Transcript of Judy Holliday's Testimony - Page 5
Senator Watkins: Did you not have any friends that were Communists?
Miss Holliday: Never.
Mr. Arens: Alvin Hammer, however, refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee as to whether or not he was a Communist?
Miss Holliday: That is correct.
Mr. Arens: Adolph Green and Betty Comden, with whom you were associated in the Revuers, have Communist-front records; do they not?
Miss Holliday: No.
Senator Watkins: Are you sure of that?
Miss Holliday: I am as sure of that as I can be of anybody that isn't me.
Senator Watkins: You know them well?
Miss Holliday: I know them well, and I know them to be completely unpolitical people. They are terrific hard workers, and that is their life.
Mr. Arens: Adolph Green, your friend, was a sponsor of the Committee for the Reelection of Benjamin Davis?
Miss Holliday: I certainly never knew that.
Mr. Arens: Betty Comden, your friend, was reported to be a sponsor of the Committee for the Reelection of Benjamin Davis; was she not?
Miss Holliday: I never knew that, and I really doubt it. I don't know whether I am supposed to say that, but I doubt it.
Mr. Arens: Betty Comden was one of the entertainers at the Madison Square Garden rally of the Spanish Refugee Appeal of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, September 24, 1945, as shown in the Daily Worker for September 24, 1945?
Miss Holliday: To my knowledge she was not.
Mr. Rifkind: To your knowledge, you mean as far as you know.
Miss Holliday: As far as I know, she was not.
Senator Watkins: You were intimate at that time, were you not, with her?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: Had been for years?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Betty Comden was one of the sponsors of the Communist May Day Parade in 1946, which was the annual mobilization of Communist strength?
Miss Holliday: I am sure she didn't.
Mr. Arens: And Betty Comden also has signed at least one statement of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; has she not?
Miss Holliday: She may have. That sounds much more possible than any of these other things. I know this woman, she has no interest in things like that.
Mr. Arens: You also signed some other statements by this Committee, the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; did you not?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: You signed an ad about "We are for Wallace"; did you not?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: That was in 1948?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: That was subsequent to the time that the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions had been officially found to be a Communist-front organization; was it not?
Miss Holliday: You mean that was before that; is that what you mean?
Mr. Arens: No, it was after that.
Miss Holliday: And it was public knowledge?
Mr. Arens: Let us strike that from the record and start over again. I put it to you as a fact that on October 28, 1948, you were a signer of an ad "We are for Wallace," sponsored by the Communist-front organization of the Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: I was a signer of an ad sponsored by the organization, which I did not know was a Communist front, but I was for Wallace.
Mr. Arens: What has been your affiliation with the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace sponsored by the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: I can tell you exactly, I have gone over it many times. The bell rang one day, and a group of young people aged, oh, I don't know, 15 to 18, stood there and said, "We are some sort of youth" -- I told you the name of that; do you remember?
Mr. Rifkind: I don't remember.
Mr. Arens: By the way, it was in March of 1949.
Miss Holliday: Whenever that was.
Mr. Arens: Is that not the date, March of 1949?
Miss Holliday: If that was around the conference.
Mr. Arens: You having done all this research on your activities?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Is this not an incident which occurred in March of 1949?
Miss Holliday: Is that when the conference was?
Mr. Arens: Yes.
Miss Holliday: Then it was before that.
Mr. Arens: Proceed.
Miss Holliday: Anyway, they said that we are this youth organization and we want you to sign a petition for the peace conference. We don't think that we have to have a war, and there is going to be a big peace conference and Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann ----
Mr. Arens: Why do you think they called on you?
Miss Holliday: Well, I was sort of flattered.
Mr. Arens: It is because your name could be used in a movement of this character.
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Because your name had the prominence in the theater.
Miss Holliday: But I was sort of pleased that these young people thought of me as belonging to their age category rather than the adult people, and I signed the petition.
Mr. Arens: And you knew that your signature on that petition would have an influence on public opinion, on the people of this nation; did you not?
Miss Holliday: Well, I didn't know ----
Mr. Arens: At least to a degree it would have that influence?
Miss Holliday: Yes. I didn't know that I was going to be a sponsor. I don't think I ever said I was going to be in it in any way. I said, "Yes, I am for the peace conference." As it was put to me it was the question of peace, do you want peace, and I said, "Yes, of course."
Mr. Arens: Miss Holliday, you are not trying to tell us that the young people asked you whether you were for peace or war and you said peace? Those people asked if you would sponsor the conference, the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace; did they not?
Miss Holliday: Not sponsor it. They said, "We want to have a petition" -- I think it was so they could have representation as their youth outfit. They wanted to get names on their youth outfit.
Mr. Arens: And you signed it?
Miss Holliday: That is right.
Mr. Arens: And you knew at the time that it was identified as the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: That appeared on the petition?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Did you know that this peace conference has been cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as "actually a supermobilization of the inveterate wheel horses and supporters of the Communist Party and its auxiliary organizations"?
