_It has all Hollywood agog

The mystery
of Mr. Rich

Tus is the tale of how a

brava bull and a reluctant
author frightened the timid
Magnates of a: giant industry.

It all happened because: up

out of Mexico there came un-.

heralded by the usual Holly-
wood buildup of reclining
Starlets in low-cut gowns, a
tender compassionate film of
the devotion to each other of
a little boy and a bull. It was
called simply, The Brave One.

The Brave One won its way
into the hearts of movie fan-
dom, especially the children,
and in due course it stood high
on the list for the coveted
Oscar issued annually by the
Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences. And in due
course also, it won the Acad-
emy’s little golden statuette
for Best Motion Picture Story.

Here, however, The Brave
One, found its idyllic course
Sidetracked into complications
such as the Academy had not
known in the 29 years of its
existence. In Hollywood the
saga has become known as
“Who Is Robert Rich?” and the
end of the script is still not

in Sight.
*

The Academy directors had
been certain that The Brave
One was free of the complica-
tions of that other prizewin-
her, Friendly Persuasion,
which had been adapted to film
by Michael Wilson, a black-
listed writer. When it appeared
that Friendly Persuasion might
Win a prize, the Academy’s
directors quickly revised the
bylaws to disqualify anybody
Who had ever defied the House
Un-American Activities Com-
mittee, as Wilson had.

Furthermore, there was a
Robert Rich. He had eveie
Made reservations to attend
the awards ceremonies. At the
last minute, however, he failed
to show, and the award was
accepted on his behalf by Jesse
Lasky Jr., of the Writers Guild.

This Robert Rich, it turned
out, had a conscience. He in-
formed the Academy later that

© never wrote the script, that

€ was an accountant, not a
Writer, and that the reason he
didn’t show was that his wife
had started having labor pains
that night.

Suddenly, a palk spread over

the Academy directors. They
Went into huddles with their
attorneys. The inevitable ques-
tion arose: Was Robert Rich

DALTON TRUMBO

the nom de plume of one of
the Hollywood Ten?

*

An enterprising reporter for
Variety, the entertainment
trade magazine, reached Dal-
ton Trumbo, one of the Ten,
and put, the question squarely:
Are you Robert Rich? Trumbo
said no, but Variety and the
Academy’s director’s weren't
sure if it was an unqualified
no.

Here’s how Variety carried
Trumbo’s reply. to its question:
‘Fell, no, I’m Dalton Trumbo.”

Variety was a little.piqued
at what it called Trumbo’s
“facetious” comment on Robert
Rich.

“Robert Rich,” said Trumbo
blandly, “is Mike Wilson. He
knew he wasn’t going to get
a chance to win the Oscar for

Friendly Persuasion — for
which he would have won
hands down — so he wrote

The Brave One to have some-
thing to show for his year’s
work.”

All right, but did Trumbo
write The Brave One?

“T have been accused,” said
Trumbo, “of writing so many
pictures that I long ago adopt-
ed the policy: if the picture
is any good I simply say I
cannot confirm and_I will not
deny authorship. That way I
can take a little credit for
every good picture and never
get blamed for any of the
turkeys.”

He “couldn’t afford,” Trum-
bo went on, to deny that he
had written The Brave One
because “it’s too good.”

“It has no murder, no dope
addiction, no seduction of in-
nocent girls, no gunfights and
no perversion. In fact, I don’t
know how it got on the screen.”

As a footnote, Trumbo
added: ‘I had a phone call
from New York today. They

want me to write a play about
it. Naturally, it would be a
farce, but I can’t do anything
unti] we get some information
on Robert Rich — which I
am trying very hard to find.”
The King Brothers, produc-
ers of the film, were no-hélp
either. Frank King said there
was a Robert Rich, that “he
is a photographer and writer,
and is goateed,” and is pres-
ently some place in Europe.
Where, was uncertain.
Meanwhile, the Oscar for
The Brave One has been stored
away in a vault. It is even said
that George Seaton, head of
the Academy, hopes the real
Robert Rich is never turned
up, with or without beard.

*

But the mystery of Who-Is-
Robert-Rich is causing some
anguished soul-searching in
Hollywood.

Variety has come around to
editorializing that the position
of the Academy of Motion Pic-
ture Arts and Science in re-
fusing to award Oscars to writ-
ers solely on politica] grounds

is no more defensible “than
was Hitler’s when he burned
the books and banished certain
music.”

Variety took this stand after
Dalton Trumbo was interview-
ed on a national TV hookup
and was questioned for two
consecutive nights by Bill
Stout, telenewsman, over the
local CBS station.

Stout, intrigued by Trum-
bo’s earlier replies to Variety
brought the CBS cameras into
Trumbo’s book-lined study.

Trumbo, seated in a soft
comfortable chair with his pet
parakeet poised on his should-
er, gave the appearance of a
man who hadn’t had so much
fun since his boyhood swim-
ming hole days in Colorado.

He revealed that, despite the
blacklist against the Holly-
wood Ten and other writers
who may have fallen afoul of
the House Un-American Com-
mittee, studios have been buy-
ing their scripts on the black
market.

