Publisher's son apologizes for 'Hollywood holocaust'
- William R. Wilkerson III apologized for his father's role in the Hollywood blacklist
- Billy Wilkerson was the founder and publisher of 'The Hollywood Reporter'
The Hollywood Reporter, one of Hollywood's oldest trade publications, has come clean on what is being billed as its "publication's dark past."
W.R. Wilkerson III, the son of the trade's founder and publisher Billy Wilkerson, has apologized for his father's early role in the notorious Hollywood blacklist.
Wilkerson made the written apology in the current issue of The Hollywood Reporter.
"It's possible, had my father lived long enough, that he would have apologized for creating something that devastated so many careers," Wilkerson wrote. "On behalf of my family, and particularly my late father, I wish to convey my sincerest apologies and deepest regrets to those who were victimized by this unfortunate incident."
According to Wilkerson, his father began the anti-communist campaign -- which targeted members of the Hollywood community for alleged communist ties -- in 1946 to settle personal scores. It "began as a schoolyard spat with the movie brass (and) snowballed out of control," writes Wilkerson.
"In his maniacal quest to annihilate the studio owners, he realized that the most effective retaliation was to destroy their talent. In the wake of this emerging hysteria surrounding communism, the easiest way to crush the studio owners was to simply call their actors, writers and directors communists," writes Wilkerson. "Unfortunately, they would become the collateral damage of history."
The hysteria became a national epidemic.
"In 1950, what I call Hollywood's Holocaust spread nationwide under Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., and claimed the livelihoods of thousands of Americans," wrote Wilkerson. "Calling someone a communist today is almost laughable. But in 1950, it was a professional death sentence."
The black list would go on to "silence the careers of some of the studios' greatest talent and ruined countless others merely standing on the sidelines," Wilkerson wrote.