When Helen Keller Ended Up on J. Edgar Hoover’s Commie List

  

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover testifying before Congress about the "Communist Fifth Column."

Note—Attacks on “enemies of the people” and suggestions that folks should be thrown in jail for protests or simply overt opposition to the Cheeto-in-Charge as well as suggestions that reporters, activist actors, and even members of Congress be physically attacked by “patriots” bring to mind an earlier dark era for American liberties.  So do suggestions to declare a National Emergency and suspend habeas corpus. May we learn from the past.

On June 9, 1949 J. Edgar Hoover did his part to fuel the growing anti-Communist hysteria sweeping post-World War II America when he released a “confidential” FBI report that named scores of influential Americans, most of them in the movie and entertainment business as members of the Communist Party. 

Hoover had developed his list after Attorney General Tom Clark in 1946 asked for the names of potentially “disloyal Americans” who might be detained in event of a “national emergency.”  The names on the list were included a year later in 1950 after the Korean War broke  out in a report to President Harry Truman with more than 12,000 who should be rounded up and detained after the formal suspension of the right of habeas corpus.  Truman had the good sense to thank his powerful FBI boss and promptly put the report and recommendation in the bottom drawer never to be acted upon.

But there were plenty, many of the in Congress and including some of the country’s most powerful media barons like the Chicago Tribune’s Col. Robert R. McCormack and Time’s Henry Luce were already clamoring for just such draconian measures.

Hollywood where the major studios were run by Jews and where many actors, writers, and creative people were politically active liberals and leftists and where there was a powerful labor union movement with sometimes radical leadership, had already been singled out as a virtual Commie fifth column. 

In 1946 and ’47 the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee launched high profile hearings on Communist infiltration of the film industry and subpoenaed hundreds to testify and name names.  Nineteen of those refused to do so and were named as unfriendly witnesses.  Eleven of those were called before the committee and 10 refused to answer questions.  Only German émigré Berthold Brecht relented and testified.  The others including screen writers Dalton Trumbo, Howard Koch, and Ring Larder, Jr. were indicted for contempt of Congress and eventually sent to prison and blacklisted from the industry.

 

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart lead a delegation at the Capitol of the Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights to protest the persecution of the Hollywood 10.  Easily identifiable are Danny Kaye behind Bogart, June Haver behind Bacall, William Holden and Richard Conti. Studio executive forced the committee to back down and some participants were themselves black listed.

Some of Hollywood royalty including John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Danny Kaye, and Billy Wilder attempted to rally support for the Hollywood Ten by organizing a Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights and traveling to Washington to protest.  They came under intense attack by the Committee, the press, and by the terrified studio owners.  Bogart, spearhead and principle spokesman for the group, was forced to back track and issue a statement that the trip had been ill advised.  The group broke up acrimoniously between those who thought they should have toughed it out and those like Wilder who advised it was time “to fold our tents.”

Two years later Garfield and Kaye were among those named in the new FBI report, which was based on unnamed confidential informants and the Bureau’s own “analysis” which concluded that the Communists claimed, “to have been successful in using well-known Hollywood personalities to further Communist Party aims.”  Analysis was often based on no more than the recollection of an informant seeing an individual at a meeting years earlier, attendance at public functions, donations to certain charities, or signatures on some petitions.  It included pre-war support for anti-Fascist causes and war time support of the Soviet Union—including activities undertaken at the request of the government.

Some people on the list were or had been Party Members.  Others were sympathetic.  Some were non-Communist leftists—members of the Socialist Party or the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).  Many were unionists or sympathizers with the early Civil Rights Movement.  And very many were simply liberals.  It made no difference.  To Hoover all were not just the “willing dupes” of the HUAC hearings, but active, card carrying Communists.

 

Among those listed were acknowledged Socialist and IWW member Helen Keller, even then widely regarded as a sort of secular saint.  The report centered on the activities of Fredric March, a well-known liberal and an active Democrat who had recently won his second Academy Award for the brilliant film about the return of World War II GIs, The Best Years of Our Lives.  March was no Communist, but he had organized a group concerned about atomic weapons and critical of America’s growing arsenal.  Any one even tangentially connected to that effort, or to people connected to the effort were caught up in rippling waves of innuendo.

