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Policing Show Business
J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cold War Movies
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Book Presentation:
In Policing Show Business, Francis MacDonnell explores the starring role played by J. Edgar Hoover in the development of the Hollywood blacklist in the 1940s and 1950s. As director of the FBI, Hoover poured resources into scrutinizing show business, a policy choice unjustified by any corresponding threat to public security. He detailed agents to write regular reports on actors, screenwriters, lyricists, singers, and studio executives. His frequent handwritten comments on papers inside the files of film industry personalities demonstrate a level of interest bordering on obsession.
Policing Show Business is not just another book about the Hollywood blacklist. MacDonnell approaches the Red Scare through biography using FBI records on such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Lena Horne, Fredric March, Cecil B. DeMille, and Burl Ives to present in unexpected, surprising, and sometimes poignant ways the rich human dramas experienced by both targets of the bureau and its collaborators.
MacDonnell’s meticulously researched account, drawing on many newly available FBI files, evokes the passions and resentments; the courageous acts and calculated evasions; and the petty tyrannies and self-interested campaigns of an ignominious episode in the annals of American freedom.
About the Author:
Francis MacDonnell is emeritus professor of history, Southern Virginia University, and the author of Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front.
Press Reviews:
"Although there have been other books on the blacklist and the careers that it destroyed and derailed, Policing Show Business is the most authoritative. Names that ordinarily receive little or no attention such as Burl Ives and Fredric March are given their due. MacDonnell’s research is awesome but never overwhelming. If you are going to read any book on the blacklist, this is the one."—Bernard F. Dick, author of The Anatomy of Film
"This is a superb book. MacDonnell has scoured the archives to give us the fullest account yet of J. Edgar Hoover’s role in the Hollywood blacklist. Crisply written, the book will appeal to everyone interested in America’s domestic Cold War. It also speaks to today’s debates about cancel culture."—Tony Shaw, author of Hollywood’s Cold War
"Using a biographical approach and a deep dive into the massive cache of FBI files on the subject, MacDonnell rightly places Bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover at the nerve center of the domestic Cold War and all its appurtenances. This ‘cultural warrior’s’ fixation on the motion-picture industry laid the foundation for the proscription of hundreds of studio employees and years of self-censorship by those who remained employed. Though MacDonnell cites several examples of people who avoided the director’s embrace, they did so only with great expenditure of energy and anxiety. This extremely well-researched book is a major contribution to blacklist history."—Larry Ceplair, author of The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later
"Policing Show Business is an invaluable deep dive into both the process and motivation behind the Blacklist. Examining both the Left and the Right, detailing how some artists managed to keep working (Fredric March, Philip Dunne) while others were swamped by the forces of reaction, and still others named names, MacDonnell continually breaks new historical and narrative ground, especially in his examination of the informers that J. Edgar Hoover trusted (Cecil B. DeMille) and those he regarded as buffoons (Adlophe Menjou, Ward Bond)."—Scott Eyman, author of Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided
"With Policing Show Business, Francis MacDonnell makes a major contribution to studies of blacklist-era Hollywood. His biographical approach highlights the personal toll of J. Edgar Hoover’s anti-Communist campaign. MacDonnell’s extensive research, lively prose, and nuanced interpretation make this a must-read for anyone interested in the compelling history of Hollywood’s Red Scare."— John Sbardellati, author of J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood’s Cold War
"Policing Show Business provides a new, valuable perspective on the Cold War red scare and blacklist in the entertainment industry. Encompassing the central role of J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI, collaborators inside and outside of government, and the experiences of the targeted, the book paints a compelling picture of surveillance, investigation, pressure, and punishment. By focusing on a range of lesser-known targets of anticommunist forces—a producer, a lyricist, a singer, as well as an actor and screenwriter—MacDonnell persuasively conveys the profound impact, significance, and relevance of this history."—Jennifer Frost, author of Producer of Controversy: Stanley Kramer, Hollywood Liberalism, and the Cold War
See the publisher website: University Press of Kansas
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