CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Searching for Subversives in Hollywood

THE COMMUNIST PARTY’S INVOLVEMENT IN HOLLYWOOD AND THE ORIgin of what would become its archenemy, the House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC, both came into existence within two years of each other. In 1936, the Communist Party (CP) had decided to become active in the movie industry and sent out two people to organize “fellow travelers” in Hollywood. Dispatched to the movie capital to set up a Hollywood branch of the CP were V. J. Jerome, a cultural commissar, and Stanley Lawrence, a CP organizer. The appointed head of the Hollywood branch was screenwriter John Howard Lawson.¹

The House Un-American Activities Committee had its origins back in 1938. Founded as the temporary Special Committee on Un-American Activities by Congressman Martin Dies (D-Texas) and Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D-New York), it was chaired by Dies and was informally known as the Dies Committee. Its mandate was to investigate disloyalty of private citizens towards the United States as well as to investigate subversive activities on the part of American citizens. Spurred on through the efforts of Congressman John Rankin (D-Mississippi), it was renamed the House Un-American Activities Committee and became a permanent committee of the House of Representatives in 1945.

Just prior to the beginning of World War II, in an effort to counter growing fears of Soviet espionage and subversive activities in the United States, Attorney General Francis Biddle drew up a list of organizations that were designated as Soviet-controlled front organizations. The list, known as the Biddle List, contained eleven organizations, including American League Against War and Fascism, the American Youth Congress, the League of American Writers, and the National Negro Congress. Throughout the war years, the threat of Communist infiltration of American life, or “the Red Menace,” was never far from the thoughts of government officials, especially FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

In 1947, with the Cold War heating up around the world, President Harry S. Truman could not allow his critics and political enemies to believe that he was soft on the communist menace. In March he promulgated what became known as the Truman Doctrine, pledging increased aid to Greece and Turkey to combat Soviet communist expansionism in Europe. He could scarcely afford to be any less tough on communism at home. On March 22, 1947, he signed Executive Order 9835. Known as the Loyalty Order, it established for the first time a loyalty program intended to stamp out communist influence in the United States government. The Federal Employee Loyalty Program authorized the FBI to do extensive background checks on all federal employees. As a direct result of the signing of Executive Order 9835 into law on April 3, 1947, an updated version of the Biddle List was issued. Now called the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations, the greatly expanded list included many organizations believed to be Communist front organizations. With this background, HUAC turned it sights in earnest on Hollywood.

Congressman J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), chairman of HUAC, called for hearings to commence in the fall of 1947 to examine Communist infiltration and subversion of Hollywood. The film industry’s initial response was that of disgust and frustration. “Hollywood is weary of being the national whipping boy for congressional committees,” complained the Association of Motion Picture Producers (AMPP). “We are tired of irresponsible charges made again and again and again and not sustained. If we have committed a crime we want to know it. If not, we should not be badgered by congressional committees.”² In spite of these objections, in September HUAC issued subpoenas to forty-one members of the Hollywood community, with an emphasis on screenwriters.

Of the forty-one persons subpoenaed to appear before the committee in Washington, nineteen of them announced their intentions not to cooperate with HUAC. The hearings began on October 20, 1947. During the first week of the hearings the initial members called proved to be friendly witnesses. Studio head Jack Warner provided the committee with a list of persons he felt were communists. Novelist Ayn Rand found communist propaganda in the smiling faces of Russian children in Song of Russia.³ Actor Robert Taylor expressed his contempt for communists and their sympathizers in Hollywood and expressed the opinion that if it were up to him, they would all be shipped back to Russia. It was during the second week of the hearings that the “unfriendly” witnesses were called to testify.

Eleven of the nineteen subpoenaed witnesses who announced their intention not to cooperate were called in front of the committee. Playwright Bertolt Brecht, after denying that he ever applied to become a member of the Communist Party, promptly fled the country. The other ten were all prominent screenwriters and directors. Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars and prominent directors protested what they felt was a threat to freedom of speech as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. To counter what was perceived as the unfair inquisition that the HUAC was conducting against free speech in the film industry, the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA) was formed in Hollywood.

The Committee for the First Amendment was organized in Hollywood largely through the efforts of directors John Huston and William Wyler and screenwriter Phillip Dunne. The committee’s core basic tenet—that “any investigation into the political beliefs of the individual is contrary to the basic principles of our democracy. Any attempt to curb freedom of expression and to set arbitrary standards of Americanism is in itself disloyal to both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution”—was strongly endorsed by many of the Hollywood establishment. This included Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, and Ava Gardner.⁴ One of the active members of the new committee was actor Alexander Knox, most widely known for his portrayal of President Woodrow Wilson in the 1944 film Wilson. That September, Sterling Hayden received a phone call from Knox, telling him about the new committee they were forming and asking him to join. Hayden replied that he would think it over. Soon thereafter, Hayden attended a gathering in support of the newly formed group at the home of Ira Gershwin, where several hundred Hollywood celebrities were also in attendance. The spokesmen for the group were Huston and Dunne. Impressed with the group’s membership and leadership, as well as the message they conveyed, Hayden decided to join. The committee, as reported in Daily Variety, “plans a backfire against the House Un-American Activities Committee via a drive to battle the top headlines out of Washington each day,” while carefully noting that the membership “declared themselves to be anti-Communist.”⁵

