His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [164]
Frank’s friendship with Albert Maitz had started in 1945 when Maitz wrote the Academy Award-winning short against racism, The House I Live In. But then Maitz had been imprisoned, fined, and blacklisted for refusing to answer the questions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he had moved to Mexico in 1951. It was there that Frank called him with the screenplay offer that would break the blacklist.
Sinatra’s decision to hire Maitz unleashed the most rabid partisans from both sides of the “Red or dead” issue. Only months earlier, Otto Preminger had announced that Dalton Trumbo, another blacklisted screenwriter, had written the script for Exodus, which would soon be released. Preminger’s bold act was the first chink in the seemingly impregnable blacklist. The director’s stand encouraged Kirk Douglas to use Trumbo for the script of Spartacus, the story of a Roman gladiator based on a book by Howard Fast, then an avowed Communist.
By announcing the signing of Maitz before the movie was shot, Sinatra joined a select group of men determined to bring an end to the invidious blacklist.
“I had not worked on a film in Hollywood since 1948,” said Maitz, “and I, like others who were blacklisted, kept hoping that the blacklist would be broken, so to receive Frank’s call in 1960 was enormously exciting to me. I went up to see him, and we discussed the story, which we both agreed would say that the enemy in the war was not the United States Army, but the war itself. I point this out because of the irony of being blacklisted as a subversive who was trying to overthrow the government of the United States, and here I was setting out to say that the enemy in the war was not the United States, but war itself. Frank said that he had been thinking of hiring me for a long time and that it was very important to him to do so and to make this film. He said that if anyone tried to interfere with his hiring me, they were going to run into a buzz saw. He anticipated all the problems and the outcry from the American Legion types, but he said he didn’t care. He wanted to break the blacklist. So he decided to make the announcement in advance of my doing the screenplay.… Frank said he would announce my being hired, but we set no date, so I left for New York. While there, I got-a call from Frank’s lawyer, Martin Gang, who asked if I would mind if the announcement was put off until after the New Hampshire primary, in which Kennedy was running.”
Concerned that delaying the announcement might dilute its effectiveness in breaking the blacklist, Maitz called Frank at the Fontainebleau in Miami, where he was appearing. “I asked him openly if he wanted to delay because he was raising money for Kennedy and was worried that being publicly involved with a blacklisted writer might dry up finances, but he said, ‘No, I support Kennedy because I think he’s the best man for the job, but I’m not doing anything special for him.’ So I suggested we make the announcement right away, and he said fine.”
Hours after the announcement, the Hearst press bludgeoned Frank in editorials across the country, demanding that he fire Maitz immediately. “What kind of thinking motivates Frank Sinatra in hiring an unrepentant enemy of his country—not a liberal, not an underdog, not a free thinker, but a hard revolutionist who has never done anything to remove himself from the Communist camp or to disassociate himself from the Communist record?” asked the New York Mirror.
In contrast, the New York Post proffered “An Oscar!” to Frank, writing, “He has joined the select company of Hollywood valiants who declared their independence from the Un-American Activities Committee and the American Legion. … In defying the secret blacklist that has terrorized the movie industry for more than a decade, Sinatra—like Stanley Kramer and Otto Preminger before him—has rendered a service to the cause of artistic freedom. …”
In Washington, a Senate investigating subcommittee announced that it would be sending men to Hollywood “within a week” to look into attempts