Prior to the hearings, the studios no more paid attention to communist affiliation than they would have cared about a writer's height. Afterward, labeling or no labeling, the writers had tarnished names. As I said in the previous posting, the previous writing credits were not at issue. George Cukor had the good fortune of his secret never becoming public during his lifetime. Charles Laughton was not so lucky.
Bad luck happens.
Writers have to accept that just as the rest of us do in daily life. The public didn't give a damn in the case of Robert Mitchum. Some thought his career was over when he was busted for marijuana, but his antihero image and his appeal to a like-minded audience help him make it through. It was different for Ingrid Bergman. Her conceiving a child by a man other than her then-husband, subjected her to the wrath of her audience.