5 Vintage Hollywood Scandals That First Showed Tinseltown’s Ugly Side

Source: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/v...ywood-scandals

From abortions to murder, these Hollywoods scandals prove that Tinseltown has had issues since the silent age.

With its many problematic, drug-addicted starlets and its sex-related Hollywood scandals of today, Tinseltown may seem like a less than glamorous place.

But the truth is, Hollywood was never as glamorous as many of us tend to believe. Even back in Golden Age, juicy Hollywood scandals were just as common as today.

Hollywood Scandals: Charlie Chaplin’s Obsession With Young Girls


Chaplin’s first high profile romance involved his 19 year old co-star Edna Purviance. 1916.

Sexually abusing and exploiting young women is nothing new in Hollywood scandals, and the biggest star of the silent era proves that.

Comedy genius Charlie Chaplin became a worldwide icon early on in his life and this, in turn, messed with his head, at least when it came to women. He boasted of his conquests relentlessly and claimed, shamelessly, that he had slept with more than 2,000 women over the course of his life.

He wasn’t out looking for love either. When asked in an interview to describe his ideal women, Chaplin replied – “I am not exactly in love with her, but she is entirely in love with me.”

Mature women might have been harder for Chaplin to charm, but they were not his target. Chaplin was after young girls. His first high profile romance involved his 19-year-old co-star Edna Purviance.

Four years later, when he was 29, Chaplin met the 16-year-old child actress Mildred Harris and promptly forgot all about Edna. He was infatuated with Mildred so much so that he kept sending her flowers and waited for her outside the studio where she worked. The two soon became lovers, got married, lost a child, and got divorced.


Charlie Chaplin with his second wife, Lita Grey and their son Charles Junior on board the SS City of Los Angeles. November 1926.

Shortly after the divorce, Chaplin met the 15-year-old child-actress, Lita Grey. He had actually first met her three years previously when she was just 12 years old and had apparently been obsessed with her ever since.

Lita soon became pregnant. Chaplin knew by then that he did not love her, but he feared the legal implications of having had intercourse with a minor and thus the two got married. They divorced only a few years later.

Chaplin wasn’t single for long – he soon fell for another young actress. Her name was Paulette Goddard, and she had told Chaplin that she was 17 years old. Thankfully, she was actually 22.

The pair went on holidays to the Far East where Chaplin later claimed they got married although no records of the marriage exist. Tired of Chaplin’s controlling behavior Paulette left him in 1940.


Chaplin was 54 years old when he married his last wife, Oona O’Neill, who was 18 years old at the time. 1944.

By then, Chaplin was 51 years old, and it seemed like his romantic life was all but over. However, at the age of 54 Chaplin met the 18-year-old Oona O’Neill, daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill.

The two got married, had eight children together, and lived happily ever after. Chaplin finally found his true love, even if she was 36 years younger than him.


Joan Crawford Starred In At Least One Adult Movie


Joan Crawford. 1948.

Life wasn’t exactly easy for young actresses in old Hollywood. They lacked credibility and reputation and even those extremely talented struggled to make ends meet at the start of their careers.

Take Marilyn Monroe, for example. Before the stunning young woman became an international icon, she was an anonymous starlet who struggled so much she had to pose in the nude to earn some extra cash.

Joan Crawford was in a similar boat to Monroe. While today we remember Crawford as one of the greatest female stars of old Hollywood, her life as a young actress was far from glamorous. In fact, it has been alleged that as a teenager, Crawford starred in a few pornographic films, including Velvet Lips, The Casting Couch, and The Plumber, just to make ends meet.

Since Crawford was one of MGM’s biggest stars, the studio supposedly employed a fixer to partner with the mob and make the embarrassing story and Hollywood scandal go away. While allegations of Crawford starring in adult films have obviously never been confirmed and the negatives have never been found, the story does seem suspiciously true.

For example, when Crawford left MGM in 1943 she paid the studio $50,000, possibly for destroying the negatives.


Joan Crawford in 1936, a few years before she became a truly successful actress

In addition, Crawford’s first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. has confirmed that Crawford starred in at least one adult movie:

“Billie was absolutely terrified that I would find out about a film she had made when she was in a financially desperate moment. When she told me about it, as we began to get very involved, she said, ‘I have to tell you in case it makes a difference.’ I tried to get as many details from her as possible, especially as to what she wore or didn’t wear in the film, and specifically what she did in the film, but I only got tears.”


