WORLD SOCIALIST WEBSITE -- “It is dismaying during this current blacklist period to see that so many of the people supporting the new witch hunt again are (faux) liberals,” McBride said. “Their latest target is Blake Bailey, the authorized biographer of Philip Roth. The accusations against Bailey led to the withdrawal of his already published book ‘Philip Roth: The Biography’ and his 2014 memoir, ‘The Splendid Things We Planned,‘ by his publisher, W.W. Norton, without giving him due process under the law.”
Joseph McBride is the author of biographies of film directors Frank Capra, John Ford and Steven Spielberg; three books on Orson Welles; and the forthcoming critical study “Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge” (Columbia University Press). Many of his books have been published in foreign editions; the French edition of his work on Ford, “A la recherche de John Ford,” won an award in 2008 from the French film critics’ association as Best Foreign Film Book of the Year. McBride was a reporter, reviewer and columnist for Daily Variety in Hollywood for many years. He is a professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University, where he has taught since 2002.