To most people familiar with his name, John Howard Lawson was the really annoying member of the Hollywood Ten who, in newsreel footage, is seen insisting on his right to read a statement to members of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Lawson’s bellicose performance, splashed across the country’s movie screens in 1947, is sometimes credited with turning public opinion against the Ten.) Few remember that he was a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild (which became today’s powerful Writers Guild of America) and served as its first president. Fewer still know that Lawson was a controversial New York playwright who, for 14 years, was the center of contentious critical debate — both championed and pilloried on the right by Brooks Atkinson and on the left... More >>>