ROY BREWER was a complex and divisive character in American social history. As leader of the craft unions in Hollywood during the 1950s he curtailed the careers of hundreds of craftsmen who he alleged had communist sympathies. He boasted that he had the power “to shut the town down”.

Confusingly for his detractors, he did this while condemning the “extremism” of witchfinders such as McCarthy and espousing the belief that ex-communist penitents should be welcomed back to the fold. He claimed that his reign over Hollywood was a battle against a clever, relentless enemy for the studios, which were nothing less than America’s social conscience. It was the same battle, he believed, that his friend Ronald Reagan later took to the world stage. Brewer became very close to Reagan during the five years of strikes after Hollywood Black Friday in October 1945, and in the triumphalism that followed the end of Soviet communism in 1991 his work gained fresh approval.

Roy M. Brewer came to Hollywood from Cairo, Nebraska. His first job, at 15, was as an usher in his local cinema. When asked to work the projector too,without a pay increase, he declared himself on strike. He became chief projector operator at a cinema in Grand Island, Nebraska, from where he organised a union of projectionists across central Nebraska.

He went to work for the War Production Board in Washington where he was responsible for finding food and housing for workers. In 1945 he joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Some, such as the writer John Meroney, would have it that “the IATSE had been controlled by organised crime, but had recently cleaned house. Brewer’s hiring represented another move away from racketeers.” Others disagree, including the union itself; the historical self-appraisal on its website stating: “The arrangement with the producers was basically the same: the moguls put Brewer on the payroll and he and his Chicago thugs guaranteed low wage contracts and no strikes.”

Certainly, IATSE was an unhappy family. Protests against Mob involvement were common, as were splits and breakaways. Far from seeking workers’ solidarity, IATSE was primarily concerned with scoring points against its rival, the Confederation of Studio Unions (CSU). When 77 set decorators left IATSE to form their own union, which then joined CSU, IATSE protested and the studios refused to accept the arrangement. The resulting strike by CSU resulted in Black Friday, also known as the Battle for Warner Brothers, at Burbank, California, on October 5, 1945. It brought some of the most violent strike-breaking tactics in US history by police, studio security and hired muscle.

Brewer met studio bosses in secret and arranged to move IATSE members across the picket lines. Eventually, he engineered a lockout that broke the CSU, whose leader, Herb Sorrell, he tried to discredit. Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, also disliked Sorrell and blamed the CSU for threatening behaviour against himself, Brewer and their families. It was Brewer, however, who called Sorrell a communist. The CSU, he claimed with absolute certainty, was in the pay of the Soviet Union.

The strike ended with hundreds out of work, Sorrell destroyed and IATSE well placed to consolidate its power. Brewer, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, offered 13 names of writers, actors and directors he said were involved in communist activities. Among them were John Garfield and Dalton Trumbo, both of whom had volunteered to act as observers for the studio pickets in the CSU strike. Both were jailed for a year for refusing to testify.

Brewer worked to remove communists from the Hollywood craft unions. Although blacklisted screenwriters managed to work under assumed names, technicians and actors were forced to work outside the system. In 1985 he told a journalist: “I can tell in five minutes if a person is a communist. I’m never wrong.” Yet his refusal to endorse the work of Senator Joseph McCarthy undermined the Wisconsin witch-hunter, with whom he has been often compared. Brewer preferred to emphasisethat he worked to clear ex-communists and those who had been dealt with uncharitably. Screenwriter Richard Collins, a communist in the 1940s, was summoned for interview with Brewer, and found him to be, as many did, “quiet and reasonable”, willing to forgive.

The Vietnam War changed the face of American society and the “Red-baiting” monitorism of the 1950s was derided and openly challenged. IATSE has pointed out that, while Hollywood has celebrated the struggle of its blacklisted actors and screenwriters, no film has explored the fate of hundreds of craftsmen accused of communist leanings. Neither has Hollywood told the story of Black Friday, which showed the ugliest side of studio capitalism.

Brewer maintained his close friendship with Reagan, who in 1984 appointed him chairman of the Federal Service Impasses Panel, an arbitration group between federal unions and the US Government.

Brewer enjoyed answering his critics, never flinching from his opinion that he had helped to prevent the subversion of American culture. In 1985 he said: “There are still Communists, but now they’re in the Democratic Party.”

His wife died in 1994. He is survived by two children.

Roy Brewer, Hollywood labour leader, was born on August 9, 1909. He died on September 16, 2006, aged 97.