Myron Coureval Fagan

Myron Coureval Fagan (31 October 1887 - 12 May 1972) was an American writer, producer and director for film and theatre. He arrived on Broadway in 1907, where he quickly became one of the youngest playwrights in American Theater. Over the years, he worked in the theater with such luminaries as Alla Nazimova, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Barrymore. He also directed plays for the top producers of the era such as Charles Frohman, David Belasco and others. Fagan also became the dramatic editor of The Associated Newspapers. Many of the actors including Humphrey Bogart, Brian Donlevy and Robert Ryan whom Fagan directed or who appeared in his plays or screen adaptions later became stars in Hollywood.

Contents [hide]
1 Biography
2 Credits
2.1 Plays
2.2 Motion pictures
2.3 Books and articles
3 References
[edit]Biography

He was married to actress Minna Gombell, who starred in many of his productions.

In 1916 Fagan took a break from the theater to served as Director of Public Relations for Republican Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes. When a similar offer was made in 1928 to him by Herbert Hoover he turned it down.

In 1929 the talking picture version of his play "The Great Power" earned the dubious record of being the shortest run of any movie at the Capitol Theatre, New York. It was replaced with a silent comedy film after only one performance.[1]

He moved to Hollywood in 1930, where he served as a writer and director with Pathe Pictures, Inc., then owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, and also at 20th Century Fox, and other Hollywood Film Studios.

In 1945, Fagan claimed he saw secret documents of the meetings in Yalta, shown to him by author John T. Flynn, that led him to write the plays 'Red Rainbow', and 'Thieves Paradise.' Written in 1945, 'Red Rainbow' portrays Roosevelt, Stalin and others in Malta plotting to deliver the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Berlin to Stalin. Left-wing groups in the New York opposed the production of the play and Fagan had difficulties getting financial backing to produce it. Fagan took the play to Hollywood where he encountered even more protests against it than he had in New York. "Red Rainbow"

In 1947 congressional hearings were held, where more than 300 famous stars, writers, and directors from Hollywood, Radio, and TV were investigated, many of whom were blacklisted as Communists. These hearings resulted in the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten.[2]

In the late 1940s Fagan launched a one-man crusade against what he claimed was a "Red Conspiracy in Hollywood". Out of this crusade would come the Cinema Educational Guild.

In 1953, 'Red Rainbow' was produced by Bruce Fagan and staged for 16 performances at the Royale Theatre between 14 September and 26 September.[3]

Written two years later, 'Thieves Paradise' portrays the same group plotting to create the United Nations as a Communist front for one world government.[4]

Despite opposition, 'Thieves Paradise' opened at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood on December 26, 1947. It starred actor Howard Johnson who was subject to a campaign of harassment so bitter and intense that it sent him to St. Vincent's Hospital[disambiguation needed] with a nervous breakdown after six performances. Johnson's mother was also a subject of this campaign against him. These incidences were investigated and corroborated by both Actors' Equity and the American Board of Arbitration. Johnson, who had appeared in three films, never made another movie in Hollywood. 'Thieves Paradise' was also produced and staged at the El Patio theatre in Hollywood in April, 1948. It opened on April 12th, and, despite protest against it, was able to complete its run. This is also mentioned in an anti-communist speech, Luxurious Hollywood made in the same theater, on December 9, 1948, by an unknown reputed Hollywood insider wearing a black mask and calling himself Mr. X.

From this period onward Fagan did not produce any further work for stage or screen, instead he wrote anti-communist and racist pamphlets, such as Hollywood Reds are On the Run, and bulletins for the remainder of his life.

The Eleventh Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities of the California Legislature said this of Fagan's anti-Communist lists, "But those who realized their mistake and left the front organizations in disgust and disillusionment are often still carried as subversives on the Fagan lists, and therein lies the danger from any unofficial organization that undertakes to publish lists of alleged subversive organizations and individuals. They do not have the facilities, nor the authority, nor the experience to handle these matters in an expert fashion and therefore they produce an enormous amount of harm by falsely accusing individuals who are not only loyal but who have profited greatly by their unfortunate experiences in having been lured into Communist-front groups."

Between 1967 and 1968 Fagan recorded 'The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations', three LP records allegedly documenting the activities of a secret society known as The Illuminati.[5]

Fagan's LPs were dubbed to compact cassette by a group calling themselves the Sons of Liberty. The recordings have since been copied to mp3 format and made freely available on the Internet.

Myron C. Fagan died on 12 May 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.