One major concern of the Americans during World War I was the communist influence. There was a group of men known as the "Hollywood Ten." They were put on trial in front of the House Committee of Un-American Activities to review the effects of Communism in America. This group consisted of writers and producers that were called to testify whether or not they were members of the growing Communist party. Due to the refusal to testify these men were put in jail and blacklisted. There were many men that were a part of the "Hollywood Ten." A few are Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson and more, including Dalton Trumbo. Many of these men after being blacklisted and not being able to find employment continued on to literary works. Before Trumbo was involved in the "Hollywood Ten," he was a writer. Dalton Trumbo was born on December 9, 1905 in Montrose, Colorado. After high school he went on to the University of California and Southern California, after attending the Universi!.
ty of Colorado for one year. After the death of his father, Dalton assumed responsibility to support the family, and he moved to California. Dalton wrote films for Vanity Fair and Hollywood Spectacular. While working for Hollywood Spectacular he wrote his first novel, Eclipse in 1935. Then following this he was hired by Warner Brothers as a screenwriter. Dalton then wrote twenty-five screenplays in the next six years. One of them being "Kitty Foyle," a story about a white-collar girl and her troubled love life. This won an Oscar nomination. .
Dalton Trumbo was fired from his work at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer in 1950. It was after that that he completed some of his best scripts. He had found a man by the name of Ian McLellan Hunter who published his work for him. Hunter ended up taking all of the credit for Dalton's work of Roman Holiday. Dalton was suffering from cut-rate prices and needed to move to Mexico before the government found out his real identity.