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J.E. Smyth

Clarisse’s Ghost: Ray Bradbury, the Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of Fahrenheit 451

Tuesday 3 February, 12-1pm, S0.10 (Social Studies)

A few years ago, I found out quite by chance that Ray Bradbury’s close friend in Hollywood was a prominent screenwriter and labour leader who was blacklisted along with many other colleagues. Her daughter was a model for Fahrenheit 451’s Clarisse. Bradbury remained an interested if peripheral observer of the political disintegration of the mid-century American film industry. Although Fahrenheit 451 has been censored over the years, this talk would explore a more insidious form of censorship in cultural life, something more than post-publication bans or expurgations: the quiet but systematic political erasure of writers by agents, publishers, film producers, and executives.