ELIA

ELIA is the answer to the crossword clue
[Director Kazan] and [“Essays of ___”]

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ELIA, the [Kazan of Hollywood]
“Essays of ELIA,” by Charles Lamb

ELIA crossword kazan charles lamb director alias — _{ELIA Kazan, who had a [Man’s name meaning “Jehovah is God”], as does anyone name ELI}

Whoa: it’s quite the day for ELIA, the [“On the Waterfront” director Kazan]. Rare enough that an answer turns up in two puzzles on the same day, but today ELIA showed up in two puzzles clued the same way: [Director Kazan].

That coincidence should already clue solvers in to two points: how popular ELIA is an answer and how popular that clue is for it.

ELIAS as a [Director of Vivien and Marlon]

The [“East of Eden director Kazan”] is puzzles’ most popular ELIA, but until the end of his life he remained unpopular in some Hollywood circles.

Kazan was blacklisted following his 1952 decision to testify before the [Red Scare grp.] HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. Even after his death fifty years later, the affair continued to TINGE [Hint of color], [Shade] the legacy of the three-time Tony winner (one of which was for the Broadway premiere of Death of a Salesman).

While not an apology, in 1998 the Academy gestured that it was ready to move on when it gave Kazan a Lifetime Achievement award to add to his two Oscars (for directing Gentleman’s Agreement and On The Waterfront).

But as the clip shows, while many took a stand to support him, a good portion of the audience weren’t up to forgiving Kazan.

Sixteen years earlier, Orson Welles denounced Kazan as a RAT [Singer]. But Welles, like much of those in attendance at the 1998 Oscars, had the luxury of never having had to face to predicament that Kazan did.

A description of Kazan from the old “moderntimes.com” website:

In making his argument to Miller, Kazan expressed “To defend a secrecy I don’t think right and to defend people who have already been named or soon would be by someone else…. I hate the Communists and have for many years and don’t feel right about giving up my career to defend them. I will give up my film career if it is in the interests of defending something I believe in, but not this.” Miller put his arm around Kazan and retorted, “don’t worry about what I’ll think. Whatever you do is okay with me, because I know that your heart is in the right place.” Among the names Kazan gave the committee that spring were the great writer Clifford Odets, (who himself would later “name names”), Lee and Paula Strasburg, Lillian Hellman, Joe Bromberg, and John Garfield.

After the testimony, Kazan was maligned in toto. The “Nation” magazine slurred him with the lie that he did it all to save a Fox contract. The truth is that Darryl Zanuck called him into his office and explained that because Kazan was now such a controversial figure the studio could not pay his salary for the final picture remaining on his contract. “I had become an easy mark for every self-righteous prick in New York and Hollywood.” He drew Arthur Miller’s scorn in a letter Miller wrote to the New York Post.

In 2010, Martin Scorsese won a Peabody for A Letter to Elia, a documentary elegizing Kazan.

ELIA as Charles Lamb’s alias

The title of that film may be seen in part as a reference to Essays of Elia, an 1823 essay collection by the British writer Charles Lamb, who used Elia as an alias. Thus, crosswords make ELIA

Lamb alias
Lamb by another name

Lamb kin?
Lamb over-up

As the author of the essay, “A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig,” the [Lamb who wrote about a pig] is also a [Lamb of pork fame].

And as he coauthored the children’s book, Tales from Shakespeare, with his sister, Mary Lamb, ELIA is a

[Lamb who had a Mary at his side]
Kay Sullivan, The New York Times – June 4, 1986

The [Lamb in literature] was described by his friend, the essayist William Hazlitt, as a man who preferred

bye-ways to highways. When the full tide of human life pours along to some festive show, to some pageant of a day, Elia would stand on one side to look over an old book-stall, or stroll down some deserted pathway in search of a pensive description over a tottering doorway, or some quaint device in architecture, illustrative of embryo art and ancient manners. Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian.