Lillian Hellman will be remembered for her plays The Little Foxes and Toys in the Attic. But she seemed to yearn to be remembered for her defiance of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, when it asked her to testify about her Stalinist ties and those of her associates. Throughout her 79 years, especially in the memoirs she wrote during her final two decades, Hellman delighted in presenting herself as tough, combative and above all principled. Many critics, among them former friends, accused her of having a higher regard for her reputation than for the literal truth: revisionists have...
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