Man with a Mission

The loneliest man in Hollywood last week was a onetime Manhattan juvenile court judge named Stephen S. Jackson. Staid, mild-mannered Judge Jackson, 51, was on "a very important mission" for Colorado's burly Senator Ed C. Johnson, a shocked and disillusioned Ingrid Bergman fan who was determined to improve Hollywood's morals by federal licensing of its players and producers (TIME, March 27). But Investigator Jackson had hardly settled into his small, bathless hotel room before a morally indignant Hollywood began peppering him with abuse.

Critics called him "snoop" and "transom-peeper." One starlet angrily described his visit as a "personal affront." Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, righteously insisted that "Hollywood is pretty much a goes-to-bed-with-the-chickens town." The press joined in with a delighted chorus of catcalls.

From Manhattan, the tabloid Daily News recalled with leering glee that the judge had once seen a musical called Wine, Women & Song three times before testifying that a strip-tease dancer had "turned her back . . . and rotated her buttocks." Gossipist Hedda Hopper noted that he was "the guy who made trouble for practically every studio in town" two years ago as the temporary head of the industry's self-censoring production code office. Sniffed Daily Variety: COOL RECEPTION ACCORDED PEEKER AT H'D MORALS.

For a week, it was all Judge Jackson could do to defend himself and his mission. He plaintively insisted that 1) he would not pry into any individual's misbehavior; 2) he was against federal censorship of the movies; 3) he had warned Senator Johnson that he would have to keep in confidence anything he had learned during his past service in Hollywood. All he wanted, he pleaded, was to help the industry to cure itself of a weakness for commercial exploitation of its stars' private sins. Also, he favored a "constructive" approach to immorality, e.g., turning social workers loose among Hollywood's beautiful but "emotionally tense or maladjusted" people.

At week's end, the judge was still as welcome in Hollywood as a tarantula at a picnic, but he had finally won an audience with MGM's Dore Schary, in charge of public relations for the Motion Picture Industry Council. He asked Schary for help in lining up meetings with other industry leaders. Schary passed the request along to the council, which decided to take it "under consideration." Meanwhile, on his $9-a-day expense allowance, the investigator could go on contemplating sin without much risk of running into any.

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