Why Kirk Douglas Hired Eagle Rocker Dalton Trumbo During the McCarthy Era

It’s a little-known fact that Donald Trumbo, a screenwriter imprisoned in 1950 for indulging in “Un-American activities” at the height of the persecution of Hollywood figures spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, lived in Eagle Rock.

As Eagle Rock Patch Music and Culture columnist Dan Kimpel reported in January 2011, following his year-long prison stint, Trumbo lived in exile in a house on the hills of what was then part of Highland Park, but which has since been considered Eagle Rock.

Click here to read Kimpel’s story, titled “Exiled in Eagle Rock," which shows a photograph of the house that Trumbo evidently lived in.

In a fascinating Los Angeles Times story, the legendary actor Kirk Douglas recounts how he hired Trumbo to write screenplays as a way of breaking the blacklist that authorities had imposed on entertainment industry figures suspected of having left-leaning sympathies.  

Click here to read the Times story, titled “Kirk Douglas on the Blacklist: Why Hollywood Showed so Little Courage.”