The CFA issued a formal statement alleging several abuses by the HUAC, the most serious of which was that HUAC was running, in essence, a criminal trial, but that none of the accused was given the privilege of self-defense statements or the right to cross-examine their accusers. The formal statement was signed by twenty-eight prominent members of the Hollywood community. Among the signatories were Sterling Hayden and his wife Betty.⁶

The committee decided to send a delegation to Washington to attend the hearings when the unfriendly witnesses were to testify to see if the hearings were conducted fairly. Hayden was one of the members of the delegation that attended. Also attending were Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, as well as Danny Kaye, Frank Sinatra, and Groucho Marx. The fifty-person delegation made multiple stops along the way to Washington to drum up support. Arriving in the nation’s capital, they presented their formal statement to the clerk of the House of Representatives just before the hearings were to resume. Heads turned as Hayden and his fellow movie stars seated themselves in the gallery at the start of the week when the questioning of the unfriendly witnesses began on October 27.

The ten unfriendly witnesses, who would become known in history as the Hollywood Ten, were comprised of eight prominent screenwriters and two prominent directors. It may or may not have been known to many of their Hollywood celebrity advocates in the audience that day that most of the unfriendly witnesses had been or still were members of the Communist Party. The screenwriters were Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. The directors were Herbert Biberman, and Edward Dmytryk.

The Hollywood delegation’s plan was to arrive for the hearings on October 27 just when Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, was set to testify. They felt that the presence of the Hollywood delegation would bolster Johnston’s testimony. Prior to their departure for Washington, William Wyler had briefed the group about the importance of timing and perception for their mission. He told them to stay away from unfriendly witnesses. He knew the news media would say they were there defending communists when their purpose in going to Washington was “to attack the House Un-American Activities Committee and not to defend any Communists.”⁷ Their well-meaning strategy was soon shattered by HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas.

Thomas masterfully manipulated the situation to put the Hollywood delegation in a bad light. As the delegation seated itself, Thomas changed the order of witnesses and instead of calling Eric Johnston, he called as the first witness John Howard Lawson. Lawson, head of the Hollywood branch of the Communist Party, proved to be an extremely combative and belligerent witness. However sympathetic to Lawson any member of the delegation of members of the CFA might have been, his shouting, insolent performance put him and the other Hollywood Ten in an extremely bad light from the beginning. This all played directly into Thomas’s hands when later that afternoon at a news conference, reporters suggested that the Hollywood delegation’s presence at the hearings would be interpreted all over the country as support for Lawson. The demoralized committee members lasted one more day of testimony and left Washington feeling foolish and defeated. “We’ve been had!” they told each other.⁸ The well-intentioned Committee for the First Amendment had accomplished nothing, and their situation continued to spiral downhill after the end of the HUAC hearings.

Each member of the Hollywood Ten refused to answer the questions posed to them by the HUAC, the most important of which was, “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Towards the end of the week, Eric Johnston testified that he would never “employ any proven or admitted Communist because they are just a disruptive force and I don’t want them around.”⁹ On November 24, the House of Representatives voted 346–17 to hold the Hollywood Ten in contempt of Congress. If the CFA thought that they would find sympathy with their cause from the studio executives, they were badly mistaken.

On the same day that the HUAC was voting to find the Hollywood Ten in contempt of Congress, fifty Hollywood executives were meeting in New York City at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, representing the Motion Picture Association of America, the Association of Motion Picture Producers, and the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers. The studio heads that participated in the meeting included Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Dore Schary of RKO Pictures, Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, and Samuel Goldwyn of the Samuel Goldwyn Company. After two days of deliberations, the group issued a policy statement that came to be known as the Waldorf Statement. The statement was nothing less than a wholesale endorsement of the HUAC’s actions. Eric Johnston, as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, read the statement to the press. The opening paragraph set the tone: “Members of the Association of Motion Picture Producers deplore the action of the ten Hollywood men who have been cited for contempt of the House of Representatives. We do not desire to pre-judge their legal rights, but their actions have been a disservice to their employers and have impaired their usefulness to the industry.”¹⁰

Other key elements of the Waldorf Statement left no doubt what the policies of the studios would be. “We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ and we will not re-employ any of the ten until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a Communist.” Studios would never employ a communist or anyone who advocated the overthrow of the United States government. Acknowledging that there was a risk that innocent people could be hurt in the process, the group vowed to be vigilant against such a possibility. Thus, on November 25, 1947, the Hollywood blacklist was born.

Almost immediately, the Committee for the First Amendment began to implode. One Washington newspaper issued a report that one of the CFA members who had traveled to Washington—Sterling Hayden—was actually a communist. William Wyler was incensed by the accusation and called the committee members together. He requested that they all raise funds to be used so that Hayden could sue for libel. Hayden, of course, knew that the accusation was true. The idea to raise funds was dropped and the particular issue died down.¹¹ Hayden had dodged a bullet—at least for the time being.

The Committee for the First Amendment continued in its death spiral. It had failed in its mission, instead appearing to represent communist sympathizers. The studio executives—the very people who had provided the actors with comfortable and, in many cases, lavish lifestyles—had made their position on the matter very obvious. The stars, understanding the studio heads’ support of the HUAC, began backtracking. In December, Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall held a press conference during which Bogart described the Hollywood delegation’s trip to Washington as “ill advised, even foolish.”¹² Bogart went even further, writing an article that appeared in the March 1948 issue of Photoplay entitled “I’m No Communist!” that proved to be the final nail in the coffin of the Committee for the First Amendment.

