Dalton Trumbo.

In 1957, when Robert Rich was announced as the winner of the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, few realized that the name was a pseudonym. Robert Rich was the pen name of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the so-called Hollywood Ten, who had been cited in 1947 for contempt of Congress and sentenced to varying terms in prison. He had also been a victim of the Hollywood blacklist that prohibited real or suspected Communist party members from working openly in the movie industry.

HUAC and Hollywood.

The Hollywood Ten case began in postwar America during the first rustlings of the cold war. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which had been permanently established in 1938, decided in 1947 to conduct hearings on communist influence in Hollywood. In November HUAC subpoenaed forty-one people involved in making Hollywood movies. Nineteen of those subpoenaed protested loudly that...