About the Book:

John Howard Lawson, already a successful Broadway playwright when he went to Hollywood as a contract screenwriter in 1928, co-founded the Screen Writers Guild, the precursor to today's Writers Guild of America (WGA). Before he attained notoriety as Dean of the Hollywood Ten – a group of eight screenwriters, one director and one producer persecuted because of their varying ties to the Communist Party – John Howard Lawson had become one of the most brilliant, successful, and intellectual screenwriters on the Hollywood scene in the 1930s and 1940s, with several hits to his credit including Blockade, Sahara, and Action in the North Atlantic. After his infamous, almost violent, 1947 hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Lawson spent time in prison and his lucrative career ended abruptly in 1948. He was blacklisted on release, and lived in exile in Mexico, where he wrote several books about his craft. Lawson wrote uncredited screenplays for Cry The Beloved Country in 1952 and Terror In A Texas Town in 1958. He died in 1977.

Studded with anecdotes and based on previously untapped archives, this first biography of John Howard Lawson brings alive his era and features many of his prominent friends and associates, including John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Chaplin, Gene Kelly, Edmund Wilson, Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., and many others. Lawson's life becomes a prism through which we gain a clearer perspective on the evolution and machinations of McCarthyism and anti-Semitism in the United States, on the influence of the left on Hollywood, and on a fascinating man whose radicalism served as a foil for launching the political careers of two Presidents: Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

In vivid, marvellously detailed prose, Final Victim of the Blacklist restores this major figure to his rightful place in history as it recounts one of the most captivating episodes in twentieth century cinema and politics.

What people say:

"Compelling biography." — Journalism History

"An invaluable addition to blacklist literature." — Political Affairs

"Sparkling writing and insightful analysis." — People's Weekly World

"This is the best and most carefully written of the author's many books, and that is something in itself. This extraordinary treatment of one of the most interesting and controversial figures in Hollywood scene of the 1930s-40s demonstrates superior, indeed prodigious, scholarship. Decades of intense and committed research and writing have resulted in details that no one else has attempted to provide. This is an outstanding work that richly deserves our attention." — Paul Buhle, author of Radical Hollywood

About the Author:

Gerald Horne is an American historian who holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. His research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. He has also written extensively about the film industry, including The Final Victim of the Blacklist.