page_title: Eric Johnston
section_title: Personal life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Eric Johnston / Personal life and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Wendell Willkie, bust-length portrait
context_page_description: Eric Allen Johnston was a business owner, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, a Republican Party activist, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, and a U.S. government special projects administrator and envoy for both Democratic and Republican administrations. As president of the MPAA, he abbreviated the organization's name, convened the closed-door meeting of motion picture company executives at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that led to Waldorf Statement in 1947 and the Hollywood blacklist, and discreetly liberalized the production code. He served as president of the MPAA until his death in 1963.
context_section_description: Johnston married Ina Harriet Hughes; they had two daughters.
  During the 1940 Republican Party presidential primaries, Johnston support Wendell Wilkie.
  In 1963, while still MPAA president, Johnston suffered a stroke in Washington, D.C., on June 17. He was hospitalized at George Washington University Hospital, where he suffered a second stroke on July 4.  He entered a coma on August 5 and died age 66 on August 22, 1963.
caption: Johnston supported Wendell Wilkie (here, 3 March 1940) during the 1940 Republican Party presidential primaries.
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