Tender Comrades

"This is not the usual book of remembrances—nostalgic, bittersweet, and all that. This is chapter-and-verse recall of our country’s most shameful epoch. . . . It is eloquent and revelatory, but most of all, it is a cautionary tale." —Studs Terkel

"An acute portrait of that squalid time when the witch-hunt was on in Hollywood." —Norman Mailer

More than sixty years ago, McCarthyism silenced Hollywood. In the pages of Tender Comrades, those who were suppressed, whose lives and careers were ruined, finally have their say. A unique collection of profiles in cinematic courage, this extraordinary oral history brings to light the voices of thirty-six blacklist survivors (including two members of the Hollywood Ten), seminal directors of film noir and other genres, starring actresses and memorable supporting players, top screenwriters, and many less known to the public, who are rescued from obscurity by the stories they offer here that, beyond politics, open a rich window into moviemaking during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Patrick McGilligan has written several acclaimed biographies, including Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (a finalist for the Edgar Award) as well as New York Times Notable Books about George Cukor and Fritz Lang. His five-volume Backstory series is the definitive oral history of American screenwriting.

Paul Buhle, a retired senior lecturer at Brown University and the founder of the Oral History of the American Left archive at New York University, is the author or editor of more than forty books.