THE BIERLY REPORT
Pressured by the increasing allegations of Communist activity being directed at his Academy Award winning star, Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn goes on the offensive. On May 1, 1951, he hires Kenneth Bierly to investigate Judy Holliday's alleged ties to Communist-front organizations. It is Cohn's hope that if the report comes back favorable it can be used to help clear her name and keep the scandal from negatively impacting the box-office sales of future Judy Holliday films.
Ironically enough, the man Cohn hires to clear Holliday's name is the same man who was instrumental in starting the smear campaign against her just a few years earlier. Bierly, a former FBI agent, was one of the driving forces behind the infamous publications Red Channels and Counterattack. These two publications would come to serve as a bible for the entertainent industry during the blacklist period. It seems that Bierly's change of heart came when he found out it was more profitable to work for high-powered moguls like Cohn...clearing reputations rather than smearing them.
Satisfied with Bierly's findings, Cohn had the Columbia Pictures legal staff forward the report to the FBI along with a signed statement from Holliday declaring her opposition to Communist principles and explaining the use of her name by Communist-front organizations. Both the Bierly report and her statement would resurface several months down the road when she was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
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