Last of Hollywood Ten Dies

Nov. 1 -- Ring Lardner Jr., the last surviving member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters who were jailed and blacklisted during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, has died at 85.

Lardner, whose father was the humorist and baseball writer, diedof cancer Tuesday at his home in New York City. Lardner’s satirical screenplays earned him two Academy Awards,but he was best known for his refusal to tell the House Un-AmericanActivities Committee if he had ever been a Communist. Lardner was a Communist but held that his political views werenone of the government’s business.

“I could answer the question exactly the way you want,” hesaid under questioning in 1947 from Rep. J. Parnell Thomas, aRepublican from New Jersey. “But if I did, I would hate myself inthe morning.”

Credits Finally RestoredLardner, with Michael Kanin, won an Oscar for best originalscreenplay in 1942 for Woman of the Year, starring KatharineHepburn and Spencer Tracy. In 1970, he won an Oscar for bestscreenplay based on another medium for the movie M*A*S*H, whichwas based on a Richard Hooker novel.

From 1947 to the 1960s, Lardner had a hard time finding workbecause he was blacklisted along with the other members of theHollywood Ten, who included Alvert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, SamuelOrnitz, John Howard Lawson, Herbert Biberman, Robert Adrian Scott,Lester Cole, Alvah Bessie and Edward Dmytryk. Of the 10, onlyDmytryk finally named names.

Lardner served about nine months in prison in the 1950s, thenworked in Mexico, New York and London writing TV series. Heemployed various pen names to conceal his identity.

In August, the Writers Guild of America corrected the credits ofeight blacklisted writers on 14 1950s and 1960s films, creditingLardner and Hugo Butler for The Big Night, a 1951 film noirstarring John Drew Barrymore.

Lardner, who was born in Chicago and grew up in Greenwich,Conn., and Great Neck, is survived by his wife, Frances Chaney,three sons, two daughters, seven grandchildren and fivegreat-grandchildren.