Jacob
Garfinkle (John Garfield) was born in New
York City on 4th March, 1913. His father, a clothes-presser, was
a immigrant from Russia
(Ukraine). The family lived in extreme poverty and after the death
of his mother in 1920 Garfield was brought up by relatives.
Garfield
was a poor student until he came under the influence of one of his
teachers, Angelo Patri. Garfield later said that Patri "reached
into the garbage pail and pulled me out." Patri encouraged Garfield
to take up acting and helped him win a scholarship to the Heckscher
Foundation Drama Workshop.
After
leaving school Garfield travelled the country looking for work. He
lived the life of a hobo until finding work as an apprentice with
the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1932. Later that year Garfield joined
the Group Theatre, an organization formed
by Harold Clurman, Cheryl
Crawford and Lee Strasberg.
The
Group Theatre was a pioneering attempt
to create a theatre collective, a company of players trained in a
unified style and dedicated to presenting contemporary plays. Others
involved in the group included Elia Kazan,
Stella Adler, Luther
Adler, Will Geer, Howard
Da Silva, Franchot Tone, John
Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Michael
Gordon, Paul Green, Clifford
Odets, Paul Strand, Kurt
Weill and Lee J. Cobb. Members of the
group tended to hold left-wing political views and wanted to produce
plays that dealt with important social issues.
While working at the Group Theatre Lee
Strasberg developed what became known as the Method. Based on
the ideas of the Russian director, Konstantin Stanislavsky, it was
a system of training and rehearsal for actors which bases a performance
upon inner emotional experience, discovered largely through the medium
of improvisation.
Garfield
appeared in several productions including Awake
and Sing! and Waiting for Lefty.
Both these plays were written by the Group Theatre's greatest playwright,
Clifford Odets. During his time at the
Group Theatre he married his childhood sweetheart, Roberta Seidman.
Garfield
received excellent reviews for his performances with the Group
Theatre and he was offered parts in Hollywood movies and in 1938
signed a seven year contract with Warner Brothers. His first film,
Four Daughters, was well received
and Garfield was nominated for an Academy Award
for his performance. Over the next few years he made several films
including Blackwell's Island (1939),
Daughters Courageous (1939), Dust
Be My Destiny (1939), Four Wives
(1939), Juarez (1939) and They
Made Me a Criminal (1939).
On
the outbreak of the Second World War Garfield
attempted to join the armed forces but failed his medical as a result
of a heart condition. Desperate to make a contribution to the war
effort Garfield joined with Bette Davis to form the Hollywood Canteen.
This restaurant provided servicemen on leave in Los
Angeles with free meals. Garfield also arranged for the men to
be entertained at the Hollywood Canteen by some of the countries leading
stars.
During
the war Garfield made several films including The
Sea Wolf (1941), Tortilla Flat
(1942), Air Force (1943), Destination
Tokyo (1943), The Fallen Sparrow
(1943), Between Two Worlds (1944),
Pride of the Marines (1945) and
The Postman Always Rings Twice
(1946).
Garfield's
contract with Warner Brothers expired in 1946. Unhappy with some of
the films he had been forced to act in, he decided to opt out of the
studio system and formed his own production company called Enterprise.
He told the press: "I've
saved every penny I made and now I'm going to do the pictures I want
to do." His first film as an independent was Body
and Soul. Written by Abraham
Polonsky and
directed by Robert
Rossen the cast
included several of Garfield's left-wing friends, including Canada
Lee and Anne
Revere.
Body
and Soul was followed by Gentlemen's
Agreement (1947), a film that explored
anti-Semitism in America, Force of Evil
(1948), We Were Strangers (1949),
The Breaking Point (1950), Under
My Skin (1950) and He Ran All
the Way (1951).
After
the Second World War the
House of Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC), chaired by J. Parnell Thomas,
began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry.
The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These
people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses".
During their interviews they named nineteen people who they accused
of holding left-wing views.
One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, an
emigrant playwright, gave evidence and then left for East
Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman,
Lester Cole, Albert
Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel
Ornitz, Dalton Trumbo, Edward
Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John
Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused
to answer any questions.
Known as the Hollywood Ten, they
claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave
them the right to do this. The House of Un-American
Activities Committee and the courts during appeals disagreed and
all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each was sentenced
to between six and twelve months in prison.
In
June, 1950, three former FBI agents and a
right-wing television producer, Vincent Harnett, published Red
Channels, a pamphlet listing the names of 151 writers, directors
and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organisations
before the Second World War but had not so far
been blacklisted. The names had been compiled from FBI
files and a detailed analysis of the Daily
Worker, a newspaper published by the American
Communist Party.
A
free copy of Red Channels was sent
to those involved in employing people in the entertainment industry.
All those people named in the pamphlet were blacklisted until they
appeared in front of the House of Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) and convinced its members they had
completely renounced their radical past.
This
list included members of the Group Theatre
during the 1930s. Some members like Elia Kazan,
Clifford Odets and Lee
J. Cobb testified and named other members of left-wing groups.
Other former members, including Garfield, Stella
Adler, Will Geer, Howard
DA Silva, John Randolph, and Joseph
Bromberg refused to give the names of left-wing friends and were
blacklisted. Unlike
his wife, Garfield had never been a member of the American
Communist Party. However, he was now unable to find work.
John Garfield
died of a heart attack on 21st May, 1952. Only
thirty-nine years old, his family and friends claimed that the stress
brought on by McCarthyism was a major
factor in his early death. His
daughter later recalled: "It
killed him, it really killed him. He was under unbelievable stress.
Phones were being tapped. He was being followed by the FBI. He hadn't
worked in 18 months. He was finally supposed to do Golden Boy
on CBS with Kim Stanley. They did one scene. And then CBS canceled
it. He died a day or two later."
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