Blind Item #8 - Mr. X - Old Hollywood
She was only A-list for a brief period of time, mainly because she died young. An Oscar winner/nominee, she could do it all: actress, singer, comedienne, songwriter. She should have been bigger than she was, and who knows how big she would've become had she lived longer. Shortly after she won several awards for the movie she's best known for, she got caught up in the HUAC Communist witch hunts. Her name appeared in affiliation with far left leaning political groups that she was active with early in her career. She was interrogated and questioned by Joseph McCarthy's goons but she played dumb throughout this denying affiliations with these groups even though there was clear evidence that she was. She didn't name names like some celebrities did, and her career didn't suffer because of it mainly because the tyrannical head of the studio she was under contract to saw that she was a good egg (and he didn't like many people) Being a liberal at this time was dangerous, because you would automatically be labeled a Communist. One influential gossip columnist was an ally to McCarthy and smeared the actress every chance she could get in her column. The actress was pregnant at the time, so when the columnist heard she didn't name names she did the unthinkable. She hired people to anonymously call the actress and her husband and send her death threats including 'I hope you miscarry your baby' and 'I hope you die in childbirth'. Pure evil. Word got back to the studio head (who was mob connected) and he sent some pals to tell the columnist to lay off or else. The threats stopped. Shortly after this incident, the columnist and the actress ran into each other at an industry party. The actress brought along her son to show off to her friends, and the baby all of a sudden decided to poop in his diaper, right in front of the columnist. The actress told her, "that's what he thinks of you, and I agree".
Judy Holliday ?
ReplyDeleteCarol Landis?
ReplyDeleteThe Ping Girl for the film?
ReplyDeleteJudy Holliday
ReplyDeletehttps://backlots.net/2017/11/14/judy-holliday-and-the-hollywood-blacklist-testimony-to-siss-1952/
Smart baby.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the gossip columnist was Hedda Hopper.
Wikipedia claims Holliday had an IQ of 172
ReplyDeleteHarry Cohn of Columbia for the allegedly mob related studio boss.
ReplyDelete@veee
ReplyDeleteI never heard of Judy Holliday before. I love Old Hollywood blind items. I’m not the only one.
Some of us weren’t alive during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Some of us have parents who weren’t even born until much later.
TW, according to her wikipedia page, Hopper was famous for it. The bitch.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedda_Hopper
@cheesegrater15
ReplyDeleteNot surprised. I think everyone was afraid of her. No one should use power that way. I guess I’m an idealist.
I saw some of the Camilla Cabello racist posts. I hope her career goes down in flames.
The delightful udy Holliday and horrible Hedda Hopper.
ReplyDeleteI drop whatever I'm doing to watch a Judy Holliday film.
Because she wouldn't bow to their fascist tactics.
ReplyDeleteI'm with SDaly, time has shown that McCarthy was right.
ReplyDeleteCame here to say just that. McCarthy was a patriot and was absolutely right.
ReplyDelete:poop:
DeleteAnd I bet you love Trump’s buddy Putin.
DeleteThe story screams “Judy Holliday”. RIP
ReplyDelete@SDaly
ReplyDeletebecause being a communist in the US has never been a crime - why were all of those people villainized?
Bit of trivia re HeddaHopper. Her son, William Hopper, played Perry Mason's investigator. It's not what you know...
ReplyDeleteGreat story!
ReplyDeleteJudy was too good for Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteSDaly, the journalist was widely known to be illiterate.
hedda hopper is a hero to opinionated morons everywhere
Things existed before you were born, luv.
ReplyDeleteWorth noting--since some are so bliasfully (arrogantly) ignorant: Being labeled a "communist" by anal-retentive nut jobs does not make it so.
ReplyDeleteThe More You Know
ReplyDeleteLucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were also accused of being Communist.
Almost lost their hit show.
Desi made an impassioned speech one Monday night on nationwide TV, about loving this country, Land of Opportunity, etc. He had to. They were about to lose everything.
Liz Smith
ReplyDeleteJudy Holliday was delightful in Bells are Ringing (where she sang), The Solid Gold Cadillac, Born Yesterday, and a lot of other movies. She often played a dumb blonde who had more inner resources and smarts than given credit for.
ReplyDeleteHedda Hopper or Louella Parsons for the gossip columnist.
ReplyDeletePeople should read more about Roy Cohen, Mccarthy's sidekick and henchman. A truly evil man, he took up Trump in the 70's, schooling him and becoming a kind of mentor. He's the one who taught Trump all about the press and Trump began developing his over the top, you can't touch me personna. A good documentary just came out this summer about Cohen, I'd suggest it.
ReplyDeleteTrump’s mentor till Cohn got AIDS and Trump dropped him like a hot potato, despite all the fixes Cohn arranged for him. Trump has zero loyalty.
DeleteThe fact that some people were falsely labeled as Communists does not change the fact that there actually were Communists in the entertainment industry at the time actively working for the Communists.
ReplyDeleteWhere's My Roy Cohn? He was heinous.
ReplyDeleteI'm always mesmerized by the sympathy for people who sided with a political movement that killed more than Hitler. Honestly. High IQ. No conscience.
ReplyDelete