Lillian Hellman Recalled

For John, BLUF:  It was a little squabble, but live on national TV, and thus it went off the rails.  But, it is as alive today as then, what with the Antifa and their ilk pushing a Stalinist line on the rest of us.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Lillian, Mary, and Me

The New Yorker, 16 December 2017, by Mr Dick Cavett.

I had forgotten, or not realized, that Novelist Mary McCarty was on the Dick Cavett show when she said of Playwright Lillian Hellman:

“Everything,” McCarthy replied, smiling.  “I said once in some interview that every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

Ms Hellman sued Ms McCarthy, PBS and Mr Cavett.  As she died before the suit went to trial, it died with her.

Ms McCarthy was a writer of note in her day.  I read her book, The Group, when it came out, and liked it.

Ms Hellman also managed to get into a twenty-five year fight with Actress Tallulah Bankhead over a fundraiser for Finnish Relief, right after the Soviet Invasion.  Tallulah was for it and Lillian was against it.  But, Ms Hellman had written the play to be performed, The Little Foxes.  I remember Ms Bankhead, the daughter of a US Senator, for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat.  Yes, even though filmed exclusively in the lifeboat, Mr Hitchcock does have a cameo appearance.

The thing is, notwithstanding her play (later a film) Watch on the Rhine, Ms Hellman was a through and through Stalinist.  And what bigger lie was there in the 20th Century than being an apologist for Joseph Stalin?

Ms McCarthy, on the other hand, had turned on Communism, becoming first a Trotskyist and then an opponent of Communism.

Regards  —  Cliff