Lee Grant Overcame the Blacklist and Won an Oscar

every industry has its awards the oscar is hollywood's biggest trophy in 1976 one flew over the cuckoo's nest was the big winner but winning an oscar is a timeless experience this tape is about what it's like to be up for an oscar and what it means to win [Applause] [Music] in 1976 lee grand won an academy award for her role as felicia carr in shampoo 25 years after her first nomination for 1951's detective story but take a look at her imdb and you'll notice something about that gap there isn't that much to look at between the years of 1952 and 1964 at least not for a woman who got an oscar nomination for her first film the scarcity has a cause no she wasn't picky she wasn't taking time off to spend with her family she was blacklisted purposely deterred from pursuing her chosen profession by forces intent on crushing allegedly communist but more accurately anything remotely progressive thought in the united states very few actors successfully resumed their careers after being blacklisted even fewer surpassed the level of fame they'd had before lee did so with respect to lee grant when we're talking about what it's like to be up for an oscar and what it means to win the story isn't just about finding the right role or adhering to a popular trend it's a tale of resilience that exposes the dark underbelly of american politics in this video we'll talk generally about the blacklist how she overcame it and how she imbued the rest of her career with the lessons and politics of that era of her life and will do it guided by a delicious documentary from behind the scenes of oscar night how will you feel if you lose tonight shitty honey really shitty before we get started i want to thank sundance now for sponsoring this video stay tuned to the end of this video to hear my recommendations for new series to discover and how you can try sundance now for 30 days free with just one click i was first nominated 20 years ago and by the time i received the nomination for the award i couldn't work any place in the industry couldn't work in film or in television i was blacklisted let's begin our story in march 1949 the play detective story opens on broadway this was lee grant's broadway debut at just 19 years old or around there you just get a little cloudy with her she won the role of the shoplifter a woman who spends the day in a police station as she awaits punishment for a petty crime the play on the whole has a rather intense tone an exploration of what it means to bestow judgment on others but as the shoplifter lee provided the play's comic relief and critics loved it brooks atkinson wrote in the new york times that she as the garrulous shoplifter gave an especially enjoyable performance although i think my favorite review was in the philadelphia enquirer which said a special salute was due to lee grant as the pitiful little [ __ ] of a shoplifter the next year the director william wyler approached lee and asked her to reprise the role in the film version of detective story the film was released in november 1951 and once again she received glowing reviews that specifically pointed to her performance as a highlight of the film photoplay said she stole scene after scene another paper added although lee's role is only supporting vignette in this yarn of a police station she makes of it one of those unforgettable character parts that can vault an unknown into stardom she won some national polls exhibitor magazine proclaimed she gave one of the top comedic performances of the year she earned an oscar nomination for best supporting actress although she would lose to kim hunter in a streetcar named desire and she won the khan film festival award for best actress all the evidence suggested that lee grant was poised for major stardom as one critic wrote if god and luck stay with her she likely will be america's top actress if there can be such a thing inside of 10 years well that wasn't in the cards let's rewind a little bit prior to filming the movie version of detective story lee joined the cast of all you need is one good break where she met and promptly fell in love with playwright and devoted communist arnold arny manoff arnie had been named the house on american activities committee or huac a congressional committee charged with investigating the alleged disloyalty of private citizens public employees and organizations suspected of having communist ties arne moved in communist circles and therefore the two of them were friends and colleagues with many artists who'd been put on the blacklist including j edward bromberg bromberg had also been named to huwak and was called before the committee early to testify which caused him enormous stress he died at just 48 years old of a heart attack in december 1951 and lee was recruited to speak at his memorial service in her memoir i said yes to everything she writes that she said the un-american activities committee knew joe had a bad heart and kept calling him to testify anyway i feel the committee ultimately killed him two days later i was in a union meeting actors equity meeting and the actor in front of me said i see you made the list and i said what list and he said red channels he had this book of red channels and my name was in it lee grant was in it with the words that i'd said at his memorial now here's where some of the details get a little fuzzy lee often says that she was in red channels which was a book published in june 1950 by former fbi agents that contained an inventory of 151 names and the communist and communist front organizations they allegedly supported as carol stabile writes in the broadcast 41 women and the anti-communist blacklist red channels was the publication that became the central vehicle for the ensuing blacklist now obviously if the book came out in june 1950 that was well before bromberg's funeral and she wouldn't have been in it there are also pdfs of red channels online that confirm this i think she means that she was in counter-attack which was a weekly newsletter published by the same group that published red channels there