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In the years that followed the Second World War, the trend among actors and directors was to form their own producing companies and to use the studios’ facilities and distribution outlets for their products. It was probably the first big blow to the studio-star system, because stars became their own bosses, and they enjoyed the enviable position of being able to loan themselves out to whomever offered interesting parts and charge, if they were “big names,” extravagant fees for their services.

With his friend and manager Bob Roberts, Garfield formed Roberts Productions, and the bids for his services from other companies weren’t long in coming. He went to MGM for THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946), in which he gave a poignant performance as the crude and confused hobo who stumbles aimlessly into a fatal trap; to John Huston’s independent company, Horizon, for the stirring political drama WE WERE STRANGERS (1949); and to twentieth Century-Fox for UNDER MY SKIN (1950). The size of a part was not important Garfield if it had something in which he believed. The twenty-minute scene of the young Jew who was the lifelong friend of the writer in GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT (1947) was offered to him with apologies. He said, “They hesitated to offer me the part. They said I was a star and this was not star’s part. But the bit role had just something that compelled me to do it.” Garfield was right. That “something” had more perception and punch than many of the ramblings of the hero.

For his own company he appeared in BODY AND SOUL (1947) and FORCE OF EVIL (1948). In BODY AND SOUL Garfield found the role of a lifetime, for it provided him with characterization that advanced from arrogant, youthful self-assurance to the disillusioned competence of an aging champ who had enough dignity to stand up against the rule of mobsters. His performance moved Archer Winsten to write in the New York Post: “It is a striking commentary on Hollywood and its waste of talent that Garfield should have to wait so long and impersonate so many ruinously repetitious types before he could realize his full capabilities in a part like this.”

Garfield was still faithful to his first love, the theatre. It was for him always a thrilling experience to return to the stage between movie commitments. In 1948 he joined the cast of the Experimental Theatre production of Skipper Next to God. For his work in this play he received a salary of eighty dollars a week and a share of the profits, which was the same financial basis guaranteed to the other members of the cast.

Though the play was not a commercial success, Garfield said, “I wanted to do Skipper‘ because it is a story of a man and his conscience, a story of a man who has to make difficult decisions.” These were almost prophetic words. Very shortly he would have to find peace with his conscience in order to make difficult decisions, some of which affected his life tragically.

When the House Un-American Activities Committee began its Hollywood hearings in 1947, Garfield, as well as many other respected members of the movie colony, reacted with indignation. He became a member of the Committee for the First Amendment, which protested the HUAC’s actions. “I hated to see a bunch of bullies come and terrorize everybody, making people rat on friends out of fear,” he declared in a Los Angeles Times interview.

Garfield had grown up in the slums where the conclusion drawn from the squalor of everyday life was “don’t let anybody push you around.” Now he had to fight inquisitors with seemingly unlimited power to destroy careers and lives. Their bias and bigotry-anyone with a Jewish name was suspected of having Leftist ties – were an insult to America’s democratic traditions. In 1948 Garfield gave both moral and financial support to the “Unfriendly Hollywood Ten,” who were sent to jail for contempt of Congress because they refused to answer the question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?”

In 1951 Garfield, called to appear before the HUAC, answered the question, “I am no Red, I am no pink, I am no fellow-traveler. I am a Democrat by politics, a liberal by inclination, and a loyal citizen of my country by every act of my life.”

However, some members of the committee – particularly Representative Donald Jackson (Republican, Calif.) – turned his Communist disavowal over to the Department of Justice for investigation, which meant that Garfield could not work in a Hollywood studio until he was cleared of suspicion. It also meant the beginning of a nightmarish persecution. Probing into his past associations, the committee came up with farfetched revelations of his links with Communist-front organizations, such as his being a speaker at a conference of American-Soviet Friendship in 1943 (“I praised Russia during the war as our ally, just as General MacArthur did”), appearing with Paul Robeson in a benefit for refugees sponsored by the Anti-Fascist League in 1945 (“I never refused to appear in a benefit for a good cause. Besides I was there with many others above suspicion”). In 1946 Garfield and his wife joined Charlie Chaplin, director Lewis Milestone, and others at a reception, honoring Soviet author Konstantin Simonev (“We felt it was an honor to be invited because he was here at the invitation of the State Department”).

The committee went to such extremes as to imply that Garfield, having acted in some Clifford Odets plays when he was a member of the Group Theatre (Odets admitted that he was a Communist for a time during that period), was a suspect with Communist affiliations.

