Larry
Parks was born in
Olathe, Kansas,
on 13th December, 1914. He moved to Hollywood and during the early
1940s obtained a series of minor roles in movies such as Harmon
of Michigan
(1941), Harvard,
Here I Come
(1940), Mystery
Ship
(1941), Alias
Boston Blackie
(1942), Atlantic
Convoy
(1942), Canal
Zone
(1942), Deerslayer
(1943), Stars
on Parade
(1944) and Counter-Attack
(1945).
Parks became a Hollywood star after his lead performance in the Academy
Award winning The
Jolson Story
(1946). Nominated as best actor of the year, Parks followed this film
with Renegades
(1946), Down
to Earth
(1947), High
Conquest
(1947) and The
Swordsman
(1947).
In 1947 the House of Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) 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.
Parks was the only actor in the original nineteen people named. He
was also the only person on the list who the average moviegoer would
have known. Parks agreed to give evidence to the HUAC and admitted
that he had joined the Communist Party
in 1941 but left it four years later. When asked for the names of
fellow members, Parks replied: "I would prefer, if you would
allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't present me with
the choice of either being in contempt of this Committee and going
to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer."
The House of Un-American Activities Committee
insisted that Parks answered all the questions asked. The HUAC had
a private session and two days later it was leaked to the newspapers
that Parks had named names.
Despite giving the names of other former members of the Communist
Party, Parks was still blacklisted. After failing to get work
in films for six years, Parks asked to appear before the House
of Un-American Activities Committee again in an effort
to provide more information about communism. This failed to get his
name removed from the blacklist but he did continue to perform on
the stage and appeared in two long running plays,
Teahouse of the August Moon and Any
Wednesday and two Broadway shows.
Larry
Parks
died of a heart attack on 13th April, 1975.
(1) Larry
Parks agreed to talk about his own involvement in the Communist
Party but was at first unwilling to give the names of other former
members when he testified in front of the House
of Un-American Activities Committee
(October, 1947).
I
would prefer, if you would allow me, not to mention other people's
names. Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt
of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl
through the mud to be an informer. I have two boys, one thirteen months,
one two weeks. Is this the kind of heritage that you would like to
hand down to your children.
(2)
Richard Collins followed Larry Parks
in naming former members of the Communist
Party when he testified in front of the House
of Un-American Activities Committee
on 12th
April, 1951.
Another problem was that even
with Larry Parks we didn't know just what he had said; it was not
revealed; we just knew he had named names but we didn't know whose
- I didn't know whose names they had. I had no idea. So I just took
the ones who had been called which were a matter of common knowledge,
and I expanded that by the third category of people who had been out
a while.
(3)
Larry Parks, letter to the House
of Un-American Activities Committee
(15th July, 1953)
After careful consideration I
wish to file a clarifying statement of my point of view on the Communist
problem with your Committee. I am now convinced that my previous testimony
improperly reflects my true attitude towards the malignancy of the
Communist Party.
If there is any way in which I can further aid in exposing the methods
of entrapment and deceit through which Communist conspirators have
gained the adherence of American idealists and liberals, I hope the
Committee will advise me.
Above all, I wish to make it clear that I support completely the objectives
of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I believe fully
that Communists and Communist intrigues should be thoroughly exposed
and isolated and thus rendered impotent.
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