BBC: Sam Wanamaker 'monitored by MI5'

[Heidi]

Page last updated at 23:52 GMT, Monday, 31 August 2009 00:52 UK

Distinguished American actor and producer Sam Wanamaker was watched by MI5 for several years for his alleged communist sympathies, it has emerged.

Files released by the National Archives show Mr Wanamaker, father of actress Zoe, would have been interned had the UK been attacked in the mid-1950s.

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His US blacklisting took place during the anti-Communist purges led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

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They initially became aware of him as they were bugging the conversations of British communists who began talking excitedly about his arrival in Britain.

But the US authorities also asked to be kept informed of his activities, as he had been a member of the American Communist Party in the mid-1940s.

MI5 were willing to oblige, and even got permission to intercept his mail.

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[Staph]

1. How bizarre!

Sam Wanamaker was the driving force behind the recreation of the Globe Theatre in London. He was working with a Shakespeare company in Stratford-upon-Avon when he discovered that the only remains of the original Globe was a plaque on the side of a brewery. Wanamaker created the Shakespeare Globe Trust and raised more that $10 million towards the rebuilding. He died before it was completed.

[AngryAmish]

2. Any relation to the guy the trophy is named after?