Philip Loeb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip Loeb (March 28, 1892 – September 1, 1955), an American stage, film, and television actor who earned his biggest career break as patriarch Jake in the television version of The Goldbergs, but lost it when his naming as an active Communist (which he denied) led to his blacklisting and, within three years, the depression that ended in his suicide at age 63.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Loeb began his career on stage, debuting on Broadway in 1916. He performed on stage for the next thirty-five years, during which time he also began to act as a secondary player (beginning in 1933) in several short films. Then, in 1949, Loeb got his big break when Gertrude Berg, the creative force behind the legendary radio show The Goldbergs, signed him on when she brought the show to television on CBS. Loeb became a viewer favorite as the sometimes exasperated but always loving husband Jake to Berg's sometimes meddlesome but always bighearted Molly Goldberg, and it looked as though he would become a television fixture.
But in September of 1950, Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, named Loeb as a Communist---even though two show business witnesses before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, director Elia Kazan and actor Lee J. Cobb, testified to Loeb being a former Communist. Loeb denied remaining a Communist, but the sponsors of The Goldbergs, General Foods, wanted him dropped from the show's cast. Berg (who had created the show and owned it on both radio and television) refused to fire Loeb, but Loeb's loyalty to Berg was equal to that, and he resigned rather than endanger the show's life, accepting a $40,000 settlement.
That allowed first NBC (1952-1953) and then the struggling DuMont network (1954) to continue The Goldbergs---under that name and, for one season, as Molly---with Harold J. Stone as Jake. Despite support from the Actors' Equity Association and influential newspaper columnist Murray Kempton, Loeb could get sporadic stage work at best and managed to eke out a small living from such work for a time. But he suffered concurrently from depression over his shattered acting career, the worsening illness of his schizophrenic son, a reputed demand for $1,000 in back taxes when he had barely $200 in his bank account and no work prospects, and no response when he reportedly offered to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
When it became too much to cope with, Loeb committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates in his New York City hotel September 1, 1955. The New York Times writer Margaret Webster wrote that he "died of a sickness commonly called the blacklist." Loeb was buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery in his native Philadelphia. He was referenced in the character Hecky Brown, played by Zero Mostel (himself a blacklisted performer), in Martin Ritt's 1976 film examining the Hollywood blacklist The Front (also starring Woody Allen), and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts---where Loeb was an instructor---awards an annual scholarship in his memory. Loeb's case is also noted in the Philip Roth novel, I Married a Communist.
