Red Star Over Hollywood by Ronald and Allis Radosh

For the latest episode of Ellroy Reads I review one of the key historical texts which inspired James Ellroy’s Red Sheet. Red Star Over Hollywood explores the history of communism in the United States and Hollywood in particular. It provides a revisionist commentary on the Hollywood Ten and the Blacklist. Radosh writes with the authority of a lapsed believer, he was a ‘red diaper baby’ and ardent communist for much of his youth. His slow conversion to conservatism informs much of his take on Hollywood’s flirtation with the far-left, and in turn inspired Ellroy to write Red Sheet.

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