Red Channels is alive and kicking (a/k/a Blacklisting)

Yes, there are closed doors at the networks. During the 50's Senator Joe McCarthy was the primary "tool" seeking Communists within the entertainment industry and his polished paw on a name would prevent him or her from working. So, writers, directors, authors, composers (including Leonard Bernstein) were on the list of 150 outlawed by the networks and studios. Many individuals sued, to no avail. However, the Supreme Court finally got involved and struck down any further discrimination. But that took 10 years. My friend Martin Ritt ("Hud") was denied movie work because he once wrote an article in an alleged Communist influenced newspaper. Marty was sacked immediately but eventually came back to life with his close friend Paul Newman and others. Martin Ritt optioned my book, "The Great American Hoax," recounting my 4 years promoting a fictitious campaign to clothe all naked animals for the sake of decency, called SINA. Paramount was to finance the movie, Ira Wallach("Absence of a Cello?) wrote the script, Carl Reiner wss to direct and Jack Lemmon would be the star. But it all fell apart, unfortunately, as do many Hollywood projects, because the principal people have other films they committed to make. Mike Wallace wanted to interview me on his CBS show and called to request four copies of "The Great American Hoax." I was happy to comply and made the delivery myself. However, when Wallace read that his pal Walter Cronkite had been duped by SINA and featured its President, G. Clifford Prout (a/k/a Buck Henry), he immediately cancelled my interview. I then asked for the books back; he secretary said he had donated them to the Old Home for Seamen's Library. I check with them; the director had no record of my books being donated to the library. CBS received a bill from me for $25 to pay for the books. They sent a check and put me on their blacklist. Boo hoo. Ditto for NBC when I orchestrated a fainting spell for audience members during the first Phil Donahue Show broadcast from New York City, after 18 years in Chicago. The fainters were my "Merry Pranksters" and they dropped everytime Donahue held out the mike for a question. The subject was "gay senior citizens," eight people in their 80's who came out of the closet and agreed to go public. This historic fainting scenario made headlines in the news when Donahue dismissed the 400 people in his audience and he was obviously out of control on the news shows that evening. When he found out about the hoax he kicked the furniture in his office, that is until his ratings zoomed upward. Then I received a kind of "thank you" note from him. Hmmmmmmmmm. But four NBC lawyers held a two-hour interrogation session with me and finally gave up. They suspected something sinister behind my mission, other than just one more in a long list of media provocation I had performed over the years. So I remain on the NBC blacklist. HBO has me on their blacklist after I duped them in 2000 as a participant on "Private Dicks...Men Exposed." They bought my tale about having the smallest penis in the Guinness Book of Records. I claimed to be only 1 inch tall when erect. I didn't fool the WASHINGTON POST. Their television writer syndicated a column about my charade that made that hour special on men's genitalia a sensation. It was programmed over fifty times on all eight HBO channels. And one night, when I entered the OLIVE GARDEN with my late friend, Detective John Perry (he lost his life on 9/11 while saving a few hundred people), I received a standing ovation from complete strangers who had seen the HBO show that very evening. The next day I saw a copy of the PHILADELPHIA NEWS with my photo on the full front page and a huge caption: GET SHORTY! There were two pages of copy describing my episode and prior hoaxes. But HBO is not very forgiving. They keep me on the blacklist. In the meantime, I've completed my autobiography that names people and places. And I'm planning to produce another movie, "Organza," that skewers everything sacred in our society. Soon to be at a theater near you! But don't hold your breathe, please.