{"id":58989,"date":"2022-08-28T18:31:08","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T18:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-kkk-member-or-wronged-victim-of-cancel-culture-the-hollywood-reporter\/"},"modified":"2022-08-28T18:31:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T18:31:08","slug":"a-kkk-member-or-wronged-victim-of-cancel-culture-the-hollywood-reporter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/a-kkk-member-or-wronged-victim-of-cancel-culture-the-hollywood-reporter\/","title":{"rendered":"A KKK Member or Wronged Victim of Cancel Culture? \u2013 The Hollywood Reporter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n

\tAsk classic-film fans how they feel about the actor Fredric March, star of legendary movies including Inherit the Wind<\/em>, The Best Years of Our Lives<\/em>and the 1937 version of A Star Is Born<\/em>and chances are that question will be answered only with effective praise for the Academy Award-winning actor and his work both onscreen and off. <\/p>\n

\n

\tThat’s why dual decisions in recent years to remove March’s name from a pair of performing-arts venues at two campuses of the University of Wisconsin \u2014 March’s alma mater \u2014 have drawn confusion, frustration and anger from some film fans, the Hollywood community and activists alike . <\/p>\n

\n

\tAmong those weighing in on the controversy: Turner Classic Movies primetime host Ben Mankiewicz, who will address the issue during a tribute to the actor on Friday, Sept. 30, marking the 125th anniversary of March’s birth. \u201cTo me, two actors from Hollywood’s golden age really stand in a tier above the rest, and that’s Spencer Tracy and Fredric March \u2014 both, oddly, from Wisconsin,\u201d Mankiewicz says. \u201cThere’s an authentic humanity to every performance they deliver. Fredric March had a unique ability to embody a character. So yes, when I heard this news, my gut reaction was, ‘Wow, you’re kidding me. no way. How could Fredric March have been in the Klan?’\u201d Mankiewicz addresses the controversy in an exclusive TCM video clip seen below.<\/p>\n

\n

\tFew phrases or organizations are more incendiary or draw more horror when examining the history of American culture than the Ku Klux Klan, yet this accusation was first leveled at March, posthumously, in 2017: that during a brief period while he attended the University of Wisconsin , he was a member of that group. The truth, however, requires interested parties to dig deeper than a tweet or a blog post. <\/p>\n

\n

\tWhat are the facts behind the accusation? In 1919, March, then a senior at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, accepted an invitation to join an interfraternity honor society that shared a name with the Ku Klux Klan, though the group inviting March had nothing to do with the KKK as it’s known today. It’s unclear why the honor society chose that particular name, but research conducted by the Wisconsin Historical Society did not reveal any connections between that group and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the organization responsible for lynchings and other hate-fueled activities throughout the American south. Indeed, when the latter group arrived on campus in 1922 with the intent of recruiting members, the UW-Madison honor society quickly changed its name to avoid any association. George Gonis, a Milwaukee-based freelance journalist and public historian, unearthed research from the then-president of the honor society, who acknowledged that \u201cso many people confused it with the name of the non-collegiate secret organization of the same name.\u201d By early 1923, the honor society changed its name to Tumas, which can be derived from multiple meanings, including the name Thomas and, simply, \u201ctruth.\u201d March, meanwhile, had graduated in June 1920, and after a brief stint in banking, headed to Broadway to forge his career as an actor. Few records exist of him taking part in any of the on-campus honor society’s activities\u2014other than a yearbook photograph that would gain attention in 2017. <\/p>\n

\n

\tThe confusion between the two organizations can be understood when one considers how slowly information traveled in early 20th century rural America, Mankiewicz says. \u201cI think we all forget how hard it was to access information in the 1920s,\u201d he points out. \u201cThese were the days when news was communicated via telegraph. It’s possible that a bunch of 18-year-old kids in Wisconsin had no idea what that name meant in another part of the country. But the evidence is clear that, once they found out, they changed the name [of their group] because they didn’t want anything to do with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\tUW students perusing archived yearbooks in 2017, however, happened upon that 1920 photo captioned with the Ku Klux Klan name, an image that included a tuxedo-wearing March, whose high-wattage reputation as a Tony- and Oscar-winning actor had led to the university’s decision to name theaters after him on both the Madison and Oshkosh campuses. Upon discovery of the photo, protests, letters and hearings quickly ensued, and in 2018, the decision was made to strip the actor’s name from the Fredric March Play Circle Theater in Madison. In 2020, the same action was taken with the Oshkosh campus theater. <\/p>\n

\n

\tOne of March’s grandsons has said that, before the contretemps, the actor’s surviving family had planned to donate his two best actor Oscar statuettes, won for 1931’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde<\/em> and 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives<\/em>, to the university, but no longer plan to do so. \u201cThey certainly showed us that they don’t deserve them,\u201d wrote Michael March Fantacci in an email to Gonis. He added Fantacci, \u201cIt would have been more educational\u2026 to research my grandfather’s life than to cast wholesale judgment based on a limited affiliation. When individuals fall into this trap, it can be understood. When an educational institution does it, it’s more difficult to condone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\tThe TCM tribute airing on Sept. 30 will include three of March’s films: 1933’s Pre-Code classic Design for Living<\/em>1941’s So Ends Our Night <\/em>(seen for the first time that evening on the network), and 1960’s Inherit the Wind<\/em>, in which March and Tracy co-starred. Mankiewicz says he will discuss the controversy during the films’ intros and outros. <\/p>\n

