Hanns Eisler in the McCarthy Era

Hanns Eisler's persecution by the House Committee on Un-American Activties (HUAC) is more than a footnote in U.S. political and cultural history. Eisler—living in Malibu, California, and supporting himself by writing film scores for Hollywood studios—was the first target of HUAC's probe of alleged Communist subversion in the motion picture industry and the first victim of the notorious "blacklist" that eventually ruined the careers of thousands of directors, screenwriters, artists and academics. To the rising anticommunist star Richard Nixon, then serving his first term as a U.S. Congressman, "the case of Hanns Eisler" was "perhaps the most important ever to have come before the committee."

An extravert who loved to entertain, Eisler was a popular host in wartime Hollywood. His social circle included Charlie Chaplin, Clifford Odets, Charles Laughton, Peter Lorre, Artie Shaw and Ava Gardner. "Chaplin adored him," remembers actor Norman Lloyd. Eisler's beloved teacher, Schönberg, lived nearby. Back in New York, where Eisler had taught composition and counterpoint at the New School for Social Research before the move to Hollywood, he retained the admiring friendship of musicians like Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Roger Sessions. Who but Eisler could have organized such unlikely social combinations as Brecht's afternoon with Schönberg or Thomas Mann's dinner with Charlie Chaplin?

Read the rest of this article on EislerMusic.com