• Introduction: Movie Stars and Politics


• 1. The First Political Movie Star: Charlie Chaplin


• 2. The Man Who Brought Hollywood into the Republican Party: Louis B. Mayer


• 3. Little Caesar and the HUAC Mob: Edward G. Robinson


• 4. Hollywood and the Conservative Revolution: George Murphy and Ronald Reagan


• 5. Politics in Black and White: Harry Belafonte


• 6. Movement Leader, Grassroots Builder: Jane Fonda


• 7. Moses and the Red Tide: Charlton Heston


• 8. President Bulworth, or, Will Mr. Beatty Go to Washington? Warren Beatty


• 9. Governor Arnold and the New Age of Celebrity Politics: Arnold Schwarzenegger

An eminent historian of film, Steven J. Ross is recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Films Scholars Award and author of the prize-winning book, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America.

Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Through a series of gripping chapters on larger-than-life figures in American cinema--Charlie Chaplin, Louis Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, Harry Belafonte, Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger--Hollywood Left and Right tells the compelling story of how Hollywood emerged as a vital center of American politics.