From Pulitzer Prize winner to Hollywood pariah: the radical transformation of Morrie Ryskind
In short: Morrie Ryskind was a titan of Broadway and Hollywood, writing Marx Brothers classics and winning a Pulitzer Prize. Yet, his career abruptly stalled after he testified as a friendly witness during the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, marking a dramatic shift from his early socialist roots to staunch conservatism.
Born in Brooklyn in 1895, Ryskind began his career as a sharp-witted writer, famously suspended from Columbia University for mocking president Nicholas Murray Butler as 'Czar Nicholas' in 1917. By the 1930s, he was a dominant force in American entertainment, collaborating with George S. Kaufman on Marx Brothers hits like The Cocoanuts and A Night at the Opera. His work on the 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing earned him a Pulitzer Prize, and he received Academy Award nominations for his screenplays for My Man Godfrey and Stage Door.
Ryskind’s political evolution was as complex as his scripts. Initially a member of the Socialist Party of America, he eventually broke with its leadership and shifted toward the political right. By 1940, he had abandoned the Democratic Party to support Republican Wendell Willkie. His transformation culminated in his 1947 appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ryskind believed this testimony effectively ended his professional life, as he never sold another script afterward, though no direct evidence confirms an organized blacklist against friendly witnesses.
In his later years, Ryskind became a central figure in conservative intellectual circles. He helped fund William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review, contributed to The Freeman, and served as a board member for the American Jewish League Against Communism. While he briefly joined the John Birch Society, he distanced himself when the group began labeling prominent American presidents as Soviet conspirators. Ryskind spent his final decades writing a conservative column for the Los Angeles Times and documenting his journey in his autobiography, I Shot an Elephant in My Pajamas.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Morrie Ryskind
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