Louise Rousseau (1910-1981) was an American screenwriter known primarily for penning B Westerns in the 1940s.
Biography Rousseau was born in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to Louis Rousseau (a famous French tenor) and his American wife, Frances Simkins (daughter of a prominent Texas lawyer). Her parents split up when she was a baby; her father returned to France, and she was sent to Texas to live with her aunts. She later reconnected with her father in 1932.
While Rousseau was a senior in high school she worked as a reporter for the Dallas Dispatch. After graduating high school at age 15, she became the only female student in the school of engineering at the University of Texas that fall. She studied chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After school, she became a secretary to the manager of the Rivoli Theatre in New York before moving on to Pathe, where she became the assistant of Frank Donovan.
Early on in her Hollywood career, Rousseau worked as a director (one of very few women at the time) of newsreels at Pathe-RKO. She later made a living writing low-budget Westerns — at least until she was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951.
HUAC testimony As Counsel Frank S. Tavenner Jr. ran through the standard litany of introductory questions, the customary education query inadvertently set the stage for Rousseau's preemptive rebuttal. "My most important education was gained at my grandmother's knee," protested the audibly outraged writer, who then proceeded to recount lessons learned regarding her heritage as an American, descended from the Huguenots who landed at Jamestown in 1617—those same Huguenots whose somewhat less distant descendants had joined a revolution to transform that colony into a sovereign nation.Glenn, Charles (October 28, 1951). "The Un-Americans in Hollywood; Her Heritage as an American; Press Ignored Her Statement". Daily Worker Sunday Magazine. p. 4. Retrieved May 2, 2025. "In a voice trembling with anger Miss Rousseau answered the usual questions about the date and place of her birth, etc.. Then came the usual question about her schooling. Miss Rousseau startled the Committee with 'My most important education was gained at my grandmother's knee.' She told of how her grandmother told her of her heritage as an American, a descendant of Huguenots who had landed at Jamestown in 1617, and of how her forefathers had 'joined a revolution' to found the United States. With a show of exasperation the Committee listened to a believer in Americanism, and then the fat man asked his usual question, 'Are you a member of the Communist Party?' She refused to answer this question, as had others before her, on the grounds that an answer might tend to incriminate her and that the Fifth Amendment offered her immunity from such testimony. The Committee, faced by a witness who knew and loved the Bill of Rights, which they neither observed nor respected, excused Miss Rousseau, but not before she had entered into the record a statement for the Committee's reckoning."
Following this unsolicited history lesson, the inevitable "Are you now or have you ever been" litmus test predictably resulted in the sole instance of Rousseau resorting to a stock response—or, rather, non-response (although she did, much to spectators' amusement, volunteer the characterization of her pre-Blacklist employment as writing "historical westerns dealing with the efforts of the little people to overthrow the big people").Associated Press (September 22, 1951). "Westerns Have 'Historic' Role, One Witness Avows". The Kansas City Times. p. 10. Retrieved May 2, 2025. "Hi yo, comrades, social significance in horse operas? Louise Rousseau, who declined to tell the House unAmerican activities committee today whether she is a Communist, said her profession is writing westerns. She drew a good laugh from the gallery when she said she wrote 'historical westerns dealing with the efforts of the little people to overthrow the big people.'" Before concluding her testimony, Rousseau made sure to get the following remarks on the record. There has come a time in the life of each generation when they must make a stand. And this is the time when I must make mine. I know that when enough people in this country understand what is happening to their basic human rights they too, will make that stand and the Un-American Committee and the hysteria it has created will be driven into the oblivion of those other kangaroo courts which have cropped up in the moments of unreason in our country. Knowing this history, I would indeed be a poor, crawling creature should I surrender lightly to this, or any other un-American [sic] committee, my heritage of 344 years.
Selected filmography
Fuzzy Settles Down (1944) Swing Hostess (1944) Rockin' in the Rockies (1945) Rhythm Round-Up (1945) Riders of the Dawn (1945) Fighting Bill Carson (1945) The Lonesome Trail (1945) Moon Over Montana (1946) Gunning for Vengeance (1946) West of the Alamo (1946) Lone Star Moonlight (1946) Over the Santa Fe Trail (1947) Under Colorado Skies (1947) Prince of the Plains (1949) Mississippi Rhythm (1949) Air Hostess (1949)
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