The Hollywood Ten were a group of film writers, directors, and producers who refused to answer questions about alleged Communist ties before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947, were convicted of contempt of Congress, and then blacklisted by Hollywood studios, which effectively destroyed or stalled many of their careers for years.

Who the Hollywood Ten Were

The Hollywood Ten were primarily screenwriters, with a few directors and producers, who had been active in Hollywood’s creative and labor circles during the 1930s and 1940s. They were targeted amid rising Cold War fears that movies might spread pro-Communist ideas to American audiences.

The ten members were:

  • Alvah Bessie – Screenwriter and journalist, known for work on the war film “Objective, Burma!” (1945).
  • Herbert Biberman – Director and screenwriter, later directed the socially conscious film “Salt of the Earth” (1954).
  • Lester Cole – Screenwriter and founding member of the Screen Writers Guild, involved in dozens of scripts from the 1930s–40s.
  • Edward Dmytryk – Film director of noirs like “Murder, My Sweet” (1944) and “Crossfire” (1947).
  • Ring Lardner Jr. – Screenwriter, the last surviving member of the Ten, later co-wrote “M A S*H” (1970).
  • John Howard Lawson – Screenwriter and influential figure in the Screen Writers Guild.
  • Albert Maltz – Screenwriter and novelist, worked on socially themed films such as “Pride of the Marines” (1945).
  • Samuel Ornitz – Screenwriter and novelist, an early organizer in the Screen Writers Guild.
  • Adrian Scott – Producer and writer on films including “Murder, My Sweet” and “Cornered.”
  • Dalton Trumbo – Prolific screenwriter who later famously broke the blacklist when credited on “Spartacus” and “Exodus.”

What Happened to Them

In October 1947, HUAC summoned a larger group of Hollywood figures, but these ten became infamous because they refused to answer questions about their political affiliations, invoking constitutional rights and challenging the committee’s legitimacy. For this refusal, they were cited for contempt of Congress, sentenced to prison terms (generally about a year), and then fired and blacklisted by major studios through a formal pledge not to employ them.

The blacklist forced many of them to work under pseudonyms, move abroad, or leave the film industry entirely, reshaping both their lives and Hollywood’s political climate. The system began to break down in the early 1960s when producers like Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger publicly credited Dalton Trumbo by name, symbolically challenging the blacklist and helping restore some of the Hollywood Ten’s professional reputations.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.