aren't digitized copies of counter-attack available online from around the time that she would have been blacklisted but i have confirmed in other sources that she was at various times listed in counter-attack as a subversive so all of this is essentially happening in parallel in the span of four months detective story released bromberg's memorial academy award nominations announced and by the time she'd won her reward in khan in may 1952 she was officially blacklisted because of her speech and because of her association with her husband i searched quite extensively through several archives and a she happens to have the worst name for search terms no google i am not talking about the civil war and b as far as i can tell from approximately 1952 to 1964 she was basically shut out of the entertainment press no big interviews no cover stories or human interest pieces nothing in the gossip columns about fun parties or rumors about casting news in other words nothing you'd typically expect about a woman critics confidently predicted would become a star it's an eerie absence and even eerier on the rare occasion she does appear the ease with which they gloss over her situation is kind of shocking take for example this write-up from 1955. miss grant made a big impression several years ago when she played the pickpocket in detective story but has been inactive in films while concentrating on the stage and tv right right i'll give the article some credit the stage and television did give lee more opportunities than film during this 12-year span relative to hollywood new york theater essentially rejected the blacklist so she was able to for example replace anne bancroft in the play two for the seesaw and star in a hole in the head it was during this production that she was actually called before huwak to testify the committee pushed her to name director sydney lumet as a communist but she pled the fifth in television she appeared on various drama anthology programs like playwrights 56 and craft television theater throughout the 1950s during the 12 years she spent on the blacklist she only acted in two films storm fear and middle of the night both were independent and therefore out of the jurisdiction of the blacklist she was able in some sense to work but it wasn't easy or consistent enough to financially support her family arne of course was also blacklisted and writing under the table or with an assumed name so the blacklist did give her something a new perspective i really learned a lot about myself about the society i live in how important success was and i developed a value system which has been very sustaining for me she told one paper in 1976 all the artists can do is hold a mirror up and say this is the truth as long as you're permitted to do that you're living in a free society and i tried in the next 12 years to do everything i could to earn the blacklist to fight it to um to be smart to understand what my world was about and and and it was a great school for me lee became particularly active within aftra to purge the union of its leadership who were colluding with blacklisting organizations ironically it was in one of these meetings that she faced off once again against academy award winner kim hunter who had her own blacklist troubles millie behringer describes what happened in her book unfriendly witnesses gender theater and film in the mccarthy era one of the authors of red channels vincent hartnett had a very clever business he studied old photographs of mayday parades and peace marches to identify red sympathizers once identified the culprit received a letter asking have you changed your views if the answer was yes hardnet offered to clear that person for a fee if not the individual's name would appear in a blacklist newsletter as engaged in red-related activities for a fee he offered kim hunter to review her entire record but she refused hartnett wrote his client and sure enough in february 1952 she was featured in counter-attack within two years the master blacklisters had made her almost unemployable on the major networks in 1955 during lee's campaign to oust the anti-communist leadership of aftra hunter wrote a remorseful statement in which she attested to her patriotism and loathing of communism lee notes that this statement was read aloud at a meeting and expressed support for the anti-communist leadership within two weeks of submitting that statement hunter received a phone call from vincent hartnett offering his clearance services she was blackmailed for work pure and simple by the early 1960s a new political regime was in place and most blacklisted artists had been cleared yet lee remained and realized at that point that it was up to her to actively seek a way to get off of it as tibial writes the only way to clear their names those accused would learn was as writer musician and civil rights activist shirley graham put it groveling in the dust before them in 1962 cbs called me and called my agent and they were getting rid of all their blacklisting people and they said let's call the un-american activities committee and get you off the blacklist and get you working by that time i split with my husband and so they called the the uh the un-american activities committee and they said not until she names her husband barney matt so i went to my lawyer leonard routine i said what do i do because you don't have he said try and find a lawyer in washington who's connected who's a middle-of-the-road guy not associated with me like a lefty lawyer at the time his name was max campbell they told him no too but the head of the un-american activities committee asked max for something and he said i'll do it for you if you let me go and in 1964. the un-american activities committee sent a letter to the networks and said i could work so that was it the whole thing boiled down to connections 12 years of pain and loss suddenly fixed because someone owed someone else a favor and with all of this behind her lee finally had the opportunity to pursue the career that had been stopped in its tracks it's a real pleasure to present to you tonight's