The blacklist as history

Remembering the martyrs of the 1950s blacklist has become an occasion for annual celebration by the survivors and the sympathizers of that period of turmoil in old Hollywood. But the fiftieth anniversary of the blacklist this October was something special, and Hollywood is going all out to commemorate the event. Frank Tarloff, an eighty-two-year-old blacklisted writer, leads the First Amendment-Blacklist Project, which is funding public art related to the period by Jenny Holzer. Public Radio is airing a drama titled “The Waldorf Conference,” a recreation by the actors Ed Asner, Charles Durning, and Shelley Berman of the meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria in which industry leaders issued an edict that Communists, and those who refused to cooperate with the House Committee, be dismissed from employment. Turner Classic Movies aired films and documentaries on the blacklist, and the industry itself sponsored events. On October 27, the four major guilds ...