It was true that Garfield’s generosity and sympathy for causes for which he had very deep feelings, such as civil liberties, racial discrimination, and political persecution, might have been manipulated by some dubious organizations that flourished in America during the war years. Garfield spoke of this when he said, “Actors are emotional. If somebody would come to us and say ‘Sign here. Everybody’s doing it for civil liberties or sign here to save the bread of children of writers banned from the studios because of their political beliefs,’ I would sign because it was a right cause, a cause in which I believed.”

From the moment the House Committee turned over Garfield’s testimony to the Department of Justice, he encountered difficulty in getting jobs in the movie industry. His agent, George Chasen, said that while no studio had told him flatly that Garfield was being barred because of suspected Communist ties, there just were no parts being offered to him. His last film was HE RAN ALL THE WAY, made in 1950 and released in 1951 prior to his appearance before the House Committee. His forced inactivity and the emotional pressure of the investigation affected his health. A heart condition was kept secret by his family and his closest associates. Garfield had collapsed on the set of WE WERE STRANGERS (1949), and early in 1951 he had suffered a heart attack after a tennis game.

Only work would relieve his mental stress. He went back to New York to appear in the ANTA (American National Theatre and Academy) production of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. It was an unwise choice, closing after thirty-two performances. In March, 1952, ANTA decided to revive Golden Boy, and Garfield was offered the role that had eluded him in the original production fifteen years earlier, that of Joe Bonaparte, the sensitive young violinist-turned-prizefighter. His performance was received with unanimous raves. The scheduled four-week run had to be extended to eight, and it could have continued except for ANTA’s tight subscription schedule. The success of the production should have been one of the happiest moments of Garfield’s career but he knew that there would be no film work until he cleared up the doubts about his congressional testimony. He also knew that the only way to get out of limbo would be to face a perjury charge by going before the House Committee and repudiating his previous testimony. Others had done this, even some of the “Hollywood Ten,” who were now working in the big studios as if nothing had happened. The idea recurred persistently as the unavoidable solution.

But on May 21, 1952, death solved such tormenting problems. Garfield died of a heart attack at the apartment of a friend, actress Iris Whitney. Victor Riesel, New York Daily Mirror columnist, affirmed that hours before the actor’s death, he had completed a statement that was to have modified his 1951 testimony. He would admit that he worked closely with Communists and had carried out their orders. However, the FBI declined comment on reports that Garfield had given his agents a restatement of his political past. This was also denied by Garfield’s attorney and friend Louis Nizer, who said that such a statement was not only never written but not even contemplated.

Garfield’s wife of eighteen years denied reports that his decision was a principal factor in his domestic troubles (they had separated a week before his death). “Our separation was not over anything political,” she said. “We loved each other, and our difficulties, similar to those that may sometimes affect married people, were being straightened out. We’ve been to gather through good and bad times. John was a fighter and he wouldn’t bend easily to threats and pressure.”

Representative Jackson said to a Daily News reporter, “I have been criticized by many for not accepting the original testimony of Mr. Garfield as absolute fact but there were indications that his appearance last year did not produce all the facts of his case. I was not aware of his reported decision before his death to clarify his past activities. If that is true, it is good to learn that John had made a great and difficult decision.”

Garfield was survived by his wife, Roberta, and two children. The Garfields’ first child, Katherine, died in 1945, at age 5. A son, David, was born in 1943 and a second daughter, Julie, in 1946. Both pursued acting careers. David is known professionally as John Garfield, Jr.

Garfield was the fourth actor to die after being subjected to Congressional investigation. The others were: Mady Christians, 51, who appeared in many Hollywood films and was probably best known as Mama in the TV series I Remember Mama, from which, because of supposed political associations, she was removed and replaced by Peggy Wood. Miss Christians died on October 28, 1951.

J. Edward Bromberg, 48, the villain in many films (THE MARK OF ZORRO, JESSE JAMES etc.) who refused to disclose his political background before the HUAC, died December 6, 1951.

Canada Lee, 45, the black prizefighter-turned-actor, best remembered for his its in Hitchcock’s LIFEBOAT and in BODY AND SOUL, died on May 9, 1952. He had been accused of being a Communist, although had denied this many times.

John Garfield always said, “No actor can really be good until he’s reached forty.” He was thirty-nine when he died.

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