Myron Coureval Fagan (31 October 1887 - 12 May 1972) was a Jewish American writer, producer and filmaker. He arrived in New York in 1907, where he quickly became one of the youngest playwrights in American Theater. Over the years, he Douglas Fairbanks, John Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Brian Donlevy and Robert Ryan whom Fagan directed or who appeared in his plays.
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. 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.
“Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.” -Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, New York Times, July 1936 issue
In the mid 1940's 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. The culmination of this crusade would be the 1947 congressional hearings where more than 300 famous stars, writers, and directors from Hollywood, Radio, and TV were investigated.
Fagan as a Jew was not privy at the time to what the real goal of Communism was all about. He soon came to know when 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 were he encountered even more protests against it than he had in New York. "Red Rainbow" It was finally produced and ran for a short period of time at the Royal Theatre.
Written two years later, 'Thieves Paradise' portrays the same group plotting to create the United Nations as a Communist front for one world government. 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 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 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 documenting the activities of a secret society known as The Illuminati. Myron C. Fagan died on 12 May 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
