He was unemployed, indeed unemployable; blacklisted. Most of the time he painted, said our neighbors the Hunters, who (also blacklisted) hung out with him. Elia Kazan had given him his last work as an actor but then Kazan testified to HUAC naming some of Zero's best friends, and Zero couldn't work again. At least that's how Ian and Alice Hunter explained it to me.
When I was in high school he finally got an off-Broadway job, playing Ionesco's Rhinoceros. He did a totally amazing job of turning into a rhinoceros. Zero's first Broadway role after some ten years blacklisted was Pseudolus. FREE
It would be wonderful if Kazan's triumph were to be disrupted.
John Mage