Policing Show Business
eBook - ePub

Policing Show Business

J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cold War Movies

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Policing Show Business

J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cold War Movies

About this book

In Policing Show Business, Francis MacDonnell explores the starring role played by J. Edgar Hoover in the development of the Hollywood blacklist in the 1940s and 1950s. As director of the FBI, Hoover poured resources into scrutinizing show business, a policy choice unjustified by any corresponding threat to public security. He detailed agents to write regular reports on actors, screenwriters, lyricists, singers, and studio executives. His frequent handwritten comments on papers inside the files of film industry personalities demonstrate a level of interest bordering on obsession.

Policing Show Business is not just another book about the Hollywood blacklist. MacDonnell approaches the Red Scare through biography using FBI records on such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Lena Horne, Fredric March, Cecil B. DeMille, and Burl Ives to present in unexpected, surprising, and sometimes poignant ways the rich human dramas experienced by both targets of the bureau and its collaborators.

MacDonnell’s meticulously researched account, drawing on many newly available FBI files, evokes the passions and resentments; the courageous acts and calculated evasions; and the petty tyrannies and self-interested campaigns of an ignominious episode in the annals of American freedom.

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Yes, you can access Policing Show Business by Francis MacDonnell in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Front Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Table of Contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction
  9. 1 Policing Show Business: J. Edgar Hoover and the COMPIC Investigation
  10. 2 The Sunset Boulevard Irregulars: The Motion Picture Alliance and the FBI
  11. 3 Hollywood Liberalism on Trial: Dore Schary at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
  12. 4 Thrown to the Lions: E. Y. Harburg, Marguerite Roberts, and the Blacklist
  13. 5 Narrow Escapes: The Partial Surrender of Burl Ives and the Artful Defiance of Fredric March
  14. Conclusion: COMPIC’s Legacy and the Blacklisting Persuasion
  15. Afterword: In the Frame: Vantage Points on the Cold War and the Blacklist
  16. Notes
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index
  19. Photo Gallery