Author A.D. Price Guest Post

Today, author A.D. Price is guest posting. She’s a native of Washington, D.C., an award-winning author specializing in historical crime fiction and arts-related nonfiction, and in addition to articles and books for Enslow Press, Grunge.com, Netflix, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (among others), she served as a writer-editor for the celebrated historical reference series the American Film Institute’s Catalog of Feature Films. Devils in Paradise is her third Comfort & Company mystery, a series set in 1946 Los Angeles. The first, After the Blue, Blue Rain, was published in 2022. She’s a longtime resident of the great city of Los Angeles–my hometown as well. You will be fascinated by this true story of Soviet spying in Hollywood. Take it away, A.D.!

In 1946, fueled by the diplomatic embers of World War II, J. Edgar Hoover’s anti-communist crusade kicked into high gear in America. In short order, Russia went from valued ally to treacherous adversary.

In Los Angeles, movie studios fell in line with Hoover’s anti-Red crusade, producing films that either preached against communism or promoted American democracy or “the American way.” To stay on Hoover’s good side, the Hollywood censors examined scripts for hidden political content and demanded changes if found.

While filmmakers with past or tenuous connections to the Communist Party were thrown to the Hoover wolves—blacklisted in some cases, tried and convicted in others—actual Soviet spies went quietly about their Hollywood business. Its best-known, never-suspected spy was Paramount’s music director and producer Boris Morros.

Born in St. Petersburg in 1891, Morros, the eldest of nine children, helped support his family as both a cello prodigy and an orchestra conductor. As Jews, his family lived in fear of pogroms and destitution, and Morros’ talent made him an obvious choice for emigration.

After moving to the U.S. in 1922, Morros worked as orchestra leader and music director for Paramount’s chain of silent movie theaters in Boston and New York. In 1935, he was lured to Hollywood and hired as head of Paramount’s music department.

Over the next few years, Morros composed scores and supervised all aspects of the studio’s substantial music department. He is credited as music director on almost 150 Paramount films and received three Oscar nominations.

Along with his many film credits, Morros distinguished himself in Hollywood social circles through his tall tales and outlandish wardrobe. He went about town in suits of clashing colors and prints and embellished facts when it suited him.

In the late 1930s, Morros decided to branch out and become a producer. He formed his own production company, and in 1939, he released his debut film, the Laurel and Hardy picture Flying Deuces.

No doubt Morros’ film work was legitimate and respectable. But when he wasn’t composing or producing, he was, as it was later discovered, following orders from the Russian government. On paper, Morros had everything a handler could want in a spy recruit. He had access and authority and most importantly, he had an exploitable weak spot: his love for his impoverished Jewish parents back in Russia. Morros was willing to do anything to bring them to America.

According to his memoirs, My Ten Years as a Counterspy, the Russian who first exploited this vulnerability was Vassili Zarubin, a pseudo diplomat at Russia’s Washington, D.C. embassy.

Zarubin, a short but powerful bully, offered to bring Morros’ parents to America. In exchange, Morros was to use his position at Paramount to plant Moscow influencers inside unsuspecting film crews and to hire Russians as overseas musical scouts—wherever spies were needed. Zarubin’s wife Elizabeth, best known for her recruiting work at Los Alamos, also handled Morros.

With the support of the Soviet government, Russian assets Martha Dodd and husband, music publisher Alfred Stern, helped Morros found the Boris Morros Sheet Music Company. The plan was for Morros to fill his new company with Russian assets, thereby allowing them to operate throughout America and elsewhere without fear of deportation.

In theory, the scheme was brilliant. The cover operation never got off the ground, however, and in 1947, Morros, having been exposed by a fellow Russian agent, struck a deal with the FBI to act as a counterspy for the U.S. As noted in his memoirs, Morros spent ten years working for Hoover’s FBI, long enough, in his estimation, to erase the stain of decades of spying for the Soviets.

During his counterspy days, Morros’ activities for the Russians echoed what he had been doing in the 1920s and 1930s—placing spies inside American entertainment ventures. Instead of a sheet music company, however, the unsuspecting Russians asked Morros to form a television network. As with the music company, the TV scheme went nowhere because Moscow never sent the promised funds.

Finally, in 1957, after helping the FBI break up a long-running Soviet spy ring, Morros hung up his spy/counterspy shoes for good. He published his memoirs, then in 1960, he co-wrote Man on a String, a movie based loosely on his life as a spy. The film starred Ernest Borgnine as Morros and was directed by André De Toth.

Morros died in 1963, his personal legacy still in question. Was he a traitor or a patriot? Was he coerced into spying, or was he a willing participant? And in the end, how effective were the Soviets at playing the Hollywood influence game? If Moscow’s attempt to spin espionage gold out of Morros is any indication, the answer is, not very.

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