Blacklisted performers and their children anchored the downtown avant-garde

Evidence

Act I had the junkies impatiently awaiting their connection, known as Cowboy. Intermittently, the musicians jammed, including alto saxophonist Jackie McLean (who had two years previously had his cabaret card revoked for alleged drug use). After intermission, Cowboy—Carl Lee, son of the blacklisted actor Canada Lee, dressed in angelic white and wearing shades—materialized at the pad to minister to each of his customers in turn. This was “offstage.” Or rather, it occurred behind the closed door of an actual onstage toilet. In the dramatic climax, the loft’s proprietor, a whiny hipster unsubtly named Leach (Warren Finnerty), demanded more dope and, divine retribution, died of an overdose. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 54

Categorization

• XREF: Canada Lee and Jackie McLean’s cabaret-card revocation show how political repression (red scares, narcotics policing) pushed cultural figures into the downtown underground — a causal condition for the scene’s formation, relevant to censorship pressures affecting culture.