Daily News from New York, New York • 741

01 CO BIG KFTRONTPT PS the federal theater days. Other observers considered Garfield's testimony to be naive at I Cm1 a best, and the FBI, amid much fanfare, put him under By JAY MAEDER THE FACT that up-from-the-streets New York actors Canada Lee and John Garfield died in distress within two weeks of each other was, it was hard to miss, more than just a grim coincidence; it was, as Daily News columnist Ed Sullivan noted in an epitaph for the two of them, a dramatization "that the Commies take over, body and soul. Both of them were warm-hearted kids, easy prey for the bait that Commies dangle before confused liberals. Each of them was trapped because he thought with his heart." investigation for perjury. No more films came his way.

In the spring of 1952, he was appearing in a seven-week revival of Odets "Golden Boy" at the American National Theatre and Academy on 52nd St. This was the play that had made him a Broadway star in 1 heir careers had been remarkably similar. Both were tough city kids, Lionel Canegata, a West Indian from Manhattan's San Juan Hill, Julius Garfinkle, a Jew from the lower East Side waterfront; both were promising amateur boxers in their youths; both found their callings in the theater, and both were reared and nurtured in the Hail D- r. I federal companies of the Depression-stricken 1930s. Both became stars of stage and screen.

Both were pointedly political, actively lending their names to progressive causes and choosing productions that reflected their views. Both were caught up in the Reds-in-Hollywood investigations, and both suffered professional damage. Both, indeed, had appeared in the 1947 film "Body and Soul," a politically charged 1937, but this time the reviews were lukewarm, and his best prospect for the future was a minor production set to open in Miami Beach in June. Now, in early May, he sought to atone. On the advice of his lawyers, he went to the FBL Certainly he had known Reds for years, he admitted; certainly he had belonged to Red-front groups; certainly he had attached his name to dozens of statements.

"Actors are emotional," the papers lightning rod for the period's anti-Red crusaders. Now it was May 1952, and both were relatively young men yet Canada Lee 45, John Garfield 39 and both were dead. They thought with their hearts, Ed Sullivan wrote. As Oscar Hammerstein had put it in "The King and Sullivan noted: "The heart is not always wise." CANADA LEE'S passing drew quietly respectful obituaries. The one-time star of "Native quoted him.

"The Commies would come to us and say, 'Sign here, everybody's doing it for civil So I would sign." He was set to speak out further. He was going to name names, of top film colony figures, of agents and publicists, of State Department officials, of Soviet diplomats. Instead, on Tuesday night the 20th, he visited a sometime actress named Iris Whitney at her Gramercy Park West apartment, complained of not feeling well Son" had worked mostly in Europe of late, his widely publicized associations with Paul Robeson and Howard Fast and other leading leftists having cost him a good many U.S. roles. A few months earlier, and his powerful performance in Zoltan Korda's British film "Cry, the Beloved Country" had won him accolades anew; he was soon to go to Italy to appear in a Technicolor "Othello." But his health was failing.

Bedridden with uremic poisoning at his home on W. Fourth he lapsed "Destination Tokyo" and The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Body and Soul" and "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Force of Evil." He hadn't and went to sleep. The next morning, Whitney found him dead. Apparently frazzled by the thought of publicity, she refused to let cops in, holding them at bay until they finally broke down the door with a tire iron. IRONICALLY ENOUGH, Sullivan wrote, it was the boxing picture "Body and Soul" that probably had caused Garfield's death: During one of the more physically demanding ring scenes, he had torn a heart muscle, and he had never fully recovered.

That movie's writer and director had subsequently refused to testify before HUAC, and by now both were blacklisted. "As a case history," Sullivan wrote, the film "is of tremendous importance to Americans fighting Communism because it illustrates the manner in which Commies and pinks, in the field of communications and ideas, give employment to each other. "Up to just before his death, when he attempted to come clean, Garfield had twisted and turned in a vain attempt to escape responsibility for his stupidity. 'Body and Soul' should open the eyes of those confused liberals who have assailed the House committee as witch hunters." into a coma and, on Friday night the 9th of May, suffered a fatal heart attack. The obits noted that Canada Lee had once said of himself that all his life he had been "on the verge of becoming something." IT WAS A heart attack that killed John Garfield as well, 12 days later, but Garfield went out in a blaze of lurid headlines befitting a major Hollywood leading man, the darkly brooding star of "They Made Me a Criminal" and "The Sea Wolf" made a picture in more than a year, but he was still hot copy.

He had more or less self-destructed in April 1951, when, appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, he swore that he had never met a Communist and that indeed he had never known until 1947 or thereabouts that Reds were active in Hollywood. "Impossible," snorted Sullivan, noting Garfield's long friendship with leftie playwright Clifford Odets, his mentor since QfiSi id.