Send an E-Postcard of:
"Will Geer, Movie Actor, Keeps Silent on Past" article from the Greenfield Recorder-Gazette newspaper

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

Will Geer, who most people today remember for his role as Grandpa Walton on the long-running television show, was black-listed by Hollywood after speaking before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. Geer reported to the hearing dressed in the costume he wore playing Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road on Broadway and chewing gum like a wad of tobacco. Walking into the room he said "Where is the hot seat?" Geer invoked his Fifth Amendment right and refused to implicate others or to confirm or deny past membership in the Communist Party. Geer was but one of many people connected with the entertainment industry called before the HUAC and subsequently black-listed and could not find work. At the end of the 1950's, people who had been black-listed were gradually hired and the whole idea began to break down. Geer was hired by Otto Preminger in 1962 to be in Advise and Consent.

top of page