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Famous Historic Figures’ Public Image vs the Reality of their Lives

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2020 34 min

John Ford - The Searchers — John Wayne. Pintrest

4. A Moral Man

In addition to his acting, Albert Dekker won acclaim (eventually – at the time, it damaged his public image) for his moral courage. During the hysteria of the Red Scare early in the Cold War, he actually had the guts to stand up to and denounce the demagogic Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

Dekker was one of the few actors brave enough to do so, and it got him blacklisted in Hollywood. His career was derailed for years, during which he could find no work. Eventually, the anticommunist hysteria subsided, and he returned to acting.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.