In the following years, the Committee for the First Amendment was branded as a Communist front organization. Members of the committee would hotly deny the accusation. Years later, William Wyler, one of the group’s founders and leaders, would state: “Of course the Attorney General said it was a Communist front, and apparently a front organization is what the Attorney General decides. But it was not a Communist-front organization. There may have been some communists in the group, but then there are probably Communists in any organization. The point is, they did not run the Committee, and a Communist-front organization is one that is run by Communists. We ran the Committee and we were not Communists.”¹³ Hayden’s views on the Committee mirrored those of Wyler. “I thought it over very carefully, and I assured myself that—I may be wrong, but my conclusion was that this was in no way a Communist front at the time,” he recalled in 1951.¹⁴

The members of the Hollywood Ten, having been found in contempt of Congress, were put on trial, and in April 1948, each was found guilty. Each was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $1,000. The Ten appealed the ruling and the case made its way up to the Supreme Court. The court refused to hear the appeals, and the Hollywood Ten all served their sentences starting in 1950. The Hollywood hearings conducted by the HUAC were suspended while the appeals of the Ten worked their way through the judicial system. With the Hollywood Ten finally being jailed, the hearings would resume in 1951. That year, Sterling Hayden’s past flirtations with communism would finally catch up with him.

• • •

The years 1947 through 1949 were difficult for Sterling Hayden. His relationship with his wife Betty evolved into one of continual conflict, probably inevitable considering the strong-willed, independent nature they each possessed. Throughout this time, the Haydens lived together on various boats moored not far from the San Pedro hills. Initially, their devotion to each other excluded the rest of the world. “We ate each other up,” he would recall.¹⁵

He was desperately unhappy during this time. His recollections in Wanderer would often reflect this combination of depression and self-doubt, coupled with a measure of self-hatred. “I lived in a downward spiraling, diminishing, darkening world. I lived on a ship that was no ship, with a wife who was no wife (no fault of hers) … But I had been the golden boy, capturing the imagination of the crowd, born to the sea. I had been the man who didn’t care, who thumbed his nose at all the proper things beloved of proper people … But now the past was dying. I had raked its coals till all that remained was ash. My stories were all told out. No new friends came, and only sleep was pleasing.”¹⁶

The stresses of his home life were intensified by two major factors: his heavy drinking and his professional inactivity, despite his enviable salary. He had evolved into a highly functional alcoholic, one who was able to infuse a bizarre bit of self-discipline in his destructive habits. “I drank a great deal,” he would recall, “but drew the line at real benders. Apparently the same force that prevented me from giving myself to life also blunted the self-destructive process. I could drink till I passed out. But, always, four hours later I would roll out, plunge or shower, then bundle up and read till dawn, when I ran or walked or cycled or rowed for hours. Then I’d settle back and drift though the daylight hours like a ghost, with never a drink till dusk.”¹⁷ Greatly exacerbating his self-destructive behavior was his lack of work in Hollywood.

He had no regrets about his decision to leave the Communist Party. In the summer of 1947, he was contacted by actress Karen Morley, a member of the Party cell to which he had once belonged. She arranged a meeting at Hayden’s home and came quickly to the point of her visit. She asked Hayden to consider coming back into the Party. With all the personal demons tormenting him at this point in his life, coupled with his disenchantment with the Party and communism in general, it was the last thing he would consider doing. He flatly refused but Morley countered by asking him to contribute money if he wasn’t willing to rejoin the Party. This, too, Hayden refused. As he was escorting her to the front door, she turned to him and said, “I hope you realize that having made that decision, it will be extremely hard for you to ever get back in.” He tersely replied: “Nothing will please me more.”¹⁸

In late 1946, he co-starred in a film for Paramount Pictures entitled Blaze of Noon. This adaption of an Ernest K. Gann novel was a story about the early days of aviation and was notable for the return to the screen of both Hayden and another young World War II veteran, William Holden. Released in early 1947, the picture generated little boxoffice enthusiasm. Hayden would not work at all in 1947, despite collecting a salary of $70,000 from Paramount. In 1948, he made two more films: El Paso and Manhandled. Both were released in mid-1949 and were box-office flops. “Both were abortions,” described Hayden, “conceived and dead in less than three weeks.”¹⁹ His infrequent work schedule was killing him, fueling his drinking. “From June 1946 to June 1949 I worked 75 days—out of 1,095. The rest of the time I did nothing.”²⁰

In the summer of 1948, Hayden read that famed explorer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was coming to the Los Angeles area for a series of lectures. The previous year, Heyerdahl had sailed five thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in a hand-built raft, attempting to test his theory that cross-ocean travel by ancient peoples could prove a link between Polynesia and South America. He would recount his exploits in the best-selling book Kon-Tiki. Fellow sailor Hayden had been very impressed with Heyerdahl’s voyage and he invited the explorer to stay with him and Betty aboard their schooner. Heyerdahl accepted Hayden’s gracious offer and for two days, shared his vast and fascinating experiences with his host.

