Sometimes, getting on the television blacklist came down to having supported an event in the past, often many years ago.
Thirteen of the Broadcast 41--Dorothy Parker, Lisa Sergio, Gale Sondergaard, Stella Adler, Edith Atwater, Shirley Graham, Uta Hagen, Lillian Hellman, Rose Hobart, Judy Holliday, Helen Tamiris, Hilda Vaughn, Fredi Washington--were listed as sponsors for the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, held in March 1949 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City that included five delegates from the Soviet Union, one of whom was composer Dmitry Shostakovich.
Although few of the sponsors were members of the Communist Party, because the House Un-American Activities Committee had identified the conference as "A supermobilization of the inveterate wheelhorses and supporters of the Communist Party and its auxiliary organizations," all those associated with it were regarded as politically suspect. (see The Review of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace).
