Philip
Loeb was
born in Philadelphia
in 1894. He worked as an actor on Broadway and eventually appeared
in several films including The
Mild West (1933), Room Service
(1938), Sweethearts (1938) and
A Double Life (1947). In 1949
he became one of the nation's most popular actors when he appeared
as Jake Goldberg in the television series, The
Goldbergs.
After the Second World War the House
of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began to investigate
people with left-wing views in the entertainment industry. When Elia
Kazan and Lee J. Cobb testified they
named Loeb as being a former member of the American
Communist Party.
General Foods, the sponsors of The Goldbergs,
wanted Loeb fired. When Gertrude Berg, the owner of the show, said
no, CBS dropped the show. Loeb was now blacklisted and was unable
to work. Philip
Loeb,
depressed by his situation,
committed suicide in a New York hotel
on 1st September, 1955.
(1)
In his autobiography,
My Life, Elia Kazan described the
death of Philip Loeb.
In
1934, when I was in the Communist Party, we helped start a left-wing
movement in a very conservative Actors' Equity Association. I was
working on reforming Equity with a fine man named Phil Loeb, who,
bedeviled by our Communist-hunters, was to commit suicide a few years
later.
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