Hollywood’s First Amendment Crusaders Are Back

“Any investigation into the political beliefs of the individual is contrary to the basic principles of our democracy,” read the stern words from the star-studded Committee for the First Amendment (CFA) on Oct. 28, 1947.

The CFA was founded that year in Hollywood by John Huston, William Wyler and Philip Dunne in response to the speech-chilling loyalty investigations foisted upon the industry by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Today, the CFA has been resurrected by Jane Fonda, whose own father, Henry Fonda, was an early member of the original organization, and it has already locked horns with the Trump White House.

This time around, the signatories feature a range of talent like Ben Stiller, Helen Mirren, Spike Lee, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Larry David, Natalie Portman, Nicolas Cage and Nikki Glaser. The motives of the new CFA are clear, asits website states, “The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry.”

The anti-communist witch hunts of the 1940s and 1950s across American industries were a precursor to the Trump White House’s own targeting of immigrants, professors, media personalities or anyone who dares push back against America’s authoritarian lurch. The new CFA is billed as a McCarthy-era movement, but it’s important to note that theCFA predates McCarthyby several years, as does HUAC, which began in 1938.

The CFA’s origin story is an instructive legend worth revisiting during this increasingly heated moment.

It was The Hollywood Reporter’s founder, Billy Wilkerson, who published an unhinged screed on July 8, 1947, about the industry supposedly kowtowing to Soviet sensibilities. A couple weeks later, on July 29, he unleashed one of the most infamous columns in Hollywood history. Titled “A Vote for Joe Stalin,” the column attacks the Screen Writers Guild as “thought-police” for endorsing the American Authors Authority (regarding copyright protection), before naming names of suspected communists in Hollywood: Dalton Trumbo, Maurice Rapf, Lester Cole, Howard Koch, Harold Buchman, John Wexley, Ring Lardner Jr., Harold Salemson, Henry Myers, Theodore Strauss and John Howard Lawson.

The names and assertions were all the U.S. government needed as justification to set their sights on Hollywood. A perfect conduit to get national attention on their bullying campaign.

Wilkerson’s rhetoric was Trumpian in tone, criticizing those he disagreed with as supporters of a communist agenda working to “surrender freedom of speech or freedom of conscience.” Wrapping himself in the American flag, Wilkerson’s word salad grumbled through accusation after accusation, maintaining that the political left sought a “monopoly of opinion.” By claiming to protect freedom of speech, Wilkerson helped launch a war against it.

On Sept. 23, 1947, 45 members of the American film industry were subpoenaed by HUAC to prove their loyalty to the United States. Signed by committee chairman J. Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), the subpoenas were “a command to perform — perform before a legislative ringmaster, at a grand, three-ring investigation of Hollywood,” wrote screenwriter Gordon Kahn inHollywood on Trial(1948). Kahn lost his job at the end of 1947, one of hundreds of artists blacklisted for supposed subversive activities.

“Everybody is afraid of being investigated,” wrote Kahn, noting the mood around Tinseltown before he fled. “The prospects are that pictures likeGrapes of Wrath,Gentleman’s Agreementand others with force and meaning — the kind in which writers, actors, and directors can take pride — will be strangers to the screen in America.” While current power brokers haven’t scrapped movies over their content, yet, Hollywood has a recent history of companies obeying in advance by shelving projects until the tensions cool.

The original Committee for the First Amendment signed a statement published inThe Hollywood Reporteron Oct. 21, 1947, that denounced HUAC because “any investigation into the political beliefs of the individual is contrary to the basic principles of our democracy.”

Going further, the CFA wrote, “any attempt to curb freedom of expression and to set arbitrary standards of Americanism is in itself disloyal to both the spirit and letter of our Constitution.” The undersigned read with names like Henry Fonda, the Epstein brothers (ofCasablancafame), Ava Gardner, Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, Vincent Price, Billy Wilder, Milton Sperling (son-in-law of Harry Warner, who urged his own brother, Jack, to ignore HUAC).

While enjoying drinks at Lucy’s across the street from Paramount Studios, William Wyler, Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Lauren Bacall devised a hasty plan to show up in Washington to protest the hearings. Wyler’s Oscar-winning filmThe Best Years of Our Lives(1946) — a timely tale of the weight of coming home from World War II — was named as subversive by HUAC.

A small group of Hollywood CFA representatives flew to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 26, led by Bogart and Bacall. The group marched proudly to the courtroom and sat for the hearings on the following day. Filled with cameras and newsreel operators, the events were highly reported and recorded. Stars such as Bogart, Bacall, June Havoc, Evelyn Keyes, Richard Conte and Geraldine Brooks listened to the tumultuous tussle between Chairman Thomas and screenwriter John Howard Lawson, who penned such films asBlockade(1938),Action in the North Atlantic(1943) andSahara(1943), and was named as a subversive by Billy Wilkerson two months prior.

As HUAC’s chief investigator Robert Stripling questioned Lawson’s political connections, the screenwriter pushed back about the legality of such questions. Thomas pounded his gavel continuously in protest to Lawson’s self-defense as an American citizen.

“It’s unfortunate and tragic that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of Americanism,”Lawson fired backafter being asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. As the gavel continued to crack, Lawson kept speaking but was quickly surrounded by police.

