LOS ANGELES, March 18 -- Actor Dustin Hoffman says it was reprehensible for Elia Kazan to give Congress the names of other filmmakers with ties to the Communist Party decades ago, but studios should also acknowledge their share of the reponsibility for the Hollywood blacklist. Hoffman was weighing in on the controversy over the decision by the governing board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to honor Kazan with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Sunday's Oscar ceremonies in Los Angeles.
The two-time Oscar winner says Kazan 'was not the only one to name names.' He says the studios acquiesced in the blacklisting, when the House Un-American Activities Committee hunted for communists in Hollywood in the '50s. Hoffman told reporters in Los Angeles that 'the same fear exists today,' as many Hollywood figures show a reluctance to take a stand on the controversy. The star of such films as 'Rain Man,' 'Tootsie' and 'The Graduate' said 'we all want to think that we wouldn't do' what Kazan did, but he says no one knows what he would have done under the same circumstances Kazan faced. Hoffman says he would like to see the Academy 'take every blacklisted person, every person that suffered from that horrendous time, and put them on the stage...and salute them and give them all Lifetime Achievment Awards. Kazan is being honored for a body of work which includes 'On the Waterfront' and 'Gentleman's Agreement,' both of which earned him directing Oscars. He also directed 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' 'East of Eden' and 'Splendor in the Grass.' Demonstrators are expected to protest Kazan's award outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday while the Oscars ceremony is going on inside. ---
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