José Ferrer, Oscars & Senator Joseph McCarthy

                              

Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-lautrec, in knee shoes

by Bettmann, 1952
Photos.com

Joseph McCarthy (1908–57) was a Republican Senator from Wiscon­sin from 1947. By 1950 everyone in the U.S knew McCar­thy, at the very time when the Senator both promoted and tack­led Cold War fears of nation-wide Communist treason. As might have been expected, he argued over and over again that many fellow-trav­ellers had in­filtrated the Federal govern­ment. The term Mc­Car­thyism was soon applied to many dodgy right wing actions from that era.

But how did McCarthyism try to control the film industry? José Ferrer (1912–92) was born into an accomplished, educated family in Puerto Rico. They emigrated to the USA when José was in primary school where he played piano at a very skilled level, and got into Princeton at a very young age. Then he studied for a year in a Swiss boarding school.

Back in America, when Ferrer wasn’t working, he supported various progressive causes. He fought against segregation in DC, attended crisis meetings on atomic energy and foreign policy, and signed a letter in 1947 condemning the House of Un-American Activities Com­mittee aka HUAC. Remember this letter! It denigrated the HUAC in­vest­ig­ations into Hollywood which was already building up a black­list of entertainers with so-called communist leanings.

After finishing university, Ferrer began working in theatre, start­ing as a stage manager then moving up as an actor in Broadway. He had a small role in a 1940 comedy, but it was playing Iago in a 1943 prod­uct­ion of Othello, with Paul Robeson, that made Ferrer’s name well known.

Af­t­er impressive successes on stage, Ferrer broke into Hollywood five years later, with his perf­orm­ance as the Dauphin in the 1948 film Joan of Arc. It was his first film role, and he was immediate­ly nom­inated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in 1949. 

Lloyd Corrigan and José Ferrer (right) in Cyrano de Bergerac, 1950 

Wiki

It was Cyrano de Bergerac that got José Ferrer an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1951. But his career was threatened by the anti-Communist hysteria in the 1950s, led by the said Sen Jos­eph McCarthy. Mag­az­in­es had spec­ulated in the lead-up to the Acad­emy Awards that para­n­oia about Communism could influence the out­come for the first time in Oscar history. This was even more prob­able, once a teach­ers’ as­sociation rescinded an award to Ferrer for his Cyrano per­formance. Note, however, that many papers argued the problem for Hispanics who were nominated for Academy Awards concerned their ethnic origins, and had nothing to do with their politics.

On the night of the 1951 Oscar ceremony, José Ferrer was in New York, re­hearsing his next show with Gloria Swanson. So when Helen Hayes an­n­ounced that he had won Best Actor for his role in Cyrano de Berg­er­ac, Ferrer delivered his very proud acceptance speech from a night­club in Manhattan.

Yet Ferrer’s future in Hollywood remained ambivalent. Just as he was being handed Hol­lywood’s highest honour, making him the first Spanish speaking actor to win an Oscar, Ferrer was being in­vest­igated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Appar­ent­ly he was consid­ered too left-wing, too prog­ress­ive, too difficult, too intellectual.

When Ferrer was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he was repeatedly questioned about his support for the Republican cause in Spain. Did he give a fund-raising speech for the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee back in 1944? Did he appear at the Spanish Refugee Appeal in 1945? Was he a sponsor of the American Committee for Spanish Freedom in 1946?

The 1951 hearings, Senator McCarthy labelled many wit­ness­es as Fifth Amendment Communists. After the Supreme Court ruled that in­voking The Fifth was not per­missible, witnesses had to choose be­t­ween defending their past act­ions and implicating other people – inform on family and colleagues Vs face a prison sentence. The HUAC called 90 witnesses in 1951, including Jose Ferrer.

Ferrer’s name already appeared in Red Channels, a booklet pub­lished for the first time in 1950 that listed names of ent­ert­ain­ment ind­us­try professionals suspected of communist sympathies. Walter Winchell and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper kept a file on Ferrer’s political activities and suggested new names to add to Red Channels.

                                                             
Red Channels: Report Of Communist Influence In Radio And Television

1950, Biblio

Ferrer had to defend his "communist beliefs" in 1951 when he was subpoenaed by the HUAC. He clearly understood that the HUAC could ruin an ind­ivid­ual’s career. So at his hearing he told them he recognised that some of the organisat­ions he’d supported in the past might have been connected to com­munism. But he knew nothing of their links. Ultimately Ferrer was “cleared”. Now I wonder why.

But it didn’t help. Ferrer still struggled to find con­sistent work and he knew that he was seen as a box-office problem. Yet sometimes he starred - in 1953 he was nominated again for the Best Actor Aw­ard, this time for Moulin Rouge.    

When Sen McCarthy named his black list, Jose Ferrer refused to co-operate. 

Home life was also unstable. Ferrer married Rosemary Clooney twice (1961 & 1967), amongst his five weddings. But he continued acting and directing into his 70s, and received many other honours, including the National Medal of Arts. Alas Ferrer’s treatment in Hollywood was never predictable.

Conclusion The Academy wanted to be culturally inclus­ive but when Ferrer won an Oscar in 1951 with an un-Anglicised name, he was the first His­panic to do so. So why has the Academy been so intract­able to this day? Ferrer might’ve seen his award as a vote of confidence in his very special acting skills, but Hollywood clearly disagreed. McCarthyism was a more powerful deciding factor. 

Read McCarthyism at the Oscars, Kristin Hunt, Jstor 2020.