MPAA presidentEric Johnstonfollowed by denouncing screenwriter Lawson and claiming he would not allow communists to work in the film industry. Importantly, Johnston also argued that HUAC should give any suspected subversives a fair trial. Johnston smartly pointed to the1941 Senate investigations into anti-Nazi movieswhere Hollywood adequately defended their industry against claims of extremism and warmongering. Going further, Johnston articulated that any movement based on hate will ultimately fail — as was seen with fascism and communism — and maintained there is “very little if any communist propaganda in our pictures.”

Despite Johnston’s testimony, the CFA would get associated not with the MPAA president but with the fireworks at Johnston’s hearing. Chairman Thomas even snapped at the Hollywood attendees, calling them “glamor girls.”

Leaving Washington, D.C., CFA members were sullen and worried. They arrived with confidence and left with trepidation from what they witnessed. Determined to push forward, the committee issued another ad in THR and the trades on Oct. 28 titled “Hollywood Fights Back!” Like today, the CFA mused whether people knew what the First Amendment even said. The Oct. 28advertisement reminds readers of the seriousness of HUAC’s free speech violation.

The original CFA landed 135 members, many recognizable names including Lucille Ball, Kirk Douglas, Benny Goodman, Rita Hayworth, Ben Hecht, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lorre, Groucho Marx, Vincent Price, Donna Reed, Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Orson Welles. Many of Tinseltown’s towering personalities appeared on a CFA radio show broadcast on Oct. 26and Nov. 2. “Before every free conscience in America is subpoenaed,” warned Judy Garland, “Tell them how much you resent the way Mr. Thomas is kicking the living daylights out of the Bill of Rights!” Ball argued that “all civil liberties go hand in hand, and when one goes the others are weakened, just as the collapse of one pillar in a house would endanger the whole structure.”

Surprisingly, Academy Award-winning director William Wyler was given space inThe Hollywood Reporteron Nov. 6to criticize the media coverage of CFA. Infamous gossip columnist Hedda Hopper had weaponized her column to attack the free speech warriors on the CFA and defend HUAC’s crusade. “No member of our group is a Communist or is in anyway sympathetic to Communistic doctrine,” wrote Wyler, “we have continuously emphasized that we did not, nor do we now, defend or attack any individual or group within the motion picture industry.” Wyler expressed that the CFA was “non-partisan” and included both Democrats and Republicans and was ultimately “anti-totalitarian and pro-democratic.”

However, after a series of HUAC testimonies from friendly witnesses decrying subversion in Hollywood and a combative set of unfriendly witnesses — including Trumbo, who called the hearing “the beginning of an American concentration camp” — who questioned HUAC’s right to subpoena American citizens to question their loyalty, a blacklist began. On Nov. 25, 1947, a majority of Hollywood top brass met at the Waldorf Astoria in New York and drafted the notorious Waldorf Statement that promised no studio would employ anyone who was a communist or suspected subversive.

Political players had painted Hollywood red with communism and the studios threw up their hands. Anyone pushing back against HUAC was a traitor, a red, and should be exiled. Bogart, as the biggest star in the CFA, felt the most pressure. After appearing on the cover of theDaily Worker, Bogart fully repudiated his trip to Washington in defense of the First Amendment. AsVarietyreported on Dec. 3, Bogart claimed the Washington, D.C., trip was “Ill-advised and even foolish.” The actor added, “I am not a communist.” The CFA was mortified and assumed that Warner Bros., the home studio for Bogart and Bacall, forced them to pull back their political advocacy.

Harrison’s Reports, founded by P.S. Harrison, a failed screenwriter and a prudish independent journalist, stood solidly with HUAC. “Gag the prima donnas” read Harrison’s front page editorial on Dec. 6, 1947, speaking of the CFA and anyone in Hollywood who wanted to use their First Amendment-protected right to speak.

In 2025, the resurrected CFA already has well over 500 names. Late night television hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are canaries in the coal mine, and they are still chirping for now despite the latter facing a cancellation announcement that is yet to take effect.

The White Houseresponded to Jane Fondawith the usual mixture of derision and deflection, “Hanoi Jane is free to share whatever bad opinions she wants. As someone who actually knows what it’s like to be censored, President Trump is a strong supporter of free speech and Democrat allegations to the contrary are so false, they’re laughable.” In short, Fonda can share what she wants, but Colbert and Kimmel will get government threats and intimidation if they do the same.

Today’s CFA intends to educate about autocracy, the First Amendment, and the “ecology of what we’re dealing with.”

The original CFA’s impact, despite its valiant cause, only went so far. The Blacklist happened, livelihoods were ruined and freedom of thought was squelched for years as Americans were pushed into a corner of fear and anger. This struggle, well on its warpath before Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) hit the national state, was described by Trumbo as having “only victims.” Today’s playbook is similar to 1947 — label any dissent as unpatriotic, subversive, Marxist and so on. Anything to avoid engaging with differing views. The difference is today’s Committee for the First Amendment has infinitely more avenues for communication in the digital age, in addition to an infinitely larger list of participants. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, there won’t be only victims this time around.