Famous Writers Arrested: Ring Lardner, Jr.

Here we'll occasionally dive into mugshots of the criminally-inclined writers who found themselves in the big house. Crime doesn't pay, although literature sometimes does.


Today:  Ring Lardner, Jr.

Ring Lardner, Jr's. mugshot

Ring Lardner, Jr., was renowned in Hollywood circles in the 1940s, making more money for his screenwriting than most actors earned as the face of the movie. His success led to winning an Academy Award in 1942 for his script for the Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey-led Woman of the Year.

But amidst all the fame, amidst all the glamour, amidst all the awards, Lardner's career spiraled onto a blacklist for a time as he went to jail for not participating in a congressional witch hunt.

So, why?

In the heady days leading up to World War II, the United States fell under a veil of panic, a precursor of sorts of the 1950's "red scare" of Communists from the Soviet Union.

By 1938, as Adolf Hitler gained power in Europe, the United States established the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which acted as an investigative arm of Congress that looked into any citizen--private or public--deemed subversive in their behavior. This was especially true of groups having affiliations with Fascist or Communist organizations.

Congressman Martin Dies, Jr., the first chairman of the HUAC from 1938-1945.

Congressional members picked their targets randomly. The HUAC went after the Federal Theater Project and Federal Writers Project, questioning if Communists had infiltrated the rash of actors and writers. They went after Japanese-Americans during World War II, creating an argument for their internment. And yet the HUAC chose not to go after the Ku Klux Klan because, as Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi said, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution."

As 1947 rolled along, and America began the early stages of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the HUAC targeted members of Hollywood for their left-leaning views. Over forty individuals testified, many naming names of others they claimed held Communist sympathies. It was a modern-day Salem Witch Trial, where no proof was needed, only allegations. But ten other witnesses chose not to cooperate with the congressional investigation--one of those ten being Ring Lardner, Jr.

The Hollywood Ten, with two others.

The group--later called "The Hollywood Ten"--included another Oscar-winning screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo. Both men, along with their eight fellow witnesses, claimed they had protections and privileges granted by the First Amendment that allowed them to not cooperate with the HUAC. Congress and the court system disagreed. Despite a number of appeals lasting until 1950, all ten men were sent to prison for contempt of Congress, with Lardner sentenced to one year at the Danbury (CT) Federal Prison.

Not the headline you want associated with yourself.

Hollywood blacklisted Ring Lardner Jr., Dalton Trumbo, and the eight other witnesses for a few years after their prison sentences, turning incredibly successful screenwriters and directors into jobless individuals looking for a break. But because Hollywood operates off of money, and money talks, circumstances slowly ebbed in Lardner's favor. By the mid-1950s, Lardner began writing under a pseudonym with fellow blacklistee Ian McLellan Hunter, scriptwriting for television shows like The Adventures of Robin Hood in Great Britain. The blacklist ended in 1965, when director Norman Jewison and producer Martin Ransohoff gave Lardner full screenwriting credit for the Steve McQueen movie The Cincinnati Kid, with Lardner's full name, his full respect, his full due.

By 1970, Lardner won a second Academy Award for his screenplay of the movie adaption of M*A*S*H.

Although near the end of his life, Lardner had one last laugh left. He confessed to fellow writer Miklós Vámos that he won yet another Academy Award under a pseudonym while blacklisted.

Lardner refused to say which pseudonym specifically, as another fellow writer allowed Lardner to use his name and did a favor during a very dark time. To this day, no one knows which famous movie it is exactly that Lardner wrote.

A short addition to this story that brings it all together:
The chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 was a Republican Congressman from New Jersey named J. Parnell Thomas.

In 1948, Thomas' secretary sent newspaper columnist Drew Pearson information regarding how Thomas was placing people on his staff payroll as clerks (although they were clerks in name only), and then these individuals would turn their income back over the Thomas. This increased his salary and allowed Thomas to avoid a higher tax bracket.

Rep. J. Parnell Thomas

A grand jury was convened and Thomas was called to testify. He claimed he had First Amendment rights that absolved him from cooperating, just as "The Hollywood Ten" had claimed in 1947 when Thomas was chairman--a right he denied them.

The courts disagreed he had that right as well, and Thomas was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 18-months in a federal prison.

The prison? The same Danbury (CT) Federal Prison Ring Lardner, Jr. received his sentence. Their sentences overlapped. Lardner and Thomas, the accused and the accuser, became prison mates.