The second day of the visit, Hayden invited his mother to come over and meet the famous explorer. It would turn out to be a visit with profound personal consequences for Hayden. In front of their distinguished guest, Frances Hayden asked her son why he hadn’t attempted something along the lines of Heyerdahl’s voyage. Her annoyed son mumbled something to the effect that he hadn’t believed that the voyage in the flimsy raft was even possible. “Well,” responded his mother, “I must say, Buzzie [sic], it would be a good deal better than sitting here the way you have been doing.”²¹ The criticism of her son in front of their distinguished guest struck a chord with Hayden. He had been sensitive to his mother’s opinions all of his life. Now that he was emotionally at rock bottom, drinking heavily and still struggling to establish his real identity, the comments in front of Heyerdahl served as a wake-up call to him. Interestingly, he came to the immediate conclusion that his mother needed psychiatric help, and he promptly determined to get her that help. It would prove to be one of the key decisions of his life, but the result of his decision would have nothing to do with his mother.

• • •

Sterling Hayden frequently described his visits with his psychiatrist in the last third of Wanderer. He never mentioned the psychiatrist by name, nor did he explain how he came to be seen by this particular doctor. He did confirm that he initially brought his mother to see him and they talked about her for over an hour. Hayden’s request was simple: he wished the doctor could make her understand that “she has to get off my back.”²² The doctor countered by suggesting to Hayden that, as a result of what he had learned by speaking to his mother that morning, perhaps he (Hayden) would benefit from some intensive psychiatric help. At first, Hayden seemed surprised by the doctor’s suggestion, sitting there in silence while smoking. He then unexpectedly had a fresh insight into himself and his life. “Nothing else has worked: not the running, searching, drinking, screwing; not the battling, and the dreaming; not the escapism or the Communism or the nihilistic thinking. I nod my head: ‘Yes, I know that. Maybe I’ve known it for a long time.’”

“Think it over, why don’t you?” recommended the doctor.

“I don’t have to think it over,” he resolutely replied.²³

Ten years later, he would refer to the decision to enter psychoanalysis as a turning point in his life. He would always consider his dealings with psychiatry to be a positive thing that helped him in the crises he was soon to encounter. He had an ambivalent feeling towards his psychiatrist, both praising the good he felt resulted from the man’s efforts and damning his style, which was basically to let Hayden vent while he listened, rarely speaking himself. “To your dismay,” he noted, again writing in the third person, “the analyst seems maliciously detached. You thought he would give you a hand when things got rough. Some laugh. The joke is on you—at twenty-five bucks an hour. Five hundred bucks a month you pay for the honor of lying flat and talking to a blank screen. Fuck you, Doc.”²⁴

As it turned out, the man Hayden called “Doc” was not a medical doctor, nor was he a PhD. He had three years of post-graduate training in psychology, but no doctoral degree. His name was Ernest Philip Cohen and he had a thriving Hollywood practice that included many of Hollywood’s elite. Cohen, who joined the Communist Party in 1939, could claim luminaries such as Lloyd Bridges and John Garfield as his patients. Many of them were either members, former members, or were somehow affiliated with the Communist Party. Like Sterling Hayden, many of them were ultimately called before HUAC to testify when the Hollywood hearings resumed in 1951.

Cohen occupied a unique position given the Communist Party’s hostility towards psychoanalysis and its general rule against its membership undergoing treatment with psychiatric practitioners. The Party considered psychoanalysis as inconsistent with Marxist principles: you were subjecting yourself to the propaganda of the enemy. Psychoanalysis was considered to be a tool of the class enemy to justify the inequities of society by attributing them to flaws in personality rather than the system. Another issue underlying the Communists’ disdain for psychoanalysis was that, as a result of the doctor-patient relationship, the patient would reveal to the doctor everything about themselves. There was a great fear that the Party’s security as a secret organization would be compromised.²⁵ Seeing a psychiatric practitioner was grounds for expulsion from the Party. Screenwriter Bernard Gordon, a Party member, commented on this dilemma in his memoirs. “Party or therapist? This was a choice most of us were reluctant to make. A solution was found. The Party came up with a ‘safe’ therapist who had been a party functionary in Seattle and who had a dialectical-materialist attitude, rather than a strict Freudian one, towards social and personal problems. Enter Ernest Philip Cohen.”²⁶ Hence, Cohen was one of the few psychiatric practitioners acceptable for active and former party members. Exactly who recommended him to Hayden is not known.

Many of Cohen’s patients had interactions with him similar to Hayden’s and noted his unorthodox manners. Treating members of the same family was not a problem with him and he had no set fees—patients paid what they could afford. It was not unusual for Cohen to socialize with his patients. They all called him Phil during their treatments. Like Hayden, they all became very dependent on him. “This all led to what was called a transference, in which the patient becomes extremely dependent on and close to the therapist,” recalled Gordon, “who, in effect, becomes the surrogate father, mother, lover, or whatever the patient needed. In this state, the patient opened up completely and related his innermost thoughts and feelings so that they could be examined by both parties.”²⁷

Like Hayden, Gordon became dependent on his sessions with Cohen and was totally open with him. When Gordon learned that many of Cohen’s patients, including Sterling Hayden, were testifying as friendly witnesses when the HUAC resumed its hearings in 1951, he was stunned and felt betrayed by his psychologist. It would later be revealed that Cohen had a strong working relationship with attorney Martin Gang, who also had a clientele of the Hollywood elite that was virtually identical to Cohen’s. Included among Gang’s clients was Sterling Hayden. Yet Gordon offered this assessment: “I feel obliged to say that, along with many of my friends who were patients of his, I believe that I benefitted from therapy with him … Perhaps the blend of Freud and Marx that Phil Cohen practiced was useful, even if the practitioner himself turned out to be a Hannibal Lechter.”²⁸