guest the very lovely and talented actress miss lee grant [Music] [Applause] [Applause] her breakout role in the post blacklist era was on the primetime soap opera payton place and it was course a jump from such obscurity to a show that was being seen three times a week by all of america all of america was so addicted to peyton plays so i went from you know just being off the blacklist for like a year and a half or two or whatever it was to suddenly being like plunged into the middle of american consciousness and nobody knew me i mean nobody knew that i've been out for 12 years nobody knew as far as they was they were concerned i was the new girl in town the new girl in town quickly became popular and in 1966 she won an emmy for actress in a supporting role in peyton place she was nominated again in 1969 and won another in 1971 for her performance in the neon ceiling she even had a very short-lived sitcom called fey that very much wanted to be the mary tyler moore show but very much wasn't that one was a little awkward she apparently found out the show was cancelled when she showed up to work and no one was there except the people dismantling the set so she went on the tonight show and called nbc's vice president the mad programmer it was you know such um relief to get up there and go like this lee also quickly re-entered film in 1967 she took a role in in the heat of the night a crime drama starring sidney poitier as a police detective investigating a murder in a small southern town more films followed including the iconic valley of the dolls and from director hal ashby 1970s the landlord in which she plays the high strung mother of a selfish young man who plans to gentrify brooklyn mother this house this real estate is very important to me it's the most important thing i've ever done i'm a cancerian at home is very important you're a leo no mother i'm a cancer when were you born on the 15th of july son of a [ __ ] when was i born this role yielded her her second oscar nomination for best supporting actress almost exactly 20 years after her first nomination around this time you actually start to see her get real press coverage and as we get deeper into the 1970s her black listening becomes a more significant part of her narrative journalists almost always addressed it with a sense of remorse that we as an audience were robbed of her gifts for far too long and that she as an american was harmed by an unfair and unjust abuse of power and when people talk about league rant they tend to talk about the blacklist which like high same obviously but as a result i think we tend to overlook how good she actually is lee doesn't usually have a ton of screen time in her films sometimes you're actually waiting quite a while for her to even show up this is intentional to a degree she told vanity fair in 2020 that she never wanted to be the lead in movies because the lead part is always attached to box office and no matter how interesting you are if the money doesn't come in at the box office you don't get your next movie plus supporting roles tend to be more interesting characters sometimes she'd askew the lead role for that reason she nearly played the ingenuine detective story for example but pushed to be cast as the shoplifter instead it's a testament to her that despite not having a ton of screen time she's usually the one who looms large in your mind after you watch one of her movies critics often described her as intelligent and that quality certainly comes through in her character work in dramas she tends to play women who seem to know the score they understand unspoken truths and kind of find it tiring that they have to be the ones to vocalize them she delivers her lines slowly between weary size i want that officer given a free hand otherwise i will pack up my husband's engineers and leave you to yourselves this intelligence also aids her comedic performances satire is only effective if you understand what you're satirizing the rich idol women she plays in the landlord and shampoo seem born from observations indeed she said that she'd met women like her character in shampoo they're unhappy ladies with nothing to do but shop there's no sense of meaning in that sort of life you can't find meaning in a gucci buckle in the landlord she heightens that caricature filling her emptiness with her own sense of superiority with meddling with drinking she does the only thing one can do over-indulge herself in the pleasures of life in this case getting completely lost in the sauce with pearl bailey and it's amazing that she found and thrived in these kinds of roles speaks to both the era in which she re-entered the film industry and her personal experience as an actress the late 60s saw major shifts in the modes and tone of american filmmaking relative to classic hollywood the writers and directors of new hollywood were less hindered by censorship and studio influence they used this as an opportunity to break taboos about sex and violence and to experiment with new techniques as the vietnam war and watergate alienated americans particularly young americans from their government films more openly expressed disillusionment with the american dream embraced moral ambiguity and uncertainty and more explicitly depicted grisly details of reality films like the landlord and shampoo certainly fell into this category it's remarkable that an actress first nominated in 1950 would find herself at the center of an exciting new movement in the 1970s part of this is because of her talent clearly part of it is because she was so young in 1950 that she had the relative space to grow into roles even with the blacklist but i also think that being blacklisted gave her a perspective that aligned well with the ethos of this era who could better understand new hollywood's expressions of uncertainty and disillusionment with american institutions than a woman who'd been blacklisted who would want to be part of the movement to break taboos and redefine norms more than a woman who'd been aggressively censored she knew the world could be shitty and she knew what people would