Transcript of Judy Holliday's Testimony - Page 6
Mr. Arens: You do realize, do you not, and did you realize at the time you were affiliated with all these Communist-front organizations that your name was a name which could be used to influence public opinion?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: You know that one of the vehicles by which the commercial advertisers undertake to influence public opinion, for example, to buy soap or to use toothpaste or to smoke brands of cigarettes is to use the name and the endorsement of a person who is prominent in the theater, is that not correct?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: And you knew that at the time you were affiliated with these various Communist-front organizations?
Miss Holliday: I didn't know they were Communist-front, but I know that my name had that kind of value.
Senator Watkins: Did you during this time, Miss Holliday, have the use of a clipping service to keep track of your publicity, an agent or anybody who handles that matter, bring the clippings to you?
Miss Holliday: No.
Senator Watkins: You speak as though you did not know anything about these things.
Miss Holliday: That is right.
Senator Watkins: You were fairly well known in New York City even before you obtained prominence in the motion picture field?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: That is where you were born and went to school?
Miss Holliday: That is right.
Senator Watkins: Do you not think some of your friends would have called you?
Miss Holliday: I would have thought so except that most of my friends don't read the Daily Worker as far as I know. In fact, I don't know how anybody could be expected to keep up with news from the Daily Worker.
Senator Watkins: A person would be expected to know the organizations to which he contributes money?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: You watch it now; do you not?
Miss Holliday: Ho, do I watch it now.
Senator Watkins: Do you realize, having been associated over the years, that this is not anything new, this matter of using people's names? If you allowed the use of your name, did you ever make an investigation to find out what they were like?
Miss Holliday: Not until lately, not until last year.
Senator Watkins: Of course, lately it has become a liability to be associated with people like that. Before that did you not make an investigation?
Miss Holliday: No.
Senator Watkins: Or instruct your secretary?
Miss Holliday: I didn't have a secretary. My name was in the telephone book, and anybody could get me, and most everybody did.
Senator Watkins: It was not in the name of Judy Holliday, was it?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: How long has it been that way?
Miss Holliday: Since I changed it 1944.
Senator Watkins: If you were handling it, it seems to me that most people who are in public life at all keep track of what is going on about the use of their names and what is being said about them, particularly in view of the fact that this matter about communism has been in controversy for years long preceding 1944. You knew that, did you not?
Miss Holliday: Sure, I knew that, but I didn't know these organizations were Communist organizations. They never said they were Communists. I never had any proof they were Communist.
Mr. Arens: Did you have any suspicion that there was a Communist conspiracy in this country?
Miss Holliday: I had certainly heard that there was.
Mr. Arens: Did you think that people engaged in a conspiracy would come out in the open and identify themselves as conspirators?
Miss Holliday: No; but there were certainly Communist Parties in America.
Mr. Arens: Did you know about Communist-front organizations, controlled and used by the Communist Party and for their own purposes?
Miss Holliday: I had heard of them mostly through people who had been active in Actors Equity.
Mr. Arens: Do you know about Communist dupes, people who are sucked in by the Communists and have their names used by the Communists?
Miss Holliday: I do now.
Mr. Arens: Did you have a manager in 1950?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: What was his name?
Miss Holliday: I have been with the William Morris office.
Senator Watkins: I would like to ask you about this: I notice that you had the married name of Oppenheim. Is your husband living?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: Did he ever call your attention to any of these matters?
Miss Holliday: I explained to Judge Rifkind yesterday the way I read my mail.
Senator Watkins: I asked about your husband. Did he ever call your attention to any of these matters?
Miss Holliday: No. I don't think he did.
Senator Watkins: What business is he in?
Miss Holliday: He is in the recording business.
Mr. Rifkind: Phonograph records.
Senator Watkins: Yes.
Miss Holliday: Usually I would sort out personal mail from mail with long envelopes and throw the ones out that were not from friends or people, throw them right in the wastebasket without even reading it, most of the time before he came home, so that he never even saw them and particularly lately.
Senator Watkins: He would see the papers. What I am trying to find out, did he not find out the fact that your name was being used in newspapers?
Miss Holliday: He didn't know about it either.
Mr. Arens: Did you uncle, Joseph Gollomb, rear you?
Miss Holliday: No.
Mr. Arens: What was your association with him?
Miss Holliday: It was not a very close association except when I was a child. I would have to go into some personal details about him if I tell you the story. Do you want me to do that?
Mr. Arens: You knew, of course, and you know that he was a Communist?
Miss Holliday: He was a very radical Communist. I don't know whether he was a member of the Communist Party.
Mr. Arens: He was employed by the Daily Worker, was he not?
Miss Holliday: Yes, he was. Then he had a change of heart and became a rabid anti-Communist. But I had broken away from him. He was a very domineering man who wanted me to become a writer and would keep at me and badger me until, well, you know a child has no defense against an adult who is insistent and aggressive. He would make me very unhappy most of the time. My mother would try to call him off. When I got old enough to be articulate, I said to him, "You made my life unhappy, and I think our association should be on a casual basis, because from now on you can't live my life for me." I must have been at least 14 before I was able to do that. After the age of 14 I may have seen him once a month or once every 2 months. He was very hurt by it, he had no children of his own and had tried to live through me in a very intense way.
Mr. Arens: He was your sort of intellectual mentor, was he not?
Miss Holliday: He wasn't really because I would have nothing to do with him. Every time we got together we fought vehemently. It was very distressing to my mother and the rest of the family.
Mr. Arens: When did he break from the Communist Party?
Miss Holliday: I think it must have been, well, I know that he was terribly against them around 1941 or so, and from then on. He was an ardent Democrat, as a matter of fact.
Mr. Arens: He had written a number of books in defense of Communist principles and was generally regarded as an ardent Communist philosopher, was he not?
Miss Holliday: No. His books were never in defense of Communist principles.
Mr. Arens: He was employed by the Daily Worker, was he not?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: The Daily Worker is a Communist publication, is it not?
Miss Holliday: That is right. The books were not. His books were novels about school life for young people, and they were also spy stories and detective stories.
Mr. Arens: He took an interest in your career, did he not?
Miss Holliday: Up to the age of 13 when I finally shook myself loose.
Mr. Arens: Did you see him, would you say, monthly after that period.
Miss Holliday: Maybe once every 2 months, maybe once every month, maybe 4 months would go by. It was always a very painful meeting which I would try to avoid as much as possible.
Mr. Arens: When did he pass away?
Miss Holliday: He passed away in June, 2 years ago.
Mr. Rifkind: Mr. Chairman, would you mind asking the lady how long she has been married?
Senator Watkins: Yes; if she does not object.
Miss Holliday: I have been married 4 years.
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