• • •

In a session with Cohen in mid-to-late 1949, Hayden revealed to him an issue that gives insights into both Hayden’s desire to be taken seriously as an actor and his insecurities. He realized that his career was stagnating and that, at best, he was developing into a “beefcake” B-movie star who would never be taken seriously. A few days earlier, his agent contacted him and told him he was about to get the break that would make his career. Taking him over to MGM Studios, he had made an appointment for Hayden to meet with director John Huston concerning Huston’s next film project, a crime caper titled The Asphalt Jungle. Hayden, of course, already knew Huston from their membership in the Committee for the First Amendment and their journey as members of the Hollywood delegation to the 1947 hearings.

Upon entering Huston’s office, Hayden was immediately greeted with Huston’s magnetic charm and made to feel like he was the most important man in the world to the director. Instructing his secretary to hold all of his calls, he got right to the point with Hayden. “May I tell you something?” he asked. “I’ve admired you for a long time. They don’t know what to make of a guy like you in this business. Maybe we’ll change all that.

“Now, Sterling,” he continued, “I want you to do this part. The studio does not. They want a top name star. They say you mean nothing when it comes to box-office draw—I told them there aren’t five names in this town that mean a damn thing at the box office. Fortunately, they’re not making the picture. I am. Now let me tell you about Dix Handley.”²⁹ After describing Dix Handley, the character Huston wanted Hayden to play, he pointed out one problem. The studio did insist that Hayden do a screen test for the role. Huston was confident that it would go well. Although promising to do his best, Hayden wasn’t so sure.

Lying on Cohen’s couch the next day, Hayden shared his anxiety. The session started out similar to all the prior ones, with Cohen instructing his patient to speak whatever came to his mind. Hayden remained silent for a few minutes, contemplating how he and his wife were fighting more than ever despite the psychoanalysis that Hayden had assumed would help the situation. After a few minutes, Cohen instructed him to verbalize what he was thinking. It was at that point that Hayden exploded.

“All right,” he exclaimed. “You want what comes into my mind, I’ll give you what comes into my mind: I’m in plenty of trouble, Doc; haven’t worked in a hell of a long time. So far as this town’s concerned, I might as well be dead. Paramount fired me. Everyone knows that. I’m spending fifteen hundred bucks a month just to keep on living. Nothing coming in, and there’s five thousand left in the bank. These aren’t the right thoughts, are they? I ought to be talking about crawling between the babysitter’s legs, but I can’t because yesterday something exciting happened.”³⁰

After recapping his meeting with Huston, he laid it out for his therapist. “Goddammit, I’ve got to land this part. If I do, I’m all set.” Elaborating on his insecurity, he got to the crux of his concern—the screen test. “Tests are rough, the worst thing about the whole racket. I always tense up in front of the camera. I don’t want to, but I do. Now for the next few days why can’t I just sit up and talk to you man to man and maybe you can explain this fear to me?” Once again, Cohen continued to listen and not speak.

Hayden continued to explain how important the role was to him. This was the first time in his autobiography where he seemed to express a desire to become a competent actor and to be taken seriously. This could be the role that would make his career. But first he had to get over his fear of the upcoming screen test. “Why do I always freeze?” he asked. “Shit! I went through the war. I jumped out of bombers. I played kick-the-can with E-boats when all we had was a lousy forty-foot dragger with six machine guns and a top speed of six knots. Yet whenever I get a close-up in a nice warm studio I curl up and die. Why?” In his typical laconic style, Cohen merely observed that their time was up. “Articulate sonofabitch” was all Hayden could think to himself.³¹

The day of the screen test, Hayden arrived early and realized with some surprise that he didn’t seem nervous. All good actors are a little nervous when they audition, he reflected. Maybe he just wasn’t a good actor, he ruefully mused. Entering the studio, he watched the screen test of another actor who was auditioning for the part of Dix Handley. Despite his pledge to Phil Cohen that he would give up smoking in preparation for his screen test, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He took a deep drag and watched as the other actor departed and they called out his name. As he walked to the set, John Huston appeared and placed his arm around Hayden as he escorted him to the stage. He introduced him to Jean Hagen, who would be playing Handley’s love interest and then gave Hayden his sage advice. “Kid, play it the way it feels best. Lie down, sit up, walk around, do any damn thing you please,” instructed Huston. “Wherever you go, we’ll follow. Take your time. Let me know when you’re ready.”

For a minute, Hayden just sat there, and then he looked at Huston, who nodded back at him. “Action!” he yelled. And Hayden froze, just as he feared he would. But only for a moment. Jean Hagen read her lines to him, asking him to tell her about his dream and suddenly, for the first time in his acting career, something happened. “Then slowly my joints unlock, I shiver a little, and for the first time I begin to act.” He responded as Dix Handley, sharing Handley’s tragic past with his girl, Doll. Hagen, as Doll, responded to him in a way that made the scene believable and took him deeper into character, an experience he had never felt before.