do to survive sailing through the 50s and 60s undeterred might not have given her that point of view that grit or wise to the world air that comes across so clearly in her performances [Applause] did you eat out of this elizabeth taylor i understand you're gonna be part of the awards tonight [Music] she's beautiful you can't take it away from her warren beatty had seen lee starr in the neil simon play the prisoner of second avenue and thought she might be a great fit for his new film shampoo lee will play felicia a wealthy incredibly bored woman who is conducting an affair with her hairdresser george played by warren beatty george however is sleeping with pretty much everyone including jackie played by julie christie who happens to also be the mistress of felicia's husband everything erupts the night of the 1968 presidential election when the group attends a party to watch the returns together released in february 1975 the film had mixed critical reception which is i guess fine although it should get five stars for julie christie's dress reveal alone still lee once again got great notices vincent canby wrote in the new york times that she gave the film's only interesting performance while pauline kale added in the new yorker lee grant is such a cool style comedienne that she's in danger of having people say she's good as usual by then it had become clear that to hire lee grant was to guarantee a scene-stealing performance a gift the academy recognized with her third nomination for best supporting actress her fellow nominees included ronnie blakely in nashville lily tomlin in nashville brenda vaccaro in once is not enough and sylvia miles in farewell my lovely lucky for us humble 2021 viewers tvtv in association with kcet a public broadcasting station in los angeles actually followed three of the five best supporting actress nominees in a documentary made about oscar night we see lily tomlin trying on one of the greatest red carpet ensembles the oscars has ever seen oh this is good this is good for accepting ronnie blakely giving a pretty realistic assessment of her chances i don't think that my performance is gonna win and lee grant practicing for an unwanted scenario just give me one more um and the winner is lily tomlin from nashville lily wonderful it's absolutely worth the watch i'll link it below not only because it's really funny but also because it's genuinely a good insight into how lee saw the award in the scheme of her career she acknowledges she has finally turned the corner on her days on the blacklist which proves to be quite the relief and this time it feels just much more comfortable if i if i win or if i lose i know that somebody's not gonna tap me on the shoulder and say we didn't mean you with her second nomination in just a few years and great reviews the likelihood was that she would win as one journalist put it she's cleared the obstacles that stopped her before she's not up against the hollywood blacklist as she was at the time of the detective story nomination and she's not nominated for a financially unsuccessful film as she was for the landlord sure enough and the winner is lee grant in shampoo [Applause] [Music] i'm saying that's what i wanted to win she's always good i didn't like some of the things they didn't shampoo the whole lot of sex just with everybody at the end of the documentary lee talks about her win as if it finally closed some kind of narrative arc after all those years and all that trouble after being silenced and excluded from her chosen profession she'd taken home the american film industry's highest honor it just doesn't seem true to me it doesn't seem you know it seemed like that person chose certain things to do which which kept her together and kept her you know strong it was the end of an era for me and part of it was painful what did that ear symbolize what was that era hit blackfist uh i think we had a fight 20 years ago but he's changed i know i haven't but i would like to thank the artistic community for sustaining me and my wins and losses and and sitting on the curb whatever it was i must take some time though to mention probably her closest competition lily tomlin prior to her work in nashville she'd been known for starring on the sketch comedy show laughin and for her comedy albums both of which demonstrated her affinity for inventing and playing characters no one had expected dramatic films to come next but altman came along and he's totally a maverick so he would put me in his movies you know i'd never done anything like that i mean i i never thought i couldn't uh that was my first movie and that was the first uh the first dramatic role i got as a a person in hollywood indeed the role was originally intended for louise fletcher 1976's best actress winner she had grown up signing with deaf family members which became part of the character's story in nashville and remained even after she left the project listen do i think nashville is probably the greatest american movie ever made yes did lily tomlin invent listening to music during her performance technically no but honestly yes is my cat literally named tomlin [Music] but will you ever see me begrudge lee grant's oscar win no life's too short give that woman some gold oh but also don't stop there [Music] i sure think it's about time jag or hoover retired would you uh repeat that and speak into my badge there was a moment just before lee grant accepted the academy award for her supporting performance in the iconic 1975 movie shampoo when she knew her life had changed she was making her way to the stage and a thought blazed its way into her consciousness it was probably the end of my great beautiful gorgeous 12 years in hollywood grant recalled recently noting that she was 49 when she won her oscar i realized as a woman actor that my career was probably really over it wasn't totally over the next year she earned another oscar nomination for her performance in voyage of the damned but she was right to sense a shift she spent ages 24 through 36 on the blacklist in other words she spent the only years hollywood typically cares