John Garfield

John Garfield was an American stage and film actor known for intense, naturalistic performances as rebellious outsiders and working-class men. His film career included The Postman Always Rings Twice and Body and Soul.

The Postman Always Rings Twice: A 1946 film noir about a drifter and a diner owner's wife who plot to murder her husband. Garfield's restless drifter helped establish his screen image in a landmark adaptation of James M. Cain.
Lower East Side: A Manhattan neighborhood that became a major center of Jewish immigration and working-class life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Garfield grew up in this immigrant neighborhood, which informed his connection to urban working-class characters.
Clifford Odets: An American playwright and screenwriter whose socially engaged dramas include Waiting for Lefty and Golden Boy. Odets wrote Golden Boy, the play that gave Garfield his first major Broadway success.
Hollywood blacklist: The informal exclusion of film-industry workers accused of Communist ties from employment in Hollywood, especially from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Garfield's refusal to identify alleged Communists led studios to treat him as a blacklist risk.
Body and Soul: A 1947 boxing drama about an ambitious fighter and the corrupt forces surrounding professional boxing. Garfield's performance as boxer Charley Davis earned him an Academy Award nomination.
Yiddish theater: A theatrical tradition performed in Yiddish that flourished among Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the diaspora. Garfield began acting in New York's Yiddish theater before entering English-language stage work.
Elia Kazan: An American theater and film director who co-founded the Actors Studio and directed films including On the Waterfront. Kazan directed Garfield in Gentleman's Agreement, one of the actor's major postwar performances.
Hollywood Ten: Ten film-industry professionals cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions about Communist affiliations before HUAC. Garfield supported the Ten publicly, placing him within Hollywood's resistance to the committee's investigations.
Gentleman's Agreement: A 1947 drama in which a journalist poses as Jewish to investigate antisemitism in the United States. Garfield played a Jewish soldier whose experience exposes the prejudice at the film's center.
Group Theatre: A New York theater collective founded in 1931 that pursued socially engaged drama and ensemble acting. Garfield trained with the company, whose acting methods and repertory helped launch his career.

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