The more Dix spoke about his troubled past, the more difficult it became for Dix to control his emotions. “I want to go on,” explained Hayden, “but all I can do is sit on the edge of the bed. I know there’s more I have to tell her. I try to speak but the pain won’t let me. I rock back and forth, and something inside me feels like it’s tipping over. My eyes begin to back up, but this is a sound stage and guys like me don’t cry in the middle of the morning.” When he looked up at Jean Hagen, she was in character, with an understanding warmth in her eyes. That bond was all he needed, “so I just let go and I feel the goddamn tears rushing down all hot and the next thing I know they cut the arcs and the work lights come up softly.”³²

Thanking everyone on the set, Hayden felt the urge to leave immediately. As he was departing, Huston caught up with him. Still unable to look up after the unexpectedly emotional screen test, Hayden heard Huston tell him what he had wanted to hear for a long time. “The next time somebody says you can’t act, tell them to call Huston.”³³

The Asphalt Jungle was released in May of 1950 to wide critical acclaim. Starring Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, and Sterling Hayden as Dix Handley, it is considered a crime classic and has been the inspiration for numerous film noir “heist” films. It was also the film that marked the credited film debut of Marilyn Monroe. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards. Hayden’s portrayal of Handley drew wide praise from the critics and is today considered possibly his finest screen performance. In 2008, The Asphalt Jungle was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as it met their criteria for being considered culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

• • •

It would seem that Hayden had achieved a milestone, with his career turning in the right direction. With the money he made and the assumption that more work would be coming, he and his wife moved their family off the schooner and into a home in a star-studded Hollywood neighborhood. But there were other factors that were intervening that would keep him coming back to Phil Cohen’s couch. His drinking had continued, and his relationship with his wife Betty continued to be a combative one. Betty had become extremely jealous of other women with whom her husband worked. By the summer of 1950, their third child was due. Son Christian was born in August of 1948 and son Dana was born in June of 1949. They would be joined by a sister Gretchen, born in September of 1950. The Haydens would have one more child together, Matthew, born in July of 1952.

Despite his lauded performance in The Asphalt Jungle, he had no new film offers and he shared this frustration with his therapist. Meanwhile, an event that occurred halfway around the world started Hayden thinking about another possible crisis to confront. He was right to worry. In June of 1950, North Korea crossed the thirty-eighth parallel and invaded South Korea. Hayden, a member of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, was subject to a possible recall to active duty. The thought of coming back to the Marine Corps did not bother him. It was the thought of a background check prior to being reactivated that worried him greatly. His six-month tenure as a member of the Communist Party would surely come back to haunt him. In addition, the Supreme Court had refused to hear the appeal of the Hollywood Ten. He knew that the HUAC hearings would resume in the near future.

He lay on Cohen’s couch, venting his fears to his laconic therapist. “I’m in the Marine Corps Reserve. Since the war started, I’ve felt this thing closing down around me. Suppose they call me up and we come to the loyalty part: ‘Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?’ If I say no, I perjure myself. If I say yes, and the word gets around, then I’m dead.” He continued on, bemoaning his lack of additional film offers since making The Asphalt Jungle. He then brought up a key issue to share. “I had a talk yesterday afternoon with my lawyer about how to protect myself. He thinks we should write a letter to J. Edgar Hoover asking if there isn’t some way I can admit having been a member in the Party without screwing my whole life up.”

“That seems reasonable,” responded Cohen.

“I’m not so sure. The F.B.I. isn’t going to let me off the hook without my implicating people who never did anything wrong—except belong to the Party.”

“Didn’t your attorney suggest the F.B.I. would probably treat the information confidentially?” asked his therapist.

“Yes, he did: but from what I’ve heard about the bureau and its ties with the Un-American Activities Committee, I sure as hell doubt it.”

“Maybe you should try another attorney.”

“I can’t afford it,” shot back Hayden. “And besides, Martin Gang is a powerhouse in this business; maybe someday I’ll need him.” Hayden went on to spill his guts out to Cohen, expressing his frustration with the position he was in and the bitterness it left him with. “You know, I don’t know why I got out of the Party, any more than I know why I joined.” Expressing an opinion that would differ substantially from testimony he would give to HUAC less than a year later, he went on to state: “I could say a lot of things about those people I knew in the Party-and you know something? It would all be good. I never heard anything that was subversive.”³⁴ He shared with Cohen his plan to take out a two-page ad in the Hollywood trade papers, reading him the prospective ad. “You loud-mouthed, self-styled patriots in this business better wake up. I was in the Party for six months. I know a bit about what goes on. You think those people are trying to subvert your precious Hollywood? They’re not. They happen to believe in planned social order. They look up to Russia as the leader of the world socialist movement … Now, you people allegedly believe in free competition. You want the world to follow in our footsteps, so you invest billions of bucks all over hell and gone trying to influence people. Yet when the socialist world does this you scream ‘foul.’” He declared emphatically: “That’s what I’d like to say.”

“Why not do it?” asked Cohen.

