LYCOS RETRIEVER 
John Garfield: Hollywood Canteen
built 642 days ago
Garfield graduated to leading roles in films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with Lana Turner, Humoresque (1946) with Joan Crawford, and the Oscar-winning Best Picture Gentleman's Agreement (1947). In 1948 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring role in Body and Soul (1947). That same year, Garfield returned to Broadway in the play Skipper Next to God. A strong-willed and often verbally combative individual, Garfield did not hesitate to venture out on his own when the opportunity arose. In 1946, when his contract with Warner Bros. expired, Garfield decided against renewal of his studio contract and opted to start his own independent production company, one of the first Hollywood stars to take this step.
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On the outbreak of the Second World War Garfield attempted to join the armed forces but failed his medical as a result of a heart condition. Desperate to make a contribution to the war effort Garfield joined with Bette Davis to form the Hollywood Canteen. This restaurant provided servicemen on leave in Los Angeles with free meals. Garfield ... arranged for the men to be entertained at the Hollywood Canteen by some of the countries leading stars.
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Long involved in liberal politics, Garfield was caught up in the Communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and supported the Committee for the First Amendment, which opposed governmental investigation of political beliefs. When called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was empowered to investigate purported communist infiltration in America, Garfield refused to name communist party members or followers, testifying that, indeed, he knew none in the film industry. Indeed, Garfield rejected Communism, and just prior to his death, in hopes of redeeming himself in the eyes of the blacklisters, had written that he had been duped by Communist ideology, in an unpublished article entitled "I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook", a reference to Garfield's movies about boxing.[4] However, his forced testimony before the committee had severely damaged his reputation. He was blacklisted in Red Channels, and barred from future employment as an actor by Hollywood movie studio bosses for the remainder of his career.[5]
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Garfield was a staunch liberal and became a victim of McCarthy's blacklist. Unable to find work in Hollywood and obsessed with a sense of betrayal by his own country, Garfield became unhinged, obsessively sifting through his personal papers for evidence of his innocence, and decending into substance abuse and some sort of clinical depression.
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Hollywood Canteen