about an actress completely out of the game she suspected that regardless of her win hollywood would be all too willing to get rid of her again this concern about her age stretched all the way back to her early 30s when she got her first facelift the roles coming in weren't quite the same anymore she really did say yes to everything [Applause] so she decided to pivot in 1974 she joined the inaugural class of afi's directing workshop for women a program established to help women become directors at a time when barely a handful were working at all by mentoring them through the production cycle of a short film the workshop gave her the tools she needed to continue her career behind the camera she wrote in her memoir now it was not acting but directing that was a new challenge the new place i was being stopped where all women were being stopped the studios and producers who remained so gracious to me as an actress reacted as if i were over ripe cheese when i mentioned directing i had to do it because hollywood said i couldn't my cue was always no you can't documentaries became her new means of expressing the values she'd learned on the blacklist a new method of holding up that mirror to find the truth i'd had to shut up for so long she said describing the paranoia and paralyzing self-doubt that she suffered while being blacklisted you're worried that if you do open your mouth somebody's name is going to come out and hurt them so getting to do documentaries was such a door swinging open for me i could ask anything i could say anything and i could address some of the things i felt deeply about in a very real way she turned her lens toward the oppressed overlooked and undervalued in society in battered she interviewed survivors of domestic violence women on trial exposes the innate corruption and sexism in the family court system the willmar 8 documented a bank strike led by eight women through a harsh minnesotan winter what sex am i follows a group of transgender individuals struggling to make their way in 1980s america certainly her most famous work from this time was 1986's down and out in america the film follows victims of the mid-1980s recession villages of unhoused individuals a couple unable to escape the welfare system farmers about to lose their farms to the bank expose those shits and they were taking their money taking those farmers money john cory opened his review of the documentary down and out in america is clear about its message the system has failed and the american dream has died the film is ultimately a stunning indictment of you guessed it ronald reagan's america now remember ronnie was a key figure in hollywood's anti-communist circles as seth rosenfeld author of subversives the fbi's war on student radicals and reagan's rise to power told npr starting in hollywood in the 1940s ronald reagan developed a special relationship with the fbi he became an fbi informer reporting other actors whom he suspected of subversive activities and later when he became president of the screen actors guild the fbi had wide access to the guild's information on various actors at one point the guild turned over information on 54 actors it was investigating as possible subversives as a result of this j edgar hoover repaid him with personal and political favors later obviously down and out in america wasn't made as revenge against ronald reagan but it does feel like the correct end to this arc reagan worked so tirelessly to silence liberal voices and allied himself with the same groups that wanted to end lee's career for good yet it was their challenge to her freedom that guided and inspired this era of her career try as they might have there she was giving a platform to other people left behind by their government loudly and publicly decrying policies that were not working down and out in america won the best documentary oscar at the 1986 academy awards the prize didn't technically go to her that award goes to the producers one of whom was her husband but in my head she has two oscars because we stand and hell shouldn't the director be included anyway patrick mcgilligan wrote in sinning asked that lee grant has more lives than a cat she does and it's not because she's lucky she fought for every single one with blood sweat and tears literally if you'd like to watch her work or learn more about the blacklist i've left some links for you in the description below check them out i promise you won't regret it all the time god i'm so happy to be in this guy oh [Music] [Laughter] you know what i feel like like we've been through childbirth together who wants wine i feel like it's oh we're in the car yes yes we're in the car we're leaving we're getting out bye once again i'd like to thank sundance now for sponsoring today's video sundance now is a commercial free streaming service created by amc networks for people who appreciate riveting storytelling and fresh perspectives i was initially drawn to the platform because well i'm a rosamund pike completist and it's not like i could just let 10 episodes of state of the union exist in the world without my eyes having absorbed every second of it and after i ran through that i searched through the sundance now library and noticed how refreshing their selections were when it seems like everyone has watched everything all year there's still tons to discover it has 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sundancenow.com and use the promo code bk rewind oh god this does look like a hearse doesn't it he's got a nice skin texture thank you and congratulations thank you now they already had breasts for a minute i am not going to put it in the bathroom i am not going to make a door stop out of it and i think when lee wins tonight don't do that don't do that don't do that i really how can you how could you do that joey how can i do what what is this is this waters yes it's working for questions

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

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Id: 6BVb2mGcXxE

Length: 35min 5sec (2105 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021