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The Victimization of Dalton Trumbo: Political Persecution in America


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Dalton Trumbo was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter who wrote dozens of movie scripts during the 1930s and ’40s. In 1947, Trumbo was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as part of the Hollywood Ten, who were questioned about their ties to the Communist Party. Trumbo refused to testify or divulge the names of others, and was found in contempt of Congress.

Subsequently, he was kicked out of the screenwriter’s guild, and all of the Hollywood motion picture studios almost immediately blacklisted him. For his refusal to testify in the HUAC hearings, Trumbo eventually served nearly a year in federal prison. Dalton Trumbo’s ruination took him from being one of Hollywood’s highest-paid writers to a Hollywood pariah.

After his release from prison, Hollywood kept him on the blacklist for a decade. Nevertheless, he kept writing for films under various pseudonyms. He won an Oscar in 1957 for one of those films, but couldn't pick it up. It is the only unclaimed Oscar in the history of the Academy Awards.
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