Now, Robert Taylor was a closeted little quisling. Guess I am just trying to reconcile my love for her with our opposing politics.
But back then we didn’t have the phrase “white privilege” and she had no clue about how much that helped her. Because she had such a hard scrabble life I think she thought if she could do it, so could everyone else. And the late Beah Richards said that Barbara treated her like a queen on the set of her Western television program.
But I remember how she hired a black man to design her ranch, stood up for her maid when she was on location to film a movie with Clark Gable and the hotel refused to let her maid in. I know that Barbara was a member of this group. Menjou was a leading member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group formed to oppose communist influence in Hollywood, whose other members included John Wayne, Barbara Stanwyck (with whom Menjou costarred in Forbidden in 1932 and Golden Boy in 1939) and her husband, actor Robert Taylor. He added: "it is the desire and wish of the masters of Moscow to use this medium for their purposes" which is "the overthrow of the American government". In 1947, Menjou cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities saying that Hollywood "is one of the main centers of Communist activity in America".
Real disappointed in Barbara Stanwyck here: His son James Cromwell mentioned it in an interview, said Menjou was the biggest asshole ever. Did it out of spite, it seems, just because he'd been a Democrat and FDR supporter and Menjou hated FDR. Menjou was responsible for having director John Cromwell blacklisted, testifying that Cromwell was a communist.