Roy M. Brewer, led union during Hollywood blacklist era, dies at 97
deb...@comcast.net
By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
(09-20) 17:47 PDT Los Angeles (AP) --
Roy M. Brewer, a fervent anti-communist who headed the stagehands union
and became one of the most powerful labor leaders in Hollywood during
the blacklist era, has died. He was 97.
Brewer died Saturday at West Hills Hospital from complications of
pneumonia, said his daughter, Ramona Moloski.
His death was first reported by the magazine National Review.
Brewer, a friend and later political appointee of President Ronald
Reagan, contended in the 1940s and 1950s that the movie industry was
infiltrated by communists and backed efforts to keep suspected
subversives from working.
"I don't think you can stop anybody from singing the praises of Russia,
if they believe it is a good country. I think it is a part of our
fundamental law that a man has got a right to say what he believes,"
Brewer told the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947.
"But when he participates in American institutions and deliberately
tries to subvert those institutions to become an instrument of a
foreign power, that is something that is fundamentally wrong and has to
be stopped," he said.
Afraid of being accused of sympathizing with communists, studios
refused to hire hundreds of dissident or suspect actors, directors and
others on what was known as the Hollywood blacklist.
Brewer was said to be so powerful, however, that his word could
resuscitate some of their careers. He didn't work for the studios but
"they valued his opinion" about repentant former members of the
Communist Party, his daughter said.
"If they were willing to say what they knew, who they knew and they
realized that they didn't want any part of it anymore, by that token
... the studios would rehire them," she said.
A Nebraska-born former movie projectionist, Brewer got into union
organizing as a teenager and rose swiftly through the ranks.
>From 1945 to 1953, he was a representative of the International
Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
He was sent to the Hollywood local, which had a powerful role in the
movie industry because its rank-and-file included a variety of
stagehands and crafts workers.
During a strike and studio lockout in 1946, Brewer sided with producers
against a competing union that he contended was communist-influenced.
Clashes with rivals and law enforcement left dozens of people hurt and
led to 1,000 arrests.
Moloski said her father persisted because he believed in what he was
doing.
"His mission in life was to defeat the communism," she said. "Everybody
who really got to know him had a real respect for him. He was very,
very fair."
In a 1998 article on the blacklist era, the Screen Actors Guild said
Brewer "effectively used red-baiting tactics, and a conspiratorial
arrangement" to scuttle an opposing union.
Brewer joined efforts with guilds representing producers and other
workers to form the Motion Picture Industry Council, with the stated
goals of bringing the "communist problem" to the attention of studio
executives and clearing repentant ex-communists for employment.
Brewer's ally in the fight was Reagan, then a Screen Actors Guild
executive. In 1983, when Reagan was president of the United States, he
appointed Brewer to a labor relations panel.
In addition to his daughter, Brewer is survived by a son, Roy Jr. of
Valley Village, 10 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.
Stephen Bowie
amazed to realize he was still alive, and still foaming at the mouth
over communism, when the LA Times ran his letter in response to an
article on the blacklist a couple of years ago.
Hyfler/Rosner
"Stephen Bowie" <stephe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158859275.5...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
So that others may foam, here's the letter:
September 14, 2003 Sunday
Susan King's story "The Blacklist's Gray Tones" (Aug. 31)
and the PBS documentary "Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the
Blacklist: None Without Sin" suggest that the reason a film
project called "The Hook" -- written by Miller and to be
directed by Kazan in the early '50s -- was never made was
because it fell victim to redbaiting. The documentary even
asserts that it was the FBI that blocked the production. In
fact, neither of these scenarios are the truth. I know
because I'm the one who vetted the script for Columbia
Pictures chief Harry Cohn.
In those days in Hollywood, it was customary to submit
scripts to various groups for their review. Because I was a
longtime labor man, and the International Representative of
the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, it
was only natural that a script about union corruption would
come across my desk.
I told Harry Cohn that I wasn't qualified to pass judgment
on the great playwright Arthur Miller, but I was certain
that the script's negative depiction of New York
longshoremen would be exploited by the Communist Party to
try to get control of the N.Y. waterfront.
I didn't doubt there was corruption in unions and I wasn't
against exposing it. And I'd never want to interfere with an
artist's right to create a work of art. Nevertheless, I
didn't want to assist anything that would help the Communist
Party gain ground, at home or abroad. Miller, Kazan and I
met in Cohn's office. Miller was polite, listened to my
concerns, and called me "Mr. Brewer." He actually said he
was open to revisions. One character, Miller said, could
accuse the hero of being a communist, then the hero could
deny it. I countered that if that character really were a
communist, denying it is precisely what he would do. I
suggested some sequence that would dramatize the efforts of
communists to capitalize on union conflict: Have the
protagonist reject any help from the Stalinists on the
grounds that they would be worse than racketeers if they
ever seized power. I suggested that the hero symbolize
American workers fighting against racketeering and refused
to compromise with communist disrupters. Miller, however,
dismissed these suggestions and said, "I'm not so sure that
would be a good idea."
I have since learned that Cohn later wired Miller:
"Interesting how when we make the script pro-American, you
pull out." Miller has said that nothing in his life was ever
written to follow a line, but my experience with him in
Hollywood more than 50 years ago sure didn't make it seem
that way.
Roy M. Brewer
Brad Ferguson
<rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> I didn't doubt there was corruption in unions and I wasn't
> against exposing it. And I'd never want to interfere with an
> artist's right to create a work of art. Nevertheless, I
> didn't want to assist anything that would help the Communist
> Party gain ground, at home or abroad.
Brewer couldn't have been a better tool of the mid-century communists
if he'd carried a card.