Academy to Honor Elia Kazan

Re “Film Director Elia Kazan to Receive Oscar, Forgiveness,” Jan. 15: As a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a once-blacklisted screenwriter who had to work for years, if at all, with the use of pseudonyms, I am appalled though not surprised by the decision of the academy to award honors to Elia Kazan. While I respect the feelings of Karl Malden, a personal friend and colleague of Kazan, I view with continued bitterness the current hypocritical position of the academy that one must separate politics from creativity. That certainly seems like a fine and acceptable principle.

I can only wish that it had guided the academy during the dark days of the blacklist. Where were the principles of the academy when it refused to recognize that Michael Wilson had written “Friendly Persuasion” in 1956, or “Bridge Over the River Kwai,” with Carl Foreman, in 1957, or that Dalton Trumbo had written “The Brave One” in 1956? That is when respect for principle would have been significant and effective.

The Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists have all handsomely acknowledged their grievous error in cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee and the producers in enforcing a blacklist of their own members, but nothing from the academy, except this: an honors award to a man who was a prize informer in the campaign of HUAC to demonize the rest of us.

BERNARD GORDON

Los Angeles

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My husband (director) David Miller’s ashes would be rising from the sea if he knew that Kazan was being given an award. So many of our friends had to leave the country and many didn’t work for years. They had children and wives. Some committed suicide.

Is this a man deserving an Academy Award?

SARA MILLER

Beverly Hills

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Who are the true villains in the Kazan saga? The headline should read: “47 Years Late, Academy Recognizes Kazan Was Right.”

By 1950, most people realized that their youthful communist idealism had actually supported a bloody ogre. Had they had the character to admit their mistake and join other Americans in resisting Russia, Sen. Joseph McCarthy would have had no platform and Stalinists might have been less bold. World freedom might have come sooner.

Kazan is that rare artist whose great ego didn’t prevent his repentance. Did he hope his “friends” would have the character to follow his lead?

JOHN R. DIXON

Palos Verdes Estates