Rena Vale

Twelve years later, in March 1928, she was announced as the winner of a national contest sponsored by Photoplay magazine and Paramount Pictures for her scenario for a movie called Swag.

[4]: 123  In November 1932, she was secretary to Wycliffe A. Hill, who was engaged in an endeavor to develop a "robot" process that would help put jokes together from a series of standard formats.

[4]: 126 In December 1936, she was put on the payroll of the Works Progress Administration as secretary to R. Frederick Sparks, supervisor of the WPA Historical Records Survey.

In March 1938, she transferred to the Federal Writers Project, where she was editorial assistant to Robert Brownell, who was in charge of the history essay for the Los Angeles Guide.

[9] In November 1942, she filed a lengthy affidavit with the Joint Fact-Finding Committee to the 55th California Legislature detailing her experiences as a member of the Communist Party and giving the names of those she said worked with her, implicating the comedian Lucille Ball, the writer-activist Carey McWilliams,[4] the actress Gale Sondergaard, the author John Steinbeck and the journalist Charles Harris Garrigues, among others.