How I Was Branded a Communist

Before my career could even get started, I was branded a Communist and banned from America. This disbarment was a huge stigmatic obstacle, as it marooned me professionally in Canada, which had no film industry whatsoever at that time.

It was 1953. I was 22 and had been working one year as a stagehand at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto on dramatic plays that were shown live on television. Another stagehand, Phil Hersh, and I decided to go to New York for a short holiday. I was incredibly excited. My father had always said that New York was the most interesting place in the world to live. Certainly, it was the mecca of theater and drama. I could not wait to see the lights of Broadway and lap up the spirit of the Great White Way. Phil and I were looking forward to having the full-on New York experience. We would go out for a feast in Little Italy and eat the famous cheesecake at Lindy's in Times Square. We had heard that the most beautiful women in the world were in New York, so we also planned to sample the bars and nightclubs.

Quite possibly, I thought, this could be a life-changing trip. Well, it certainly proved to be life changing, but not in the way I imagined.

Traveling by railroad was the most economical. We took a train from Toronto to Montreal, where we switched for a train to New York. The closer we got, the more our anticipation grew.

As the train approached the U.S. border crossing from Canada into Vermont, U.S. immigration officials came through for a passport check. Phil and I presented our documents. Phil's was stamped without ceremony. Mine was not.

An overweight, toady immigration official studied my passport as though it were in hieroglyphics. He harrumphed and walked away, taking my passport with him.

When he returned several minutes later, the immigration official informed me that I would have to disembark at the next stop in St. Albans, Vermont. There, I would be examined for admissibility. "If you pass the examination, you can go on to New York this evening," he said.

I didn't take this hiccup very seriously. I figured it was some kind of formality, as I had never entered the U.S. before. I assumed that they were going to ask me the kind of standard questions that customs officials ask, things like where are you going to stay, is this trip business or pleasure, are you carrying any fruit, et cetera. I told Phil to go ahead to New York, check into our hotel, and scope out a local bar. I would see him later that night.

The train pulled in to a dingy railway station in St. Albans, an ugly little one-horse burg. It was raining heavily. The immigration official and I disembarked. With my two pieces of luggage banging on my legs, I accompanied Mr. Bullfrog up a hill to a charmless, three-story stone building.

The official checked me in and escorted me to the second floor. He directed me into a room. I took a few steps inside and heard a loud clang behind me. I quickly turned around to see that the door had metal bars on it.

Holy shit, I thought, I'm in jail! Jail?!

Mr. Bullfrog scowled at me. "We have decided to detain you for a variety of reasons," he said. "You will go before a board, and they will decide your admissibility to the U.S."

I was stunned. I didn't know what to do. I lay down on the bottom of a bunk bed. The walls were covered in graffiti, some in English, mostly in French. "Baise mon cul, Oncle Sam" being typical. A two-way radio could be heard from next door: "Those baby smugglers are expected to try crossing the border tonight."

I sat and stewed for several hours. Thoughts of seeing the lights of Broadway and carousing with beautiful women were long gone. Now I was only concerned with why I was here, and how I would get out. I was a 22-year-old who was incarcerated but had no idea why. Only one person knew where I was. But what if they moved me? Then no one would know.

At one point, an orderly brought me a ham sandwich for lunch, but made me pay for it. Periodically, some official type would come to the cell door and ask me a personal question, then go away. One guy with a military attitude and spit-shined shoes to match his demeanor told me that "if I played ball with them, I would be in New York that night."

I didn't find him particularly convincing, and I began to grow increasingly worried as time passed. What had I done? Surely, this was a case of mistaken identity. Wasn't it?

Eventually, two immigration officials appeared and began peppering me with questions. They asked me my mother's maiden name, which I told them was Diana Christoff. This was followed by a series of benign questions about where I lived and what I did for a living.

Every six or seventh question, they would again ask my mother's maiden name. Finally, I had had enough.

"I already gave it to you, several times!" I said curtly.

"Give it to me again," one of them growled.

"Christoff," I said curtly.

"How do you spell Christoff?" he asked.

"C-H-R-I-S-T as in Jesus Christ, and O-F-F as in fuck off," I answered.

"Don't get so smart with me, young guy," he said.

"You keep asking me as if I'm lying to you," I replied.

Finally, around 4 p.m., I was granted the promised hearing. I went before three strict and humorless Justice Department officers in a gloomy boardroom. After a few perfunctory questions, one of the officers looked down at a piece of paper and then solemnly asked, "Were you ever a member of the Left Wing Book Club?" In fact, I had been.

When I was a teenager, in the school's summer holidays, I worked at my dad's diner, Norm's, at the corner of Dundas and Pembroke in Toronto. The place was full of lowlifes and colorful characters. One of them was an aging leftie who wore a beret and a cape. From the looks of him, he was very hard up. He sold copies of The Daily Worker for a meager living, and I sometimes bought the paper, more out of charity than political interest.

One day the leftie spotted me sitting at the cash register reading a book. He pressed me to join the Left Wing Book...