Caviar Gauche
Hollywood Types
In its obituary for actress Betsy Blair (real name, Winifred Boger) a British newspaper wrote that Blair "stayed true to her left-wing ideals." But by her own admission, she self-effacingly described her allegiance as that of a "Gauche Caviar," literally a leftist who eats caviar. I used to speak French and remember the hassle of putting adjectives behind nouns. So I would naturally position "caviar" as the noun and "gauche" as the adjective, like "La Rive Gauche", literally the Left Bank of the Seine River as it crosses Paris, from East to West. Geographically, that puts La Rive Gauche on the south side, but it has always had the name "Gauche" instead of "Sud".
Btsy Blair said she wanted to join the Communist Party, but the Party said not to, that it gained credibility by her marriage to actor Gene Kelly, at that time one of the highest paid actors in the business. All that may be true, but I suspect she knew she could not join the Party, because it would interrogate her, as it interrogated all prospective members—about her wealth. How much money did Betsy Blair have? What did her father do for a living? What did she do with all her money? The Party interrogators would harp on her wealth and double-standard until she turned over her wealth to the Party or withdrew her application for membership— either way, sort of traumatic.
I have learned to distinguish between Communist Party members and sympathizers. The members, for all their destructive and nihilistic tendencies, nevertheless had qualities I admire. They had balls and guts. They went through the gauntlet of interrogations and accusation by Party supervisors to find out who they really were, and if they would tolerate imprisonment for their cause. Blair did endure Blacklisting in the 1950s, but relocated to London, rather than the Soviet Union—again so she could transfer her wealth.
The post-adolescent, left-wing rebels in Hollywood could flirt with Marxism, express sympathy for the Party, protest "Red Scares," right-wing "Witch-hunts," and all that, but if they tried to join the Party, they would never survive a membership interrogation; and they knew that, so they could never actually try to join.
Arthur Miller also ranks high among the many in Hollywood—close to the Communist Party but not in it. I feel a lot of anger toward people like Miller, and wish I had had the opportunity to confront him with his hypocrisy on live TV. Before the TV camera, I would have offered Miller a one-way ticket to Russia. "Here's your chance to visit your communist Mecca." Flustered, he would have refused it.
"Why?" I would have asked him, "if someone offers you a free ticket to visit Russia would you, as a communist, not jump for joy at the chance." Perhaps he had an inkling of the terrible life that Russians had to endure under the Soviet yoke, and how readily they would have escaped to the United States. I also would have confronted him with the fact that he "sympathized" with the bloodthirsty Soviet regime, even if he did not actually join the Party.
He might have defended his actions, saying he sympathized with the Soviet cause but hesitated to actively support its cruel policies toward its own people or other nations. "Sympathy?" I would have hooted derisively. Even that he "liked" a nation best remembered for its bloodthirsty dictatorship led by a psychopath, more than he loves a wealthy, freedom-loving society. Did he simply lack the guts to join, because the formal association would damage his profit-picture?
I would have called Miller a fucking-asshole anti-American, which would have made him walk out. Perhaps he would have taken a swing at me. That Miller lived the American Dream as a Communist sympathizer—how do you figure it? How did all that rhetoric about equality and distribution of goods fit into his scheme?
"Can't you see that the Soviet regime is no better than the Nazi one?" I would have asked. Maybe a congenitally anti-authoritian rebel like Miller needed an excuse, a foundation—to justify his viewpoint. After Miller's death in 2005, The New York Times wrote an article about his home in Connecticut and lightly peddled his worldly wealth. There are certainly differences between Communist membership and Communist sympathy, but talk is cheap. The Times article infers that if you really want to find out who people are, find out where they live, first.
Miller lived in a spacious 18th century house on 350 acres in richest Roxbury. Connecticut. The Times commented ruefully "Miller was hardly immune to the trappings of wealth and fame." At least his immigrant parents would have been pleased about his wealth and status.