tkrolak — 9 years ago(January 31, 2017 07:51 PM)

Years ago, I saw a television documentary about the blacklisting period in Hollywood. Jane Wyatt described how she was in a group of actors who went to Washington, D.C. in 1947 to express their disagreement with the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee. It was investigating alledged communist influence in the film industry. A photograph was shown of her next to the plane that took her and the others to the capitol to see the hearings.
At the time, she said that her movie career was doing well.
But back in Hollywood she was passed over for a role that she had been told was hers, then for another one, and then for another one. She was talking about this to a friend on the
phone. The woman said "Jane, don't you know? You've been listed in Red Channels." That was the magazine that supported the blacklisting and printed the names of people it believed to be communists.
She said that she was "never a communist." Perhaps the photograph started the trouble for her. Or, maybe, as a lifelong "liberal Democrat" she was considered too left leaning for the businessmen who made the movies. Did they think she was dispensable because she wasn't a major star?Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Whether or not she spoke out against the House hearings I don't know.
Others in the group who went to Washington were
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, Lucille Ball,
and the sceenwriter and director Billy Wilder. None of them,
as far as I know, suffered because of the stand they took.
Humphrey Bogart, on the radio, attacked the committee's investigations but later made a second speech on the airwaves
to reverse what he said the first time he spoke. He may have done so only reluctantly, being given the choice of a retraction or being blacklisted. Judy Garland didn't go to Washington but she did angrily denounce the hearings on the radio and never backed down on a word she said. When MGM
fired her, it wasn't because of what she said about the hearings or the blacklist. The film actor Robert Ryan attacked the blacklisting on the radio in 1951 but continued
to star in movies.
In that year, accordiog to what Jane Wyatt said in the interview, she fell victim to the Hollywood hysteria. The blacklisting of her began. She attempted to find work on the
New York stage but was barred from there too. Three years passed during which, if I can remember correctly, she said the boycotting of her continued until she joined the cast of
Father Knows Best. She obviou5b4sly found this part of her life
hard to tslk sbout.
So, we have blacklisting to thank for the character Jane Wyatt is best remembered for, that of Margaret Anderson, a part she at first turned down. Robert Young wanted her for
the role. Apparently, the shunning of her didn't matter to him. That's assuming he knew about it.
Jane Wyatt's resume on her first page of this website lists
acting credits she had during the time she was blacklisted.
Those parts were all on television. The film career she had was never recovered.