Biography
Alvah Bessie, a screenwriter and novelist who had volunteered with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” the screenwriters, directors and producers who in October 1947 were subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee at the outset of its investigation into alleged Communist influence in the motion-picture industry. All ten refused to answer the committee’s central question — “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — arguing that the inquiry violated their First Amendment rights of belief and association. On November 24, 1947 the House cited them for contempt of Congress; they were convicted the following year, and after John Howard Lawson’s and Trumbo’s appeals failed as test cases and the Supreme Court declined to hear them in 1950, all ten served federal prison terms. Every one of them was blacklisted by the studios under the “Waldorf Statement.” Blacklisted for the rest of his Hollywood career, he later worked as a stagehand and wrote “Inquisition in Eden,” a memoir of the ordeal.
