Fitch, Louise

Biography

By Carol Stabile, Jeremiah Favara, and Laura Strait

Louise Fitch (1914–1996) was an actress on radio, television, and in films. She began performing in radio in Chicago in the 1930s and went on to act in a number of television shows and films.1

Fitch was born in Omaha, Nebraska on October 18, 1914. Her parents were Leo Fitch and Fannie Riekes. Leo Fitch was an Orthodox Jew who had fled Russia. Fitch had three brothers: Marvin, Vernon, and Avrum. Fitch was raised and attended high school in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She attended Creighton College in Omaha for two years before taking a job at a radio station in Omaha, where she took a job as a stenographer before segueing into announcing and acting. At the age of 22, Fitch moved to Chicago to pursue a career as a radio actress. 2

Fitch’s performance career began in the 1930s acting in radio shows in Chicago.3 While in Chicago, Fitch had roles in a number of radio shows including Scattergood Baines, That Brewster Boy, Backstage Wife, Two On a Clue, and Road to Life. 4 

 

• 1”Louise Fitch; Acted in Movies, Cult Films, TV,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1996.
• 2Louis B. Nichols, “This Is Your FBI,” Office Memorandum (Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 4, 1952), 2, #100-390769, National Records and Archives Administration.
• 3“Louise Fitch; Acted in Movies, Cult Films,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1996, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-19-mn-45349-story.html.
• 4Sam Honigberg, “Radio Talent: Chicago,” The Billboard, March 14, 1942, 7; Sam Honigberg, “Radio Talent: Chicago,” The Billboard, June 6, 1942, 7; “Four-Way Pick-Up,” The Billboard, February 19, 1994, 11.

Blacklist

In 1952, the FBI started an investigation of Louise Fitch. They suspected her of what the Bureau loosely defined as subversion for several reasons. First, her name had been included, a year and a half earlier, in Red Channels. Her brother, Marvin Fitch, had come to the Bureau’s attention in 1949, as part of a broader investigation of the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa. Fitch herself had been a member of the progressive wing of the American Federation of Radio Actors since 1937. And finally, Fitch’s husband, Jerry D. Lewis, had been working as a script writer for the television show, This is Your FBI, since 1945.1 With the FBI’s endorsement (the show’s producer attended new agent training sessions), the show’s sponsor’s punchline was: "To your FBI you look for national security, and to your Equitable Society for financial security. These two great institutions are dedicated to the protection of you, your home, and your country!"

The Bureau’s investigation of Fitch blended rancor and rumor. One informant admitted that even though “he could not furnish any information concerning membership of Louise Fitch Lewis in Communist front organizations,” he did not believe that any member of Fitch’s family “could be trusted with confidential data involving security of the United States since pro-Communist sympathies were obviously inherited at an early age.”2 Another “confidential source” told the Bureau that Louise Lewis subscribed to the Daily People’s World, the Communist Party’s west coast newspaper.3

Of course, neither Fitch nor her husband had access to confidential data, much less data “involving security of the United States.” And it swiftly became clear that the Bureau was not interested in Fitch herself, but was worried about the taint of the blacklist tarnishing the FBI’s reputation. Specifically, they were worried Jerry D. Lewis’ employment by This is Your FBI might reflect poorly on the Bureau’s image. Bureau public relations guru Louis B. Nichols, whose connection to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) ran two ways, claimed to have heard the HUAC might launch an investigation of Fitch. The anti-communist web very quickly began to close in around Fitch. Devine admitted to the FBI that “he did not get along particularly well” with Fitch, who in his estimation “played the field” when she moved to New York, before settling on Lewis before “it appeared that he was the best bet of the group she was running around with.” According to Devine, “he didn’t like the way she had played Jerry Lewis.”4
 

• 1Louis B. Nichols, “This Is Your FBI,” Office Memorandum (Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 4, 1952), 2, #100-390769, National Records and Archives Administration.
• 2 MA Jones, “Jerry D. Lewis and Louise Fitch,” Office Memorandum (Los Angeles, CA: Federal Bureau of Investigation, January 18, 1952), 2, 100-390769, National Records and Archives Administration.
• 3Ibid.
• 4Louis B. Nichols, “This Is Your FBI,” Office Memorandum (Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 4, 1952), 2, #100-390769, National Records and Archives Administration.

Filmography

Blood of Dracula (1957)

The Mechanic (1972)

Starbird and Sweet William (1973)

The Lost Manuscript (1974)

Opening Night (1977)

True Confessions (1981)

Wedding Band (1989)

The Soft Kill (1994)

TV Appearances

Mike Hammer (1959)

Goodyear Theatre (1959)

M Squad (1959)

General Hospital (1963)

The Eleventh Hour (1963)

Perry Mason (1963)

Ben Casey (1962-1964)

Slattery’s People (1964)

Bonanza (1969)

Death Valley Days (1967-1969)

Mod Squad (1969)

The Streets of San Francisco (1972)

The F.B.I. (1972)

The Doris Day Show (1973)

Big Town (1955)

Front Row Center (1955)

Adventures of Superman (1955)

Climax! (1955)

Dragnet (1956)

Noah’s Ark (1956)

The Lone Ranger (1957)

The Vampire (1957)

I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)

Lux Video Theatre (1956-1957)

Studio 57 (1957)