Activity

I described what happened in Washington, told him that I was sure from a reaction on Kearney’s face that I’d soon be called back for a public session. What did I intend to do then? Bela asked. When I told him, he said, “Wouldn’t that make you unacceptable to the film industry?” “Probably,” I said. …

AT TEN-THIRTY on the morning of January 14, 1952, I arrived a half hour early in the chambers of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington. I’d made up my mind what I was going to say: that I’d been a member for a year and a half, that I’d quit in disgust, that the plan of the Par…

Months before, Julie Garfield had testified as I intended to, not offering names, defying the committee. Immediately well-wishers, whose number included his agents and others who had a financial stake in his well-being, were at his side to advise him that if he maintained the position he’d taken, h…

I wanted everything I could get and went after it. When she withheld her approval—or when I thought she did or might or would—I resented her. After a time even her esteem alienated me; I didn’t want to have the qualities she praised me for possessing. Anger fired revenge, and the revenge was always…

Then why did I marry? And why Molly? It’s a long story, but I’ll simplify it. Everything in my early life gave me a sense of worthlessness. (Relax, reader, I don’t want your pity.) My foreignness. My looks—or what I thought of them. The mumps at fourteen and what resulted. My father’s opinion of me…