his point of view.


“I do not consider this committee to be stupid,” he said in 1947. “On the contrary, I consider it to be evil. It is not communism the House Committee on Un-American Activities fears, but the human mind, reason itself. … This committee is in the course of overthrowing not Karl Marx, but the constitutional way of American life.”


4. Alvah Bessie (1904-1985): Novelist, nonfiction writer and screenwriter. Oscar nominee for Objective Burma, a patriotic war story.


Was active in the antifascist cause, fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and drawing praise from Ernest Hemingway for Men in Battle, an account of his war experiences. Wrote The Un-Americans, a novel about the blacklist, and Inquisition in Eden, a nonfiction account. The blacklist ended his Hollywood career.


5. Lester Cole (1904-1985): Screenwriter (Born Free). Born in New York City, Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was If I had a Million. In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America.


Wrote Hollywood Red: The Autobiography of Lester Cole (1981), in which he recounted confronting former communist and HUAC witness Budd Schulberg during a radio broadcast: “Aren’t you the canary who sang before the un-American Committee? Aren't you that canary? Or are you another bird, a pigeon — the stool kind. ... Just sing, canary, sing, you bastard!” The lifelong communist died in San Francisco at 81.


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