Truthdig sheds light on the Hollywood Blacklist on its 60th anniversary. It was in November 1947 that ten writers and directors from Hollywood were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee of Un-American Activities. More information about the "Red Scare" can be found here.
I've always been interested in the blacklist because of one of those ten, Dalton Trumbo, who is one of my favorite writers. Blacklisted, he simply couldn't work because he was tied to the Communist party. Well, in fact, he did work, under pseudonyms. He won an Oscar for 1956's The Brave One, writing under the name Robert Rich. It wasn't until 1960, when he received writing credit for Exodus, then soon after, for Spartacus, that the blacklist as a whole began to crumble away.
Trumbo, by the way, also wrote arguably the best war novel ever written. Read his Johnny Got His Gun and you'll never think about war the same way again.
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