10. Walt Disney worked for the FBI for decades
It would be a bit of a stretch to call Walt Disney a spy. Informant is a better descriptive. When his workers went on strike in 1941, the paternalistic Disney couldn’t believe they would do so without outside agitators. He believed communists had influenced his workers. For the rest of his life, Disney worked with J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to identify those he considered to have communist leanings. Disney had corresponded privately with Hoover as early as 1936, but his FBI file did not begin until 1940 or so, according to the surviving documents, which number well over 700 pages. Much of them remain heavily redacted.
Disney also appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he happily named those people he “believed” to be communists, leading to their being placed on the notorious blacklist. His relationship with the FBI was so cozy he offered free use of the Disneyland facilities to agents, as well as investigators working for various anti-communist activities. He based his accusations of individuals supporting communism on a variety of opinions, such as, “Number 1, that he had no religion and, Number 2, that he had spent considerable time at the Moscow Art Theater studying art direction, or something”. Disney made the comment about an artist he had hired to work in his animation department, David Hilberman.