John Garfield, once the brightest new star at Warner Bros. came under especially severe scrutiny and his career immediately suffered.  Already plagued with heart problems, the stress of the accusations was widely believed to be a direct contributing factor to his death of a heart attack in May of 1952. 

Other prominent people named in the report, along with hundreds of non-celebrities included writer and wit Dorothy Parker, Paul Muni, and Edward G. Robinson.  Like Garfield and Kaye they were all Jewish.  In fact the reek of Anti-Semitism hung over the whole report.

 

 Fredric March, Paulette Goddard, Edward G. Robinson, and Audie Murphy, America's most decorated World War II soldier, stood up to Hoover.

The effect on careers varied.  Many of the more obscure found themselves on blacklists.  Parker lost the radio panel show jobs that had provided most of her income.  Muni’s film career was essentially finished.  March and Kaye were able to keep working and had some of their best work ahead of them.  Robinson’s career was hurt, but not over.  And he was the most outspokenly defiant befitting his tough guy image.

These rantings, ravings, accusations, smearing, and character assassinations can only emanate from sick, diseased minds of people who rush to the press with indictments of good American citizens. I have played many parts in my life, but no part have I played better or been more proud of than that of being an American citizen.

 

Bringing Bronx Jewish Family Life into Goy Living Rooms With Molly Goldberg

The Goldbergs premiered on CBS Television in 1948 after twenty successful years on radio in various incarnations.

On the evening of January 17, 1948, The Goldbergs premiered on CBS Television.  Most historians of the medium credit it with being the first true situation comedy on television.  It continued to run in different forms and under different titles until 1958 on three networks and in new episode syndication. 

It was also a spectacular professional achievement for its creator, Gertrude Berg.   In its dawning years TV was almost totally dominated by men.  But Berg produced, directed, wrote, and starred in every episode and had almost complete control of the program.  She dwarfed the power that Lucille Ball had over her landmark program I Love Lucy.

You would think with bona fides like that The Goldbergs would get lots of attention from the burgeoning ranks of television histories and broadcast documentaries.  But it earns hardly a footnote. 

You don’t think that it might be because the series was about the home life of, you know, Jews do you?  And not the urbane hipster young Jews that show up on modern sitcoms, but second and first generation off-the-boat Eastern European Jews with funny ways of talking and odd customs presided over by the meddlesome but well-meaning Jewish mother to end all Jewish mothers living in near poverty in a Bronx tenement.

The Goldbergs was Gertrude Berg’s life’s work. 

She was born Tilly Edelstein in Harlem—then an immigrant neighborhood—in 1898.  He father was an immigrant who made modestly good and invested in a Catskills resort hotel.  Young Tilly attended public school and properly married Lewis Berg at the age of 20.  Together they had two children.

But Tilly had been bitten by the show biz bug.  She participated in the lively amateur Yiddish theater scene.  But she found her niche not only as a performer but as a writer when she began to create comedy sketches for her father’s hotel based on her childhood.  She created a matriarch, Molly Goldberg based on her own mother.

The Rise of the Goldbergs written by and starring Gertrude Berg moved from a local broadcast to the NBC radio network in 1929.

In 1928, now using the professional name Gertrude Berg, she wrangled a spot on radio with NBC.  After appearing as local programming, The Rise of the Goldbergs premiered in November 1929 just days after the Stock Market Crash that sent the nation into the Great Depression.   Originally a 15 minute weekly serial, it gave a Yiddish spin to the popular domestic comedy genre that included such radio favorites as Fibber McGee and Molly, Vic and Sade, and Easy Aces.   Perhaps the struggles of the Goldbergs seemed more universal as the Depression settled in.  At any rate, the show—and Molly Goldberg—was a hit.  In 1931 it moved to five days a week.

Each program began with Molly calling out of the tenement window, “Yoo-hoo! Is anybody...?”  Stories centered on the family—Molly’s immigrant father with stars in his eyes about American opportunity, her hard working if sometimes set upon husband, her two growing children and the neighbors.  Molly was always in everybody’s business as they struggled to adapt to a new way of life and support themselves.  Whatever foibles she had were overcome with her good heart.

