The Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and directors who briefly went to prison in 1950 for contempt of Congress when they refused to answer questions about Communist party affiliations from the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), have, in the past few decades, become cultural heroes. The movie industry, consumed by guilt for its blacklisting of uncooperative Communists and ex-Communists, has produced a slew of apologias. Blacklistees have received honors and awards and been hailed for their courage and unflinching dedication to free speech, while cooperative witnesses, most notably the late director Elia Kazan, have been excoriated for their supposed moral lapses in truthfully testifying about communism in Hollywood.
The most interesting and controversial member of the Hollywood Ten was screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976). The highest-paid writer in Hollywood when he ran afoul of HUAC, Trumbo has been widely credited with breaking the blacklist in 1960, when he received screen credits for writing both Spartacus and Exodus. With his acerbic wit, pugnacious personality, and withering insults, he managed to enrage, at different times, not only Hollywood conservatives but his own comrades as well.
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