Timelines for year 1950

Will Lee

He was blacklisted in the early 1950s, primarily for his involvement with the Federal Theatre Project, the West Coast Actor's Lab and other theatrical groups alleged by various right-wing organizations to be Communist "fronts" during the McCarthy-era witch-hunts of that time. He worked through the 1950s and 1960s as an acting teacher, with James Earl Jones being one of his students.

Peter Boyle

Father hosted a popular children's lunchtime cartoon show in Philadelphia in the 1950s titled "Lunch with Uncle Pete."

James Dean

He also worked as a "stunt tester" on the game show "Beat the Clock" (1950), testing the safety of the stunts that some of the studio audience members would later perform. However he proved so agile at completing the stunts that his results couldn't be used to set time limits for contestants to complete them. So he was reluctantly let go.

While a struggling actor in the 1950s, he once lived at 19 West 68th Street, off Manhattan's Central Park West.

Jean Muir

In 1950 she was blacklisted by the television industry as a suspected Communist.

Joe Feeney

He attended the University of Nebraska in the early 1950s. While in college, he won several singing contests.

Tennessee Ernie Ford

His biggest hit "Sixteen Tons" was credited as being the first Rock and Roll big hit and for kicking off the Rock and Roll era of the 1950s.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Wanted to be an astronaut until she learned that NASA did not accept women in the 1950s and 1960s.

Nancy Malone

Television actress, principally in guest roles from the 1950s to 1970s, who moved into producing and directing in the 1980s and 1990s.

James Watson

Earned a Ph.D. degree in Zoology in 1950 from Indiana University.

Joel McCrea

Attended high school with future director Jacques Tourneur who would later direct him in Stars in My Crown (1950) (one of McCrea's personal favorites) and a pair of 1955 releases, Wichita (1955) and Stranger on Horseback (1955).

Danny Arnold

Began in showbiz as a stand-up comedian in vaudeville. Did wartime service with the Marine Corps in the South Pacific. From the 1950's, worked variously as actor, editor, writer and producer. Winner of a Writers Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985.

Dorothy Hart

Was a tireless Red Cross worker for years in the 1950s.

Michael Wayne

Michael and his wife, Gretchen Wayne, were guests on the TV show "You Bet Your Life" (1950) with Groucho Marx when they were married only 2 months. He had just been executive producer for Escort West (1958) with Victor Mature and was only 23 years old at the time.

Ethel Waters

Sang with the Billy Graham Crusade in her later years, always to a warm reception, and recorded several albums of sacred music for Word Records. Became a born-again Christian at one of Graham's crusades in the late 1950s.

She got religion in the late 1950s and performed and toured with evangelist Billy Graham until her death in 1977.

Phyllis Kirk

Known for being outspoken, Phyllis worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to campaign against capital punishment in the late 1950s. Before the California Assembly, she spoke against the death sentence of Caryl Chessman, nicknamed the "Red Light Bandit," who had been convicted on seventeen counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape and sexual assault. She visited him in prison several times before he was executed in 1960. The notoriety effectively lead to the end her acting career.