Group of U.S. movie producers, directors, and screenwriters who refused to answer questions about communist affiliations before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.
The Ten
Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo
were charged with contempt of Congress and given prison sentences of six months to a year. After their release, they were blacklisted and unable to find work in Hollywood, though some wrote scripts under pseudonyms. The blacklist gradually disappeared in the early 1960s.