The new movie Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, John Goodman, and Helen Mirren, chronicles the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo from 1947 to 1970. Trumbo refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in October 1947 and was subsequently sent to jail for contempt of Congress and blacklisted by Hollywood executives for his refusal to testify. Trumbo continued to write screenplays for films during the 1950s using pseudonyms or by using fronts—people who would put their name on his scripts. The WCFTR owns some of Trumbo’s papers and has created a new exhibit highlighting a small selection of correspondence, speeches, writings, and audio from the collection focusing on his life during the blacklist era of 1947-1960.
To find out more about the collection, please visit the exhibit.