The Committee for the
First Amendment
First most commonly refers to:
* First, the ordinal form of the number 1
First or 1st may also refer to:
Acronyms
* Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array
* Far Infrared a ...
was formed in September 1947 by actors in support of the
Hollywood Ten
The Hollywood blacklist was the mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from working in the United States entertainment industry. The blacklisting, blacklist began at the onset of the Cold War and Red Scare#Second Red Scare (1947–1957 ...
during the hearings of the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). It was founded by screenwriter
Philip Dunne, actress
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams; August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American film, television and stage actress. As a performer, she was known for her ability to adapt to her screen partner's acting style.
Born in Helena, Monta ...
, and film directors
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics. He rec ...
and
William Wyler
William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a German-born American film director and producer. Known for his work in numerous genres over five decades, he received numerous awards and accolades, including three Aca ...
. Their ''Hollywood Fights Back'' was a radio program of members voicing their opposition to the government's activities.
Other members included
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by ''Time (magazine), Time'' in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for h ...
,
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart ( ; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart ...
,
Lauren Bacall
Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), professionally known as Lauren Bacall ( ), was an American actress. She was named the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the America ...
,
[Enid Nemy]
"Lauren Bacall Dies at 89; in a Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word"
(obituary), ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', Aug. 12, 2014. Jules Buck,
Richard Conte
Nicholas Peter Conte (March 24, 1910 – April 15, 1975), known professionally as Richard Conte, was an American actor. He was known for his starring roles in films noir and crime dramas during the 1940s and 1950s, including '' Call Northside ...
,
Joseph Cotten,
Dorothy Dandridge,
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television, and theater. Regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history, she was noted for her willingness to play unsympatheti ...
,
Olivia DeHavilland,
Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg, April 5, 1901 – August 4, 1981) was an American actor. Douglas came to prominence in 1929 as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy '' Ninotchka'' ( ...
,
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor whose career spanned five decades on Broadway theatre, Broadway and in Hollywood. On screen and stage, he often portrayed characters who embodied an everyman image.
Bo ...
,
John Garfield
John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle; March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of ...
,
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Possessing a strong contralto voice, she was celebrated for her emotional depth and versatility across film, stage, and concert performance. ...
,
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the ...
,
June Havoc,
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Walter Hayden (born Sterling Relyea Walter; March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986) was an American actor, author, sailor, and Marine. A leading man for most of his career, he specialized in Westerns and film noir throughout the 1950s, in film ...
,
Paul Henreid,
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose Katharine Hepburn on screen and stage, career as a Golden Age of Hollywood, Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong ...
,
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years and covered film, television and theatre.
Horne joined the chorus of the C ...
,
Marsha Hunt,
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; ; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer, and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.
Kaye starred ...
,
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessibl ...
,
Evelyn Keyes,
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American actor. Initially known for playing tough characters with tender hearts, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year caree ...
,
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer who performed in films and vaudeville on television, radio, and the stage. He is considered one of America's greatest comed ...
,
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed radio, theater, film, and television.
Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" ...
,
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli (; born Lester Anthony Minnelli; February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was an American Theatre director, stage director and film director. From a career spanning over half a century, he is best known for his sophisticated innovat ...
,
Edward G. Robinson,
Robert Ryan,
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...
,
Kay Thompson
Kay Thompson (born Catherine Louise Fink; November 9, 1909''"In the St. Louis Registry of Births, in the volume covering the period July 1909 – January 1910, on page 85, is the following entry: "Catherine Louise Fink, November 9, 1909."'' ,
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and ver ...
, and
Jane Wyatt.

On October 27, 1947, members of the group flew to
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, to protest HUAC hearings. Their involvement was ineffective, and membership in this group came to be regarded with suspicion. Ira Gershwin, for one, was called before the California anti-Communist
Tenney Committee, and was asked to explain his participation.
The committee's ''Hollywood Fights Back'' broadcasts on
ABC Radio Network were two 30-minute programs that took place October 27 and November 2, 1947, during which committee members voice their opposition to the HUAC hearings.
Backlash
The group, which was generally composed of non-Communist
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
liberal Democrats, was hurt when it was subsequently revealed that Sterling Hayden had been a Communist Party member. Humphrey Bogart, who had been assured that the Committee membership had been vetted, and there were no Communists among its membership, was incensed by the revelation that Hayden was a Communist. There was a great deal of naïveté among Committee members such as Bogart, who did not know that Hollywood 10 members such as
Alvah Bessie,
John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson (September 25, 1894 – August 11, 1977) was an American playwright, screenwriter, arts critic, and cultural historian. After enjoying a relatively successful career writing plays that were staged on and off Broadway in the 192 ...
, and
Dalton Trumbo were known to be Communist Party members. Lauren Bacall later said that she, Bogart, and other Committee members had been duped by the Communists. "We didn't realize until much later that we were being used to some degree by the Unfriendly 10", she said.
The California state legislature, which had its own
Un-American Activities Committee, soon branded the Committee as a Communist front organization.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
, who was the president of the
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
during the post-World War II Hollywood Red Scare and a dedicated anti-Communist as well as a liberal Democrat at the time, claimed that his fellow liberals had been the victims of "one of the most successful operation in
he Communists'domestic history", terming them "suckers". Ira Gershwin later testified before the California State Senate's un-American activities subcommittee that he was appalled to have been involved with the group.
Bogart, Garfield, and Robinson later wrote articles stating that they were "duped" into supporting the Hollywood Ten. (Garfield was later blacklisted; Robinson “graylisted.”). The March 1948 issue of ''
Photoplay
''Photoplay'' was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan m ...
'' included an article by Bogart, entitled "I'm No Communist. " In this article, he claimed that he and other members of the Committee did not realize that some of the Hollywood Ten actually were Communists. Bogart, one of the biggest Hollywood stars of his time, was attacked by many liberals and fellow travelers for supposedly selling out to save his career.
Aftermath
Humphrey Bogart continued to be a major star, having put the debacle of the Committee (and other political commitments) behind him. Bogart's biographers have come to the conclusion that the straight-talking star was genuinely disgusted at being manipulated by the Communist Party.
John Garfield was subpoenaed by HUAC in 1951, refused to name names, and was blacklisted, dying of a heart attack in 1952. It is generally believed he was never a party member, and his blacklisting contributed to the heart attack that killed him at the age of 39.
Edward G. Robinson, a well-known long-time New Deal liberal who had been friends with Franklin D. Roosevelt, was "graylisted" (never officially blacklisted, but not hired by film producers), and made his living as a stage actor during the period of
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a Fear mongering, campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage i ...
until director
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most co ...
, a noted and vociferous anti-communist, hired him for his 1956 remake of ''
The Ten Commandments''. Also "graylisted" were committee members Henry Fonda, Lena Horne and Melvyn Douglas.
Like Garfield, Sterling Hayden was subpoenaed by HUAC in 1951. Unlike Garfield, however, Hayden "named names", a decision he later regretted. "It is the one thing I've ever done in my life for which I'm ashamed", he said.
John Huston later moved to Ireland, reportedly to avoid any backlash from the McCarthyism that gripped the United States in the post-War period.
References
{{Authority control
Freedom of expression organizations
Organizations established in 1947
1947 establishments in California
Cinema of Southern California
Film organizations in the United States