- In 1933 he was one of the founders of the Screen Writers Guild, of which he served as President from 1944-45.
- (1944-1945) President of the Screen Writers Guild.
- Blacklisted in 1950s, during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era. He was one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten".
- After 1947, he had no further film credits under his own name, although he lived another 38 years. (He did apparently get a story credit on an episode of a minor TV series in 1968).
- Cole was married three times. His first two marriages ended in divorce and he separated from his third wife.
- Cole was one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and directors who were cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted for their refusal to testify regarding their alleged involvement with the Communist Party.
- Between 1932 and 1947, Cole wrote more than forty screenplays that were made into motion pictures.
- As a result of his refusal to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Cole was blacklisted by studio executives, after which just three of his screenplays were made into films - submitted under the names Gerald L.C. Copley, Lewis Copley, and J. Redmond Prior.
- He was the son of Polish immigrants to the United States, his father was a Marxist garment industry union organiser, and Cole was a dedicated socialist from childhood.
- In 1933, he joined with John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz to establish the Writers Guild of America, and in 1934 joined the American Communist Party.
- Lester Cole began his career as an actor but soon turned to screenwriting. His first work was "If I Had a Million".
- In 1981, Cole published his autobiography, entitled Hollywood Red: The Autobiography of Lester Cole. In it, he recounted a 1978 incident when he called into a radio talk show on which ex-Communist Budd Schulberg was a guest. According to Cole, he berated Schulberg (who had testified before HUAC as a friendly witness) on the air as a "canary" and a "stool pigeon" before he was cut off: Aren't you the canary who sang before the un-American Committee? Aren't you that canary? Or are you another bird, a pigeon - the stool kind.... Just sing, canary, sing, you bastard! About this incident, Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley (Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry) comments, "Whether this actually happened is uncertain, but one can guess.".
- Ronald Radosh, Emeritus Professor of History at City University of New York, wrote that Cole "remained a hardcore Communist" until his death.
- In 1947, he became one of the Hollywood Ten, who refused to answer questions before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about their Communist Party membership. Cole was convicted of Contempt of Congress, fined $1,000 and sentenced to twelve months' confinement at the Federal Correctional Institution at Danbury, Connecticut, of which he served ten months.
- His best-known screenplay was that for the highly successful Born Free (1966), credited to Gerald L.C. Copley.
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