This is a CBC podcast.

History remembers Charlie Chaplin as Hollywood's first superstar,

but at the height of his career, the FBI considered him something else, a threat to America.

Hollywood Exiles from the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts is a story of glamour, duplicity, and the US government's

decades-long campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. Host Una Chaplin

guides listeners through the story of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's personal

vendetta against her grandfather, Charlie Chaplin.

Over 10 episodes, Una Chaplin leads an intimate journey of historical discovery,

told by voices you've never heard.

Now, here's the first episode of Hollywood Exiles, an American dream.

Have a listen.

I don't know if you've ever walked.

I don't know if you've ever walked down the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

There are more than two and a half thousand stars there now.

It runs for 15 blocks down Hollywood Boulevard in front of fast food outlets, museums, hotels, and boarded up shops.

Julie Andrews, Tom Hanks.

Even Mickey Mouse has a star.

All the stars of Hollywood, all of them forever commemorated in the city's concrete.

The idea of honoring the artist who made the

city famous with brass plaques was concocted by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce

in the 1950s.

All the names that had made the city great,

...