“And I’m a fan of yours.” Judy smiled.
Chuck Walters, the director, said, “Take your places.”
Easter Parade began shooting.
One day, I dropped in at the rehearsal hall, where Fred was working alone on a new dance number. Tapping and turning his way around the stage, he did not see me. I crept up on him and when he stopped for a moment, I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.
I said patiently, “No, Fred. Like this.” And I did a little bad soft shoe.
He grinned. “Very good. I used to dance that way.”
Not likely.
Shortly before shooting began, Arthur Freed had hired Jules Munshin, a New York actor, for comedy relief. I had written a small part for him as a maître d’. The day before Munshin was to shoot his scene, my disc slipped out again. I was at home, in bed, suffering in agony.
The phone rang. It was Jules Munshin.
“Sidney, I have to see you.”
“Not now. I’ll be out of bed in three days and—”
“No. I have to see you today. Right away.”
The pain was so bad, I could hardly speak. “Jules, this is not a good time. I really don’t feel well. I—”
“Your secretary gave me your address. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
I took another pain pill and gritted my teeth.
Fifteen minutes later, Jules Munshin arrived at my bedside. “You look great,” he said, cheerfully.
I was glaring at him.
“The studio brought me out from New York, and I have only one little scene that I could have phoned in. I need you to do something with that scene.”
There was a small problem. I was in such pain that I could barely remember his name.
“I shoot my scene tomorrow,” he reminded me.
I closed my eyes and thought about the scene I had written for him. In it, he was an arrogant maître d’ who prided himself on the way he mixed a salad, with the exaggerated gestures of a snobbish gourmet.
“The scene is nothing,” Munshin said.
I suddenly knew how to make it something. “Jules, the answer is very simple.”
“What?”
“There is no salad. You’re going to do it in pantomime.”
It turned out to be one of the funniest scenes in the picture.
Easter Parade won the Box Office Blue Ribbon Award and the WGA Screen Award for Best Written American Musical of 1948, an award I shared with Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.
Easter Parade also turned out to be one of the most successful musicals MGM ever made. It has played on television every Easter for the last fifty-seven years.
CHAPTER 18
In September of 1947, there began one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. A thunderbolt was about to strike Hollywood with a vengeance.
America’s alliance with Russia had ended and a Red Scare swept the U.S. An ambitious senator named Joseph McCarthy sensed an opportunity to make himself important. One day, he announced that there were communists in the Army.
“How many?” he was asked.
“Hundreds.”
McCarthy’s answer created a furor and he was on the covers of magazines and on the front pages of newspapers everywhere.
His next announcement was that he had discovered communists in the Navy and defense industries, and each time he gave an interview to the press, the numbers kept changing—always growing.
An investigative committee was formed by J. Parnell Thomas and a small group of congressmen. It was called HUAC—the House Un-American Activities Committee. The committee first targeted a group of Hollywood screenwriters, accusing them of being members of the Communist Party and inserting communist propaganda into their screenplays. Witnesses were subpoenaed to appear for hearings before the committee, in Washington.
As McCarthy’s fame increased, he became more reckless. Innocent people who were being accused of being communists lost their jobs, with no chance to defend themselves. Defense industries and other businesses were investigated by the committee, but Hollywood had the highest profile, and the committee took advantage of it.
The writers, producers, and directors called to testify had three choices: They could admit they were communists and name names; they could deny they were communists; or they could refuse to testify and face imprisonment. The committee was ruthless. They insisted that if any of the people brought before them admitted they were communists, they must then name fellow communists.