The program moved to CBS in 1936 and was renamed simply The Goldbergs.  Still a 15 minute program, it was a cross between a comedy and soap opera.  Serious issues and struggles were dealt with as humorously as possible.  As tensions rose in Europe, story lines included the fate of relatives still in the old country, anti-Semitism here, and harsh economic reality.  After America entered World War II, so did the Goldberg family.

The show introduced middle America to Jewish culture.  The High Holy Days were observed and for many years Metropolitan Opera star Jan Peerce any sang the prayers of a Cantor.  One Jewish historian observed, “This series has done more to set us Jews right with the goyim than all the sermons ever preached by the Rabbis.”

The program was nearly as popular as CBS’s number 1 hit Amos and Andy which featured another minority group.  But Amos and Andy was written and performed by white men who, although fond of their characters, relied on the conventions of old minstrel shows to portray them.  Although Berg was sometimes later charged with promoting an ethnic stereotype, the characterizations were infused with reality. 

In 1948 Goldberg took material from the show to create and star in a successful Broadway version, Me and Molly. The success of that show enticed CBS to bring it to television in a 30 minute weekly format.

The TV show reset the clock on the family saga.  The Goldberg children had grown up and married in the long running radio series.  On TV they were once again adolescents.  But the heart of the program remained the same.  And despite the fears of the network and sponsor General Foods’ Sanka coffee that American would not watch Jews who looked Jewish, the show was a hit.  Berg won the very first Emmy Award for Best Actress in 1950.

Veteran actor Philip Loeb played Molly Goldberg's husband Jake in the post-war Broadway play and stayed with the roll when it came to TV but was forced out in the Red Scare.  Despite Gertrude Berg's support and continued secret paychecks, the despondent actor took his own life in 1956.

But the same year it faced a crisis.  Philip Loeb, who had played the part of Molly’s husband Jake in the Broadway show, stayed in the role for the television series.  In 1950 he was charged with being a Communist, which he denied.  The charges were never proven, but General Foods wanted him off the show to avoid controversy.  Berg, who owned the show, flatly refused.  CBS dropped it from their 1951 line up.

NBC agreed to bring it back, but only without Loeb.  In the end Berg reluctantly agreed but continued to secretly and personally pay Loeb his salary.  Loeb, distraught by a virtual blacklisting, committed suicide in 1955.

NBC aired The Goldbergs in the 1953-54 season as two 15 minute shows in the early evening alternating with other programming.  It dropped the show after the end of the season.

The DuMont TV Network then picked the show up and hoped to re-build its sagging schedule around the hit, which reverted to a 30 minute format. The DuMont shows, unlike the filmed segments on the other networks, were aired live. But the network collapsed before the full scheduled 1955 run could be completed.

In 1955-56 Berg produced new episodes for syndication.  In these shows the Goldbergs reflected the upward mobility of post war Jews and followed many of their models by moving from the old Bronx tenement to a Connecticut suburb.  The shows focused on the struggle to adapt to the new environment without all the familiar support systems of the old neighborhood.

After the show finally went off the air, Berg appeared in character for sketches on variety shows like Washington Square with Ray Bolger, and a Kate Smith special.

Berg starred on Broadway in A Majority of One opposite Sir Cedric Hardwick but lost the movie roll to Rosalind Russell.

In 1959 her career revived when she won a Tony Award for best actress for her staring turn in A Majority of One in which she played a Jewish widow who falls in love with a Japanese businessman despite having lost a son in World War II.  She was deeply disappointed when the decidedly non-Jewish Rosalind Russell was cast as Mrs. Jacoby opposite the equally non-Japanese Alec Guiness in the Warner Bros. film.

Despite the disappointment, 1961 was a good year for Berg.  Her memoirs Molly and Me became a best seller.  And she returned to series television one more time as a Jewish widow in Mrs. G. Goes to College with Sir Cedric Hardwick as her stuffy, perplexed professor. After being re-named the Gertrude Berg Show in mid-season, it was canceled in the spring of 1962.

Berg died of heart failure in New York in 1966 at the age of 67 survived by her long-time husband and two children.