- Person
- Billy Wilder
- Lived
- 1906–2002
- Field
- Film
- From
- Austrian-American
The story
In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. Screenwriters, directors and actors were subpoenaed and questioned about their political beliefs and associations, and pressed to name others. Those who refused to cooperate, including the group that became known as the Hollywood Ten, were jailed and blacklisted.
Billy Wilder was an unlikely protester. A Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who had become an American citizen in 1939, he was no Communist and loved to tease anyone who took politics too solemnly; in Ball of Fire, which he co-wrote, a burlesque performer jokes that her sore throat is as red as the Communist Daily Worker. But he saw the hearings as an attack on the freedom of artists to think and speak as they chose.
In September 1947 a group of film people formed the Committee for the First Amendment to support those called before the committee. It was organised by the screenwriter Philip Dunne, the actress Myrna Loy and the directors John Huston and William Wyler, and Wilder, who is credited as one of its co-creators, was a member alongside stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra. On October 27, 1947, members flew to Washington to protest the hearings, and they voiced their opposition in two half-hour ABC radio broadcasts called Hollywood Fights Back.
The backlash was fierce. California's own un-American activities committee branded the group a Communist front, and several prominent members distanced themselves. Wilder held his ground. When anti-Communists pressed for loyalty oaths and the Screen Directors Guild voted on one by a show of hands, John Huston later recalled that among 150 to 200 directors in the room, only he and Wilder raised their hands in opposition. Huston described it as one of the bravest things his friend ever did.
For a man whose mother had been murdered in the Holocaust, the freedom to dissent was not an abstract principle. The committee Wilder helped to build has remained a symbol of artists defending free expression, and in 2025 the actress Jane Fonda revived it under its original name, with more than 550 public figures signing on to defend constitutional rights.
Why it matters
Wilder's stand helped defend the principle that artists should not be punished for their beliefs, at real risk to his own career.
About Billy Wilder
Refugee from Nazi Berlin who became Hollywood’s sharpest writer-director, making Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, and winning six competitive Oscars.
More about Billy Wilder
- Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity helped define film noirBilly Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), co-written with Raymond Chandler, became one of the defining films of film noir.
- Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend took addiction seriouslyBilly Wilder's 1945 film The Lost Weekend, a stark portrait of an alcoholic writer, won the Oscar for Best Picture and the top prize at the first Cannes festival.
- Billy Wilder co-wrote the landmark film People on SundayIn 1930 a young Billy Wilder co-wrote People on Sunday, a low-budget film about ordinary Berliners on a day off that became a landmark of realist cinema.
- Billy Wilder helped show Germans the truth of the campsIn 1945 Billy Wilder returned to Germany with the US Army's psychological warfare unit and supervised the English version of Death Mills, a film documenting the Nazi camps.
Sources
- Billy Wilder Wikipedia
- Committee for the First Amendment Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.