Studio-Pressured Abortions


Lana Turner. 1943.

Nowadays we tend to think of old Hollywood as an idyllic period marked with elegance and innocence. Yet, it wasn’t actually as innocent as it may seem. You see, back in the day, the studios controlled every aspect of the actors’ lives and of course women had it harder than men.

Actresses that were considered bombshells and sex symbols were discouraged from marriage and, if god forbid they did end up marrying, they were absolutely forbidden from getting pregnant. If they disregarded the studio’s wishes and got pregnant nevertheless, they were pressured into getting an abortion.

Fame and status of the actress were irrelevant. In fact, the more famous the actress, the more pressure she was under to get an abortion. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Lana Turner all ended up having studio-pressurized abortions.


Bette Davis. 1938.

In many cases, the abortions were arranged by the studio itself. The studio would arrange for the actress to enter a hospital under the pretense of say, an ear infection or the pretense of needing some rest.

In some cases, parents of child actors were on board with studio-pressurized abortions. For example, it was Garland’s mother and not the studio who arranged her abortion during Garland’s marriage to David Rose.


Judy Garland’s Studio Enforced Diet


Even Dorothy couldn’t escape Hollywood scandals. Here is Garland in The Wizard of Oz. 1939.

Watching Dorothy dance in The Wizard of Oz you’d never guess the kind of hardship that Judy Garland, the actress who played Dorothy, was put through by the studio’s executives.

Garland was only 13 years old when she auditioned for the film producer and co-founder of MGM, Louis B. Mayer. Mayer signed her on instantly, but that didn’t mean that he was entirely happy with Garland or her appearance.

It was only a year later, when Garland was 14 years old and about to star in her first feature film, that MGM started bullying Garland into losing weight. The studio was so successful in brainwashing Garland that she ended up referring to herself as a “fat little frightening pig with pigtails.”

Garland was put on a strict diet, and MGM’s executives are even said to have removed platefuls of food from Garland’s hands just as she was about to sit down and eat. The studio’s executives criticized Garland constantly, and before long she was hooked on diet pills. Those working on set later claimed that they had never seen anyone be so mean to a child before.

At 18 years old Garland’s diet consisted of black coffee and chicken soup although she was also allowed up to 80 cigarettes a day and pills every few hours to quench her appetite. It is thus not at all surprising that Mayer’s treatment left the star with an eating disorder and a drug addiction that lasted all her life.


Lana Turner’s Daughter Killed Turner’s Mafioso Boyfriend


Underworld character Johnny Stompanato with screen star Lana Turner at a Hollywood nightclub. 1958.

The blonde bombshell Lana Turner, best known for her femme fatale roles in Hollywood, had an extremely stormy love life. Not only was she married eight times and had short flings with Hollywood’s rich and famous such as Rex Harrison, Clark Gable and supposedly even Frank Sinatra, she was also caught up in film noir-esque situation in real life.


Showing the strain, actress Lana Turner appears on the verge of collapse as she testifies at the inquest into the death of Johnny Stompanato, her gangland boyfriend, here. April 11, 1958.

In 1958, in one of the biggest Hollywood scandals ever, Turner was accused of killing her Mafioso boyfriend Johnny Stompanato, who had ties to Mickey Cohen. He was discovered stabbed to death in Turner’s home.

A court hearing followed during which Turner’s 14-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane confessed to killing her mother’s boyfriend. She had only killed him, however, because she was protecting her mother. According to Turner, that fateful night she had argued with Stompanato, and he had threatened to cripple her and kill her daughter.


Cheryl Crane (left), daughter of Steve Crane and actress Lana Turner, is escorted from the jail here to juvenile hall in Los Angeles. 1958.

The coroner’s jury ruled the death a justifiable homicide. While Turner’s career was unharmed, she could not escape rumors which claimed that she had caught her daughter in bed with Stompanato and, in a jealous rage, killed him. Turner then supposedly forced her daughter to take the blame knowing full well that as a minor she would not be convicted.