Just at this time, one of the bad lawyers, Marty Gang, who had gotten Lee Cobb and others to give names, got in touch with my aunt Anne Rosenthal. Anne was the top entertainment lawyer at William Morris. She worked with Abe Lastfogel, the head of the firm. She told me Marty Gang had called her, they had discussed me, and he felt he could get me off the Blacklist because of his contacts with the committee.
Arnie and I talked about it. I thought it was a trick. I knew it was a trick. Arnie felt we could use it. If together we went over everything I said to Gang, maybe we could use him the same way he was trying to use me. We knew it was a trap, but he had the wrong actor. I was not so desperate for work that I would turn anybody in, as he pressed his other clients to do.
As I’m writing, I suddenly want a cigarette. I haven’t wanted a cigarette in thirty years.
I met with him twice at someone else’s law office, in a small dark room. I felt safer meeting with him as Gittel—an open New York girl, not too smart, a girl who instinctively followed her heart. A creature of impulse, warm, sunny. Arnie and I went over his questions. They were about my AFTRA meetings. Gittel could handle them.
Marty Gang and I took a plane to Washington, D.C., to meet with the lawyers who worked with the Un-American Activities Committee. It was like an audition. It was a cool, sunny day, and there were about four men huddled around the edge of a long table in a large committee room. They activated a recording machine. The questions came fast. Gittel answered them with her usual bumbling innocence. Marty took over the questions, showing off for them or trying to justify bringing down such an innocent but dumb, uncooperative witness. My impression was that the Committee had run out of theater and film people and was casting around for a way to justify its existence. Marty focused on a meeting I had had around the selection of the president for AFTRA. Who did I meet with?
Gittel: They changed, you know what I mean? Different people all the time. Nice people, very educated. Yeah, I gave money, a couple of bucks, dollars, I mean. It went for food, lunch, you know what I mean?
Them: Where’d you go after the meeting?
Gittel: Go someplace—have coffee, you know?
Them: Who with?
Gittel: Different people each time, nice people.
Them: Just coffee?
Gittel: Oh you know, go shopping, shop around.
Them: Who did you go shopping with?
Gittel: (squirming) Who did I go shopping with?
Them: You must know who you went shopping with.
I cast about furiously for an answer; who would I go shopping with? Who had nothing to do with the Party and the union? My mind went to two women who were totally out of the loop, but who were helpful, sympathetic, and had no careers or jobs to lose. The men at the table were observing me.
Me: I think Elaine and Mary and I shopped in a dress shop after the coffee—
Them: Who?
Me: Yeah, we didn’t buy anything, just shopped.
Them: Who?
Me: Elaine Eldmore, Mary Murphy, and me. We went to the dress shop.
Whew. I got away with it. Gittel did. Ditsy Gittel. But I realized it was an exercise in futility. A fishing expedition for Martin Gang’s next informant. The lawyers clearly thought I was a waste of time, either a charlatan or an idiot. They were barely civil. Martin Gang was grim. We flew back to New York in separate seats, across the aisle from each other.
It wasn’t until I was on the plane back to New York that it hit me. I gave them names. The names of two real women. I could feel my heart sink inside me. I burst through the door of the apartment and broke down crying. Sobbing. Arnie was lying on my bed. “I gave names.” I told him what had happened. “You didn’t give names.” I had been so easily tricked. What would happen to those poor women? Out of the blue. I don’t even know what made me think of them. I’d felt cornered, as Gittel had been cornered, and thought, What a smart way out.
But in my mind on that plane and forever afterward, I felt I had put two innocent and real women’s lives and careers in jeopardy. That I couldn’t trust myself.
The next time I introduced one old friend to another, my mind went blank—I literally could not remember their names. I know one part of me is forever punishing another part of me, for life. My throat closes when I think of the guilt and panic I feel, and felt from then till now. It’s no accident that I went from years of not being able to remember or say names to the sudden inability to remember lines or, worse still, the fear that I would forget them. Fear. Without meaning to, I realized that I could say something unforeseen that would damage and cause untold destruction to another person.
• • •
I just reread what I wrote about that afternoon. What I feel is missing from that description was the depth of my desperation and guilt. The slip of the tongue that haunted my conscience affected my memory for names forever.
That afternoon in Washington, in the lions’ den with the Committee lawyers and Martin Gang questioning me—no, pushing me to incriminate myself as a Communist, to incriminate other actors, Gang pushed the idea that our union meetings were really Communist cells, with money contributed for Communist causes.
Why did I go to Washington? Why did I put myself in such a dangerous position? Arnie felt it was worth a shot. If I was cleared I could earn a living, hugely important after his heart attack, which had changed everything and frightened both of us.
My choice was to use the character of Gittel to see me through the experience. Gittel was an innocent. A brave, funny girl who took chances. Gittel was disarming, charming. Audiences loved Gittel. I ought to know; I played her on Broadway every night for a year. She was a great cover for my fear. I feel a near faint still when I think of that fear. We had gone over any possible question they could ask me about him, our friends, the meetings—in Gittel’s character and out. We knew from the outset that Martin Gang just wanted to bring them another trophy. For his own reasons, Arnie felt there was a slim chance that these lawyers would recommend lifting the Blacklist on me. It was basically an audition session. Writing this, I realize the extent of the idiocy on all sides.
In another life, many, many years later, I would discover that Elaine Eldmore worked in children’s theater and did extra work on television.
And Mary, I was told, married a general.
But for me, in saying their names in front of the lawyers, the damage was done.