Miss Holliday: Yes; I have since learned that.
Mr. Arens: When?
Miss Holliday: I learned it when I picked up a copy of Life and read the article and saw all the pictures of the people who had been at the conference.
Mr. Arens: That was just in 1949 that you did this; is that correct?
Miss Holliday: Yes; I guess so; yes.
Mr. Arens: Just 2 or 3 years ago?
Miss Holliday: Yes; that was when the conference was; that was when I did it.
Mr. Arens: Had you not seen in the newspapers the articles respecting the Communist fraud, Communist peace fraud, the Communist fronts?
Miss Holliday: I think I have to explain, as silly as it sounds, my way of reading the newspapers. I go to the theater section and I read it. Sometimes I read the rest. Now I read the papers. At that time I was interested in the theater news and auction notices and puzzles.
Mr. Arens: Apparently you were interested in other things, too?
Miss Holliday: When they get called to my attention, but it's not my habit. I am probably not a good citizen because I don't read the news or didn't.
Mr. Arens: Did you have a conversation with representatives of the motion picture organization with reference to your Communist-front activities at the time that you signed this peace petition as an affiliate of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace?
Miss Holliday: No.
Mr. Arens: When did that come? Did that come later?
Miss Holliday: That came last year.
Mr. Arens: Now, affirm or deny the fact you were a member of the sponsoring committee for "Enroll for Peace" luncheon held at the Essex House in New York on May 10, 1949, under the auspices of the Women's Committee of the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions.
Miss Holliday: That is a new one I don't know about.
Mr. Arens: Do you have a recollection?
Miss Holliday: No; I don't.
Mr. Arens: Some couple of months after you became affiliated with the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace you sponsored "Enroll for Peace" luncheon at the Essex House in New York?
Miss Holliday: No.
Mr. Arens: Do you know where the Essex House in New York City is?
Miss Holliday: I do. The only time that I was ever at the Essex House was when I was a young girl to go dancing there.
Mr. Arens: You were an entertainer at a carnival and dance held at the Hotel Capitol in New York on March 25, 1950, under the auspices
of the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, were you not?
Miss Holliday: I was not.
Mr. Arens: Do you have any way of explaining how the Daily Worker of March 21, 1950, would list you as one of the entertainers at the affair I have just described?
Miss Holliday: I have theories about it because it has happened to me many times. My name has often been used without my knowing anything about it by various organizations. My name has been used publicly in print, it has also been used to get other people. They say, "Judy Holliday is coming." A great many of these things I knew nothing about. I never even knew about that, because I don't read the Daily Worker, until the Columbia people told me. Then I said that I never saw it.
Mr. Arens: Did you make any protest to the Communist Daily Worker when your name did appear -- that your name had been publicized by that Communist paper as one of the entertainers on March 20, 1950, under the auspiecies [sic] of the National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: I didn't hear about it in 1950, I heard about it in 1951.
Mr. Arens: I understand. When you did hear about it, did you register a protest with the Communist Daily Worker?
Miss Holliday: No.
Mr. Arens: Do you have any comments on the item appearing in the Communist Daily Worker, April 4, 1950, to the effect that you were a scheduled entertainer at a benefit "Broadway Builds a Theater" at the Hotel Capitol on April 9, 1950, under the auspices of the People's Drama?
Miss Holliday: That is a new one. I don't know about it and never heard about it.
Mr. Arens: Nobody ever told you about that?
Miss Holliday: Nobody ever told me about it. May I add something to that last question?
Mr. Rifkin: You mean the last preceding question?
Miss Holliday: Yes. I did not register a protest in 1951 about what had happened in the Communist Daily Worker then probably because I had so many things come up at the same time, and it wasn't only the Communist Daily Worker that was doing it, it was all sorts of papers. I had a big article in the Telegram saying that I was going to appear on behalf of the National Committee for the Advancement of Colored People; that I was the whole head of it, and I never heard of it. Nobody asked me. Then there was another one saying "Call Judy Holliday for reservations" that they showed me. I never even heard of the telephone number, and nobody ever called me. There was a lot of things like that that happened.
Mr. Arens: Have you been affiliated with the People's Songs?
Miss Holliday: I gave them a dollar after much nagging and pestering. I dislike folk songs intensely. I think that the People's Songs are terrible. I have no interest in it at all. They kept sending me literature and sending me literature and I called them and told them to please cut it out. I had nothing in common, but by that time someone had come up and taken my dollar.
Mr. Arens: They just took it away from you physically?
Miss Holliday: No; they said, "We have been calling you and calling you, and you haven't responded." I opened my bag and said, "Here, go away." But to be on record as being part of that just annoys me because I don't like any part of it.
Mr. Arens: According to the bulletin of People's Songs, you were listed as a member of the board of sponsors in a letterhead dated March, 1948. Is that not correct?
Miss Holliday: That is what they told me. That is probably because I gave them a dollar. But, I have no feeling for sponsoring them. I didn't even know they were Communist. I just hated their stuff.
Page navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | Topical Index | Home