Lee
J. Cobb
was
born in New York on 8th December, 1911.
He studied at New York University before joining the Group
Theatre in 1935 where he appeared with Elia
Kazan in Waiting
for Lefty,
the highly successful play by Clifford Odets.
He made his screen debut in Ali
Baba Goes to Town
(1937).
After the war Cobb played the lead role of Willy Loman in Death
of a Salesman
(1947), a play written by Arthur Miller
and directed by Elia Kazan. Death
of a Salesman
won a Pulitzer Prize and became one of
the most famous plays in history.
In 1947 the House of Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion
Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working
in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as
"friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named
several people who they accused of holding left-wing views.
One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, an
emigrant playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany.
Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester
Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian
Scott, Samuel Ornitz,, Dalton
Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring
Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson
and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any
questions.
Known
as the Hollywood
Ten,
they claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution
gave them the right to do this.
The House
of Un-American Activities Committee and the courts during appeals
disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each
was sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison.
Others called before the HUAC were willing to testify and Cobb was
named by Larry Parks in 1951. For two years
he refused to appear but in 1953 he changed his mind and named twenty
people as former members of the Communist
Party. He later explained why: The HUAC did a deal with me. I
was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had
the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my
loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic
as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if
this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do
it. I had to be employable again."
After giving evidence to the House of Un-American
Activities Committee Cobb was free to return to acting in Hollywood.
He worked with Elia Kazan and Budd
Schulberg, two others who named names, on the Academy
Award winning film, On
the Waterfront (1954).
Other films made by Cobb include The
Left Hand of God (1955), Twelve
Angry Men (1957), The
Brothers Karamazov (1958), Exodus
(1960), How the West Was
Won (1962), Coogan's
Bluff (1968) and The
Exorcist (1973). Lee
J. Cobb died in 1976.
Lee J. Cobb in Death of a Salesman (1947)
(1) Lee J. Cobb
was interviewed by Victor Navasky when he was writing his book, Naming
Names (1982)
When the facilities of the
government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can
be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit - being deprived
of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being
able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain
point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people
succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HUCA
did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I
couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children.
Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for,
and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't
worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of
the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again.
(2)
In his testimony before the
House
of Un-American Activities Committee
Lee J. Cobb explained that he endorsed its right to investigate the
Communist Party (23rd June, 1953).
I would like to thank you
for the privilege of setting the record straight, not only for whatever
subjective relief it affords me, but if belatedly this information
can be of any value in the further strengthening of our Government
and its efforts at home as well as abroad, it will serve in some way
to mitigate whatever feeling of guilt I might have for having waited
this long.
(3)
Arthur Miller, Timebends - A Life
(1987)
I could not help thinking
of Lee Cobb, my first Willy Loman, as more a pathetic victim than
a villain, a big blundering actor who simply wanted to act, had never
put in for heroism, and was one of the best proofs I knew of the Committee's
pointless brutality toward artists. Lee, as political as my foot,
was simply one more dust speck swept up in the thirties idealization
of the Soviets, which the Depression's disillusionment had brought
on all over the West.
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