“Because I haven’t got the guts, that’s why,” he shot back. Hayden’s response was symbolic of the conflict that was literally driving him to drink, offering a clear window into the confusion and self-hatred he was feeling. Here the man who had heroically, fearlessly, and sometimes recklessly fought the Germans in the war, the man who had spent his entire life searching for an identity and a cause to truly believe in, now realized that he couldn’t even believe in himself. As a result, he was, in his mind at least, a coward. “Maybe because I’m a parlor pink. Because I want to remain employable in this town long enough to finish this fucking analysis. Because when it comes time for the divorce I’d like to be able to see my children, and the courts downtown are full of judges who would look askance at a divorced man who was an ex-Communist to boot. That’s why! How many reasons do you want, sitting there on your throne?”³⁵

The session with Phil Cohen just described comes directly from Sterling Hayden’s 1963 autobiography. It is interesting on several levels, not the least of which is that he mentioned his attorney, Martin Gang, by name and yet never mentioned the name of his psychiatrist. In Hayden’s exchange with Cohen, one gets the impression that Cohen either doesn’t know Gang, or at most is vaguely aware of who he is. Since Wanderer was published in 1963, several facts have come to light concerning these two men. It appears highly likely that these two not only were very aware of each other but, in fact, were working in tandem closely with many Hollywood stars in addition to Sterling Hayden.

Since 1931, Gang was a partner in the firm of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, and Brown, providing legal services to many in the Hollywood community. Hayden had engaged Gang earlier to handle his contract negotiation issues. A well-known liberal, he was a member of, and financial contributor to, the Committee for the First Amendment, and he had offered to represent Dalton Trumbo in his breach of contract suit against Loew’s, Inc.³⁶ During the interim period between the end of the first set of HUAC hearings in 1947 and the beginning of the second set of hearings in 1951, Gang changed the focus of his practice to coincide with the direction that the political winds were blowing, encouraging his clients to cooperate with HUAC. He did not view this as hypocritical. Rather, he saw himself as a “frustrated crusader,” trying, “to keep a lot of innocent people from being hurt unnecessarily.”³⁷

After the Hollywood Ten were cited for contempt of Congress, Gang contacted two members of the defense team who were representing the other subpoenaed witnesses. He advised them that, in his opinion, unless some real service could be performed by the eight remaining members following the same procedure that the Ten followed, “they should not sacrifice themselves to no useful end.”³⁸ Gang’s proposal was to wage a vigorous public relations campaign when the hearings resumed. A witness should issue statements that they were testifying voluntarily without conceding the right of the committee to ask, but since the issue had been raised and would be decided by the courts, he would be answering the questions under protest. Gang was sure that this tactic would prevent the witness from being blacklisted.³⁹

Another technique utilized by Gang included never having his clients invoke the Fifth Amendment if asked if they were ever a member of the Communist Party. He reasoned that “because if that person had been a member of the Communist Party and had gotten out, he had no right to plead the Fifth Amendment because he was not guilty of any crime unless he had lied about not having gotten out.”⁴⁰ In Gang’s philosophy, contrition, not confrontation, was the way to prevent blacklisting.

In his efforts to assist his clients, Gang cultivated a close working relationship with William Wheeler, the HUAC investigator from their Los Angeles field office. Engaging in what Victor Navasky described as “strategic socializing,” Gang would often invite Wheeler to have dinner with him and his clients so that Wheeler could get to meet and speak to them informally. It usually worked in Gang’s favor since Wheeler would often not pursue subpoenaing Gang’s client after meeting with them, being convinced that they were in the clear. “So there again I did my clients a favor and I also did Wheeler a favor. I don’t know what it proved about me, but Wheeler was doing a job, and what I tried to do was to present the facts to him in such a way that my clients would not be unnecessarily hurt. And if that’s a crime you can convict me.”⁴¹

Gang would get to refine his technique many times over the next few years while dealing with HUAC. He would explain his actions thusly: that a lawyer’s obligation is simple—to serve his client’s interests. And for his Hollywood clients their best interests were easy to ascertain: to not get blacklisted. “I didn’t tell them what to do,” he later declared, “I only told them what the choices were.”⁴²

It is interesting to note that Cohen’s patient list contained many of Gang’s clients. It is also interesting to note that many of these people became cooperative witnesses in front of HUAC and would name names. This seeming coincidence, coupled with the unusual interaction of Cohen, Gang, and Wheeler, was examined by Victor S. Navasky for his 1980 book Naming Names, as he explored the dynamics of the tactics of both men, as well as their professional relationships. In a series of interviews conducted in 1974, Cohen confirmed that he had indeed been the psychologist of choice for the Communist Party and his practice income soared from their referrals. As a result of his patients’ becoming cooperative witnesses starting in 1951, he fell out of favor, telling Navasky that his practice suffered greatly.

Cohen told Navasky that he had met William Wheeler at a football game and they discovered that they had mutual friends in law enforcement. Through these friends, Cohen would find out if one of his patients was subpoenaed and then ask the patient for permission to speak to Wheeler. Once he obtained the patient’s permission, he would say to Wheeler, “‘When so-and-so left [the Party] he really left.’ That kind of thing. And I would often, when talking to so-and-so, persuade him he was better off talking to Bill rather than holding back and trying to be a hero against his own conviction.”⁴³

When asked directly if he helped Cohen, Wheeler provided the following startling response. “He (Cohen) said, ‘If you subpoena one of my patients, I’ll try to condition him to testify.’”

Condition or convince?