Furthermore, Trumbo noted,
many of these scripfs have
been nominated for Academy
awards during the past 10
years, although he would not
say which ones.

The difference is that the
studios are able to get away
with “cut rate” prices on the
black market. Since the other
blacklisted writers are “as cap-
able as I, I assume they have
also sold scripts.

“You know,” he smiled; “it’s
impossible to make a writer
stop writing. It was only done
twice in the Western world.
One was Thucydides, and they
murdered him. The other was
Sir Thomas More, who refused
to take the oath of supremacy,
and they beheaded him. But all
of the other writers who were
thrown in jail continued to
write — and so did I.”

Trumbo, along with others
of the Hollywood Ten, were

jailed for defying the House
Un-Americans, but said the

writer, he would not change
anything if he had it to do over
again.

“Tt has been 10 years of ex-
perience that few writers have.
I wouldn’t do it differently.”

It was true he didn’t earn
what he used to, “but I sleep

well.”
*

Variety, in a piece by editor
Joe Schoenfield,
to dismiss Trumbo’s insistence
on the existence of a blacklist,
declared:

“What is particularly un-
fortunate is that the Motion
Picture Academy, which should
be the bulwark of enlightment
in the film industry, set the
stage for this new Hollywood
cross with its own secretly-
voted ‘censorship measure’ just
prior to the late Oscar night.
Whether it’s ‘Robert Rich’ who
won, or Michael Wilson (black-
listed writer of Friendly Per-
suasion) who was denied the
opportunity to win, the Acad-
emy was caught, embarrassing-
ly for itself as well as the
entire film. business, in the
meshes of its hastily-instituted
ruling making’ ineligible for
an Oscar any nomination in-
volving a creator who is a
known Communist or a Fifth
Amendment witness.

. In denying the Friend-
ly Persuasion nomination, the
Academy was penalizing a
creative work more so than it
was the creator. If Wilson
wrote Persuasion, no ruling by
the Academy could eradicate
the merit of his words.

“In light of what has hap-
pened, it’s probable that the
Academy will rescind its ridic-
ulous and stupid rule before
next year’s nominations.. It’s
too bad it was ever adopted in
the first place and thus prov-
ided a tarbrush for the film in-
dustry’s present and potential
enemies.”

Victims of the first fallout

TX Marshall Island natives
who arrived in the United
States in April 4 are undergo-
ing radiation tests at Argonne
National Laboratory to deter-
mine the amount of radio-
activity remaining in their
bodies. All were accidentally
exposed to the fallout from the
test explosion of the first H-
bomb by the U.S. at Bikini
on March; 1, 1954.

This was the same _ blast
whose “shi no hai,” or “ashes
of death,” fell upon the un-
wary Japanese fishermen on
board the Fukuryu Maru, or
Fortunate Dragon.

Although some of the Mar-
shall Island animals and chic-
kens were sent to U.S. lab-
oratories for experimental
work, this is the first time
the human victims of the fall-
out there have come here for
study.

Radioactivity in their bodies
is now so low, explained Dr.
Norman Hilberry, director of
the U.S. Atomic Energy Com-
mission’s laboratory at Le-
mont, that special equipment
was needed. for the tests.

The Marshall Islanders were
taken on an excursion tour of
Chicago, which included the
Museum of Science and In-

dustry and.a trip to the top of
Chicago’s tallest skyscraper,
the Prudential building, April
7. They were dressed in Ameri-
can clothes rented for them in
Honolulu, and in Navy issue
shoes given them before they
departed from home.

xt xt x

Dr. Robert A. Conrad of the
AEC’s Brookhaven laboratory,
an atomic medicine specialist
in charge of the group, said
they had recovered completely
from the skin burns and hair
loss they suffered after the
fallout.

The tests are being conduct-
ed in a room about six feet
square, constructed of eight-
inch-thick steel plates to re-
duce the amount of normal
radiation present in the atmos-
phere, Dr. Hilberry said.

After a shower, the Marshall
Islanders dress in clean over-
alls and lie down on a mat-
tress in the room. A scintillator
using sodium iodine crystals
then measures the radiation
present in their bodies.

, % beg be 3

More than this was not ex-
plained as to the tests they
will undergo, but studies in
radiation effects already pub-
lished indicate the often long-

delayed effects of radiation, as
well as the striking variation
from tissue to tissue in cases
where radiation has been taken
into the body in liquids or
foods.

According to Dr. Shields
Warren, chairman of the NAS
Committee on Pathologic Ef-
fects of Radiation, 20 or pos-
sibly 15 roentgen may produce
minor changes in the lympho-
cites of the blood.

Dr. William G. Cahan of ~

the Memorial Centre for Can-
cer and Allied Diseases, New
York City, in a letter to the
New Work Times last October
pointed to the slowness with
which radium deposited, in the
bodies of the early watch and
clock dial painters who dipped
their brushes in luminous paint
and twirled them in their lips
to point them, showing it ef-
fects, And he said in the same
letter:

“There have been increasing
numbers of leukemias develop-
ing in the Japanése who had
been exposed to the atomic
blast in Hiroshima. These have
taken from five to 10 years to
manifest themselves. In all
probability cancers attributed
to this radiation will develop
as time goes on.”

MAY 3, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11

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