\n

\t\u201cThe big challenge is time,\u201d he notes of the introductions to the classic films shown on TCM. \u201cYou talk for four minutes, and people are like, ‘C’mon, man, start the movie.’ But it’s a complicated case that can’t be explained quickly. A mistake was made, but I want to be sympathetic to the students, whose hearts and frustration were in the right place, while getting the point across about the facts \u2014 and without giving people an entire history lesson in the limited time we have.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

the actor in The Best Years of Our Lives<\/em> with Myrna Loy and in A Star Is Born<\/em> with Janet Gaynor<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Everett Collection (2)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\tGonis is chief among the group of the actor’s fans who are working to convince the university to reverse its decisions. \u201cFredric March and I share the same alma mater, plus my parents were both huge movie buffs who were also active in the civil rights movement, so I grew up not only knowing who Fredric March was, but also knowing he really was one of the good guys in Hollywood,\u201d Gonis says. \u201cBut every media report continued to quote people who hadn’t done any research. Meanwhile, within five to 10 minutes at the library, I was able to source all this material about his civil rights history.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\tBorn on Aug. 31, 1897, March, by all accounts, was passionate about social activism throughout his life; the actor died on April 14, 1975, at the age of 77. March took part in NAACP activities for more than three decades, delivering the keynote address at that organization’s 10th anniversary celebration of Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> in 1964, while as a teenager, he gave speeches condemning white supremacy. \u201cHistorians have identified three speeches that we know March selected and delivered as a youth, all three devoted to human freedom and liberty,\u201d Gonis explains. \u201cTwo of the speeches, ‘Invective Against Corry’ and ‘Spartacus to the Gladiators,’ are confirmed by eyewitnesses, newspaper accounts, March himself and [Wisconsin-state] entry papers for the state-run annual high school oratory competitions.\u201d During his Hollywood career, March was also front and center when members of the film industry protested the House Un-American Activities Committee, which in its early years targeted actors that included March, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. <\/p>\n

\n

\tMarch also can be found in a Feb. 14, 1943, photo alongside actor Canada Lee, taken during a WOR radio program highlighting \u201cRace-Relations Sunday.\u201d The father of actor and filmmaker Carl Lee, Canada Lee was a professional boxer and actor perhaps best known for his role as Joe in Alfred Hitchcock’s lifeboat<\/em>. \u201cWhen I first read about this, I knew there was something incongruous about the whole narration,\u201d says actor Glynn Turman, whose work includes roles in Super 8<\/em> and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom<\/em>. \u201cI knew Mr. Lee; he and my mother were friends. I grew up in Greenwich Village, and my mother’s friends were an eclectic group of progressive people. I know if Mr. March was a friend of Mr. Lee’s, then he couldn’t have done what he’s accused of doing. This was a rush to judgment.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\tKaren Kramer, a producer and wife of the late director Stanley Kramer (who produced So Ends the Night <\/em>and directed Inherit the Wind<\/em>), agrees. \u201cWhen George called me about what had been done to Fredric March, I was absolutely gobsmacked, because in our industry, it’s extremely well known that he was a fierce fighter for civil rights,\u201d she says. \u201cMy first concern was whether the parties who accused him had done all their due diligence; had they looked at all the facts? You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to ignore the facts.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\tGonis and Kramer banded together to ask influential members of the Hollywood community to sign a letter advocating for the decision to remove March’s name from both theaters to be reversed. That letter, sent in September 2021, included 30 signatures from Louis Gossett, Jr., Reggie Jackson, the late Ed Asner, Turman and others. \u201cRush to judgment is never the right way to go, especially if someone is not around to defend themselves,\u201d Turman says. \u201cWe’re doing a lot of this cancel culture lately, and it’s a slippery slope that has to be navigated carefully. I’m in favor of using good judgment and some sort of vision to give you clarity and help you know where you stand.\u201d (In a nice bit of symmetry, the 62-year-old Turman’s next role is in Rustin<\/em>, about gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, who organized the 1963 March on Washington. The film, from Higher Ground Productions, founded by former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama, is due to premiere on Netflix in 2023 and co-stars Turman as Asa Philip Randolph, a labor unionist and civil rights activist.) <\/p>\n

\n

\tA follow-up letter, bringing the total signatories to 54 and once again asking the college to rethink its decision, was sent to the University of Wisconsin last week. That letter’s signatures include film critic Leonard Maltin, actors Mike Farrell and Shelley Fabares, and national NAACP board member Wendell J. Harris Sr. A variety of recent editorials, including from John McWhorter at The New York Times<\/em>, also support a renewed conversation about the decision. But for now, March’s name will not be restored to UW’s theaters. \u201cThere are no plans for the institution to revise the issue,\u201d John Lucas, a university spokesperson, told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> in an Aug. 22 emails. \u201cIn lieu of the theater naming, Mr. March is now included in a historic storytelling display on the same floor as the Play Circle as recognition of his role in our university’s history. \u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\tBoth Gonis and Kramer say they’ll continue their efforts to restore March’s name and reputation. \u201cIf Fredric March’s name was so tainted, then why is he part of the storytelling display?\u201d Gonis wonders. <\/p>\n

\n

\t\u201cFor Stanley’s whole life and career, in films like The Defiant Ones<\/em> and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner<\/em>he fought every issue we would deny ourselves to look at, including racism and [bans on] interracial marriage,\u201d adds Karen Kramer. \u201cHopefully, my contribution is to help set the record straight. I’m 88 years old, and I’ve lived a long, wonderful life, but I’m not done fighting.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n