“What’s the difference?” responded Cohen. “It was part of the therapy. The whole thing.”⁴⁴

Navasky has labeled Wheeler, Gang, and Cohen as the triumvirate of opinion trustees: Wheeler, the Democratic “good guy” investigator for HUAC, who was willing to make it as painless as possible for those who were willing to play the game; Gang, the attorney, who was only looking out for his clients best interests and saw no point in them sabotaging their careers; and Cohen, who could “condition” his clients to become cooperative witnesses. The three of them, who saw themselves as basically humanistic liberals, functioned collectively as a support system for those ripe for cooperating with the investigators.⁴⁵

• • •

In the summer of 1950, Martin Gang had convinced Sterling Hayden to be proactive and to go directly to the FBI. With Hayden’s permission, Gang wrote to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The letter was written on July 31, 1950, a little more than a month after North Korea had invaded across the thirty-eighth parallel.⁴⁶ Hayden is never identified in the letter. Gang simply began by stating: “This office has a client who has discussed with us a problem which I believe can only be answered through your organization.

“In June of 1946 this young man, in a moment of emotional disturbance, became a bona fide member of the Communist Party in the State of California. In November of 1946 he decided that he had made a mistake and terminated his membership and his association with the Communist Party.” Gang stressed that since November 1946 his client had had no connection whatsoever with the Party, although Hayden actually quit the Party in December of 1946.

Gang described his client’s military service during the war with the United States Marine Corps, including his Silver Star award for gallantry. He did not indicate the client’s occupation, although it would not have been very difficult to deduce that, with Gang acting as his attorney, he was more than likely employed in some aspect of show business. He did confirm that the client was not engaged in any activity where security was involved. “He is concerned with the fact that his brief membership in the Communist Party, as aforesaid, may operate to prevent the use of his services.” He described his client as being married with young children.

Gang described the essence of the problem: Conditions might develop “so as to require an answer … to the question ‘Are you now or have you been a member of the Communist Party?’” His client could honestly answer that he was not currently a member of the Party. “He could not answer the rest of the compound question without (a) either lying or (b) if he told the truth he would probably find himself unable to earn a living.

“While it must be admitted that a mistake was made in 1946, it does appear that justice requires some method by which one mistake does not operate (a) to prevent the United States from making use of the services of our client, (b) to prevent our client from earning a living.”

Gang proceeded to assure Hoover that his client was perfectly willing to be interrogated by the FBI so that the organization could be assured of his sincerity and of the truth of all the previous statements.

Gang ended the letter by getting to the crux of the issue. Gang and his client desired the interrogation by the FBI so that if the “compound question” was asked of him, presumably by the HUAC, he would be permitted to respond “‘Please inquire of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’ The Federal Bureau of Investigation could then notify the prospective employer that there was no reason for not employing our client.” Gang respectfully requested a response from Hoover at his earliest convenience.

Hoover did promptly reply to Gang, writing a brief letter on August 15, 1950.⁴⁷ After thanking Gang for making the facts available to him, Hoover expressed his regrets. “I regret to inform you, however, that it had been a long-standing policy of this Bureau not to grant a clearance to any person and I am, therefore, unable to assist you in the manner which you suggest.” Shifting gears somewhat, Hoover, noting the FBI’s investigative jurisdiction in matters concerning the internal security of the United States, recommended to Gang “that your client furnish our Los Angeles office with details concerning his membership in the Communist Party together with the nature of the party activities during that period.” Hoover provided the name of R. B. Hood, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office, as the contact with whom Gang could arrange his client’s interview.

Later that month, Gang arranged the interview with the FBI and accompanied Hayden to the FBI headquarters. In route, Hayden began to get cold feet. Gang reassured his client that he would feel better after he completed the interview.

When they reached their destination, the two proceeded to the FBI field office. There they were greeted by special agent R. B. Hood, who offered an appreciative welcome. “Mr. Gang, of course I have no way of knowing what it is your client wishes to say this morning. But I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate you both on the decision you have made. If it is of any value to you, Mr. Hayden, I might also say that you are not alone in your predicament.” As Gang left to make a phone call, Hayden had a request to ask of Hood. “I do not wish to disclose the names of other persons who might be in some way involved.”

“Mr. Hayden,” responded the FBI agent, “it is not the function of this Bureau to approve or disapprove. You have indicated a desire to assist the Bureau in its investigative work and I leave it to you what you say or do not say. However, I would suggest that if you are going to co-operate with the Bureau, you do so to the fullest extent of your ability.”⁴⁸

With that preamble, Hood called in a gray-haired investigator who was a specialist in Hollywood affairs. Hayden was left in the room with the interrogator and the interview began.

He spoke for more than an hour. When it came to specific names, Hayden tried to be as vague as possible, using expression such as, “No, sir, I never did know their last names,” and “No, sir, the actors and actresses I met were never identified as belonging to the party.” When he was finished, the agent complimented him, telling him that his contribution that morning was invaluable. Departing the premises, he got into the car with Gang, who subtly tried to reassure his shaken client. “There now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” Hayden would eventually give testimony to the FBI on two more occasions.

Arriving home after the first FBI interview—“the Confession,” as he referred to it— Hayden was devastated. Alone in his backyard, he began to attack a bottle of rum to console himself. He recalled the time when Cohen advised him that on occasion alcohol, when properly handled, could bring relief. It wasn’t working; he felt no relief that night. Betty called to him, asking when he was coming to bed. “Just as soon as I kill this bottle, that’s when I’m coming to bed,” he replied.⁴⁹

The next paragraph that he recorded in Wanderer spoke volumes about his state of mind that night. “I might as well have said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s no use. We never had a marriage. The man who is coming to bed once this bottle is killed isn’t the man you married. That guy is dead, because today he finally sold out all the way.’”