Communist infiltration of Hollywood motion-picture industry : hearing before the Committee on Un-American activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-second Congress, first session (1951)

2082 COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY Miss Ettinger. Mr. Wheeler, I never favored agents. I favored writers with agents but it never came about because anybody belonged to an agency. Mr. Wheeler. Have you any statement to make about George Willner and your business relationship with him? Miss Ettinger. You mention George Willner and that makes me feel that I have to tell you a conversation that I had at Columbia with Mr. Kahane, who is one of our vice presidents. Mr. Kahane aske$ me about my relationship with George Willner. Mr. Wheeler. When i Miss Ettinger. During the period I had left Columbia, which was from May 1947 until the end of November 1947. This was one of the biggest shocks of my life because I had no association with George Willner. Mr. Kahane said he had gotten information from somebody who claimed that when I left Columbia it was for the purpose of going into business with George Willner, and I was going to get young writers to write scripts and I was going to sell these scripts to the studio with the writer, and presumably these writers were going to be Communists. This is, of course, ridiculous and I was amused by it at the time because I didn't realize the implications in it. But 1 told him the whole story, and he knew- it, and I have not only the man I went into business with, but I have people in town whom I discussed relationship with this job, what I should do about it, who know about it. I was unhappy at the time I came out here, I was sensitive, I was frightened. This was a new world to me and I came into a job in which I had to learn. I had to learn screen play writing, 1 had to learn how to choose writers. I came without preparation for it. Mr. Cohn called me one day and said, "Do you want to come out? Make up your mind in a day," and the next day I made up my mind. I hadn't done much script reading in New York and I certainly didn't know Hollywood writers, so I didn't know their capabilities, which meant I just had to kill myself to read every script that came in the studio and call up agents and say, "Give me scripts of these writers," so that when I was asked to name writers or suggest writers that I would be prepared. Since I am, I hate to say it, you know, high-strung, I couldn't take it in stride for a while and at the end of the second year I went to Mr. Cohn and I said, "I want to be let out of my contract." He told me he thought I was doing a foolish thing and I said, "Maybe I am, but the only way I can find out is by doing it." Now, the reason I left is because, again I am being naive, there was a man who had worked for Columbia, he was an assistant to Mr. Cohn, and he left to join Nat Goldstone, and that is Milton Pickman. Milton had, whether Avell placed or not, a high regard for me. He thought I knew writers, he thought that I knew scripts. I had often talked to him about a dream of buying my own stories, hiring writers, writ- ing scripts and selling them to studios at enormous prices, because an agent in town, ("barley Feldman, would sell scripts for $100,000 and $150,000. And I thought, "I really know how to develop scripts, why shouldn't I do it." I had visions of being very rich. So Milton's idea was that we would form a company, he would get part of the business, I would get part of the business, and he would