Witch-Hunt in Hollywood

How political paranoia shaped cinema for a decade: “One of the most readable and damning accounts of that period.” —The Guardian

This is the story of how the politicians took Tinseltown to task in the late 1940s and 1950s. As the Cold War with the Soviet Union began in earnest, the search for “Reds under the bed,” later led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was felt most keenly in Hollywood, where the investigations were carried out under the full glare of the spotlights.

Painstakingly researched and drawing on numerous exclusive interviews, this book charts the generation of actors who found their livelihood ruined by being blacklisted and the writers forced to hire “fronts” to continue to work; it reveals how Arthur Miller was offered the chance to have his hearing dropped in return for a photo opportunity with Marilyn Monroe; and how Kirk Douglas’s naming of Dalton Trumbo as the writer of Spartacus signaled the end of this extraordinary era. Witch Hunt in Hollywood is the definitive account of how political paranoia shaped cinema for a decade.