I’d read something, and I’d say, ‘Wait a minute. I took advanced placement
history. How come I never knew
that
?’ I’ll give you an example. Remember the overthrow of Allende in Chile? I was taught to believe that it was all a plot by
Richard Nixon and American corporations. Then in
Modern Times
I read that under Allende the inflation in Chile got up to 6,000 percent. I said, ‘Whoa. That probably had a
lot
more to do with the overthrow of Allende than Richard Nixon or American corporations
ever
did.’”
When he wasn’t lying on the beach reading
Modern Times
or attending UCLA, Long worked on scripts with his friend Dan Staley, who had graduated from Yale two years ahead of him.
When, in less than a year, their scripts impressed the right people, Long and Staley were hired to produce the final three
seasons of one of the most popular and profitable situation comedies in the history of television,
Cheers
. Long and Staley were, respectively, 24 and 26.
Long has remained a figure in the television business ever since, helping, as half of Staley/Long Productions, to produce
a string of situation comedies—when we met, he was casting for
Love and Money
, to be aired on CBS. Long has also remained a conservative, writing regularly for
National Review
magazine, an activity that his friends in Hollywood pass off as an eccentric hobby, like raising bonsai trees or mastering
French cooking. Still in his thirties, Long looks even younger, partly because he has a round, cherubic face, partly because
his success as a producer permits him to dress precisely as he chooses, ignoring Hollywood chic to attire himself as if he
were still at Yale, wearing wrinkled khakis and wrinkled dress shirts, his hair combed, not spiked. Why was Hollywood so Democratic?
“First I’ll tell you about a couple of things that other people would tell you about,” Long said. “Then I’ll tell you what
I think myself.”
The first thing other people would tell me about was the blacklist. “What you’ll hear over and over in this town is that it
was the blacklist that made Hollywood liberal,” Long said. The blacklist arose during the McCarthy era, when the studios shut
out, or blacklisted, members of the entertainment industry who were alleged to have Communist sympathies, most famously a
group of producers, directors, and writers who came to be known as “The Hollywood Ten.” “Since the blacklist was an instrument
of the right,” Long continued, “it proved that the right is hostile to the creative community. At least that’s the theory.”
It was a theory about which Long had his doubts. The usual view of the blacklist is that it constituted an act of gross unfairness,
mangling the careers of innocent people. Yet materials from the Russian archives make it clear that there were indeed Communist
cells in Hollywood. The right may have engaged in red-baiting, but the left provided plenty of reds to bait. Anyway, it is
difficult to see why events of half a century ago, when many of those running the entertainment industry hadn’t even been
born, should dominate the politics of Hollywood today.
The second thing other people would tell me about was Hollywood’s Jewishness. It was widely believed, although for reasons
of political correctness seldom stated, that Hollywood was Democratic because it was Jewish. The tycoons who built Hollywood
were indeed Jewish—Harry Cohn, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner—and the town has remained disproportionately
Jewish ever since. Ever since the New Deal, in turn, Jews have been overwhelmingly Democratic. “Take a guy like Michael Eisner
[the Jewish chairman of Disney],” Long said. “A Republican could cut his taxes, deregulate every business that he’s in, and
promise to protect Israel. He’d say, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then he’d go right out and vote Democratic.”
Yet although Jews, who make up about 3 percent of
history. How come I never knew
that
?’ I’ll give you an example. Remember the overthrow of Allende in Chile? I was taught to believe that it was all a plot by
Richard Nixon and American corporations. Then in
Modern Times
I read that under Allende the inflation in Chile got up to 6,000 percent. I said, ‘Whoa. That probably had a
lot
more to do with the overthrow of Allende than Richard Nixon or American corporations
ever
did.’”
When he wasn’t lying on the beach reading
Modern Times
or attending UCLA, Long worked on scripts with his friend Dan Staley, who had graduated from Yale two years ahead of him.
When, in less than a year, their scripts impressed the right people, Long and Staley were hired to produce the final three
seasons of one of the most popular and profitable situation comedies in the history of television,
Cheers
. Long and Staley were, respectively, 24 and 26.
Long has remained a figure in the television business ever since, helping, as half of Staley/Long Productions, to produce
a string of situation comedies—when we met, he was casting for
Love and Money
, to be aired on CBS. Long has also remained a conservative, writing regularly for
National Review
magazine, an activity that his friends in Hollywood pass off as an eccentric hobby, like raising bonsai trees or mastering
French cooking. Still in his thirties, Long looks even younger, partly because he has a round, cherubic face, partly because
his success as a producer permits him to dress precisely as he chooses, ignoring Hollywood chic to attire himself as if he
were still at Yale, wearing wrinkled khakis and wrinkled dress shirts, his hair combed, not spiked. Why was Hollywood so Democratic?
“First I’ll tell you about a couple of things that other people would tell you about,” Long said. “Then I’ll tell you what
I think myself.”
The first thing other people would tell me about was the blacklist. “What you’ll hear over and over in this town is that it
was the blacklist that made Hollywood liberal,” Long said. The blacklist arose during the McCarthy era, when the studios shut
out, or blacklisted, members of the entertainment industry who were alleged to have Communist sympathies, most famously a
group of producers, directors, and writers who came to be known as “The Hollywood Ten.” “Since the blacklist was an instrument
of the right,” Long continued, “it proved that the right is hostile to the creative community. At least that’s the theory.”
It was a theory about which Long had his doubts. The usual view of the blacklist is that it constituted an act of gross unfairness,
mangling the careers of innocent people. Yet materials from the Russian archives make it clear that there were indeed Communist
cells in Hollywood. The right may have engaged in red-baiting, but the left provided plenty of reds to bait. Anyway, it is
difficult to see why events of half a century ago, when many of those running the entertainment industry hadn’t even been
born, should dominate the politics of Hollywood today.
The second thing other people would tell me about was Hollywood’s Jewishness. It was widely believed, although for reasons
of political correctness seldom stated, that Hollywood was Democratic because it was Jewish. The tycoons who built Hollywood
were indeed Jewish—Harry Cohn, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner—and the town has remained disproportionately
Jewish ever since. Ever since the New Deal, in turn, Jews have been overwhelmingly Democratic. “Take a guy like Michael Eisner
[the Jewish chairman of Disney],” Long said. “A Republican could cut his taxes, deregulate every business that he’s in, and
promise to protect Israel. He’d say, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then he’d go right out and vote Democratic.”
Yet although Jews, who make up about 3 percent of
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