Gregory Peck Walked Into Frank Sinatra’s Hotel Room After The Blacklist Betrayal — Gregory SHOWED UP

Gregory Peck Walked Into Frank Sinatra’s Hotel Room After The Blacklist Betrayal — Gregory SHOWED UP 

February of 60 and Gregory Peek read the Hurst headline at his kitchen table. Sinatra fires Maltz, five words. 13 years of Albert Maltz’s ruined career. One of the Hollywood 10 who serve prison time for refusing to name names ended in five words and a paid statement from Frank Sinatra saying the American public had spoken. Gregory read it twice.

 Then he drove to Los Angeles. Wait, because what happened in that Bair Hotel suite would reveal something about Frank Sinatra. The performances never could and something about Gregory Peek he had never put into words. Because Gregory’s own name was in Red Channels, the pamphlet that accused hundreds of Hollywood figures of communist sympathies.

 and Roman Holiday, the picture that made him a global star, had been secretly written by blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, whose name appeared nowhere on the credits. Gregory understood exactly what it cost a man to have his name taken away. Frank was in shirt sleeves when he opened the door. The bourbon was untouched, newspapers on the floor, not thrown, just let fall.

Gregory had not telephoned. He simply drove. Have you ever arrived somewhere and understood the most important thing you could do was be in the room? Frank had held three weeks against John Wayne’s attacks against Ward Bond calling it a hire the commies club against the Hurst press. Then Ambassador Joseph Kennedy had made a call and Frank placed a new ad in the trades settlement with Maltz.

 Frank stood by the window jaw tight looking at nothing. He was the best man for the job. He said, “Not a defense. A fact with nowhere to go.” Gregory let 10 seconds pass. Then I know he was. They would have pulled the Kennedy campaign apart. Frank said, “The whole thing would have come apart over one writer and one picture.

” Gregory said nothing. “You understand that.” Gregory Peck stood not dramatically, simply stood because what he needed to say required him to be at his full height. He moved to the window beside Frank. I want to tell you something about Roman Holiday. He said, “Dalton Trumbo wrote it. He has been in exile in Mexico for a decade and his name is nowhere on that picture, and I accepted an Oscar for it.

 His voice was quiet, the register he used when something mattered enough to be said without heat. They named me in red channels. They named you. We all made our accommodations. That is the history of everyone who survived it. He turned to look at Frank directly. The question is not whether you did the right thing. The question is what Albert Maltz does tomorrow when he opens the trades.

Something shifted in Frank’s face. Maltz said I had thrown down the gauntlet. He said quietly that my eyes were open. Gregory held the silence. You entered. John Wayne never entered. You bought space in the New York Times to defend him. The blacklist is going to break. Kirk Douglas is crediting Trumbo on Spartacus this fall.

 Maltz will live to see his name restored. He already lived to see Frank Sinatra stand up for him. Frank picked up the bourbon and held it. Something came from behind that caused me to change my position, he said. Joe Kennedy. Yes, Gregory said, “Have you ever understood that principle and loyalty can occupy the same impossible ground that a man can enter with his eyes open and still be outweighed by what he loves?” “You drove 4 hours,” Frank said.

 “What were you going to say if I told you I thought I’d done the right thing?” Gregory’s jaw relaxed, the closest thing to a smile, a room like this aloud. I was going to ask you to explain your reasoning. Let a man work it out. Frank looked at him. Then he laughed. Not the performance, the private one. Sit down, Greg. I’ll get another glass.

 So Gregory Peek sat down in Bair on a February evening, and two men who had both been named in red channels sat with the newspapers on the floor and said only the things that were true. Albert Maltz lived until 85. In 75, Trumbo received a postumous Oscar for Roman holiday and Gregory Peek was in the audience when his name was finally restored.

 At Frank’s memorial in 98, Gregory stood at a microphone and said, “Frank made us feel good about ourselves.” He did not need to say more. This is what Hollywood used to mean. Not just the performances, but the men who drove 4 hours without telephoning ahead, poured a second glass, and stayed. Share this with someone who remembers when principal was a price, not a performance.

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