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".
