In the mid-1940s, Presnell relocated to Los Angeles, California, where he first started working on radio with Orson Welles and then as a writer of films and television dramas such as the I Love a Mystery series and Cuban Pete (1947).
[6][7] His wife, the actress and activist Marsha Hunt, said in an interview that their involvement in this radio broadcast was held against both of them later on[8] and that despite the existence of a caveat that would have given them an out from being blacklisted, they refused to renounce their position.
[10] He also wrote episodes for TV series such as The George Sanders Mystery Theater, Lux Video Theatre, Studio One, and The Twilight Zone.
It starred Lilli Palmer, Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell, and Ronald Lewis, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
According to one source, however, Presnell served as a “front” for his fellow screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was unable to write films under his own name because he was included in the Hollywood blacklist.
[11] It is not clear whether Trumbo did contribute to the script since this issue is further complicated by the fact that the film is based on the teleplay by Dale Pitt and that Presnell was announced as the screenwriter in August 1956 for $20,000.
In 1947, he and Hunt became members of the Committee for the First Amendment along with other Hollywood figures such as John Huston, William Wyler, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall.