Scandals of Classic Hollywood

Sympathy bump for OP.

Shirley Jones and Marilyn Monroe got their roles on the casting couch.

Another sympathy bump because really, no scandals of classic Hollywood?

There must be at least one goody somewhere.

Well, there are plenty, but the OP specifically said ones that the DL may not be aware of, and DL pretty much knows them all -- Fatty Arbuckle's murder charges, film producer Thomas Ince's mysterious death on WIlliam Randolph Hearst's yacht, the suicide of Jean Harlow's producer husband, Thelma Todd's mysterious death, Errol Flynn's charges of statutory rape, etc.

I couldn't think of one that hasn't been discussed on here before.

I read somewhere that Monroe was a huge slut and would even sleep with the janitors at studios in hopes of making a contact there when she was trying to make it. It sounded really sad. I hope she didn't reach that low trying to find someone with connections at a studio. It would explain why some friends of hers say she really didn't enjoy sex. Sex was a means to an end.

OP, we don't know what people here know, with the decay of the DL culture. (I'm being a little facetious.)

The great show business scandals of yore and recency seem well-covered and known (William Ince murder, George Reeves, Chaplin's and Flynn's sex-crime issues, Arbuckle, George Kaufman's sexual skills, Mary Astor's diary, Albert Dekker's lipstick-and-drag hanging, David Carradine, Bob Crane the murdered sex freak, the drug arrests and career deaths from the silent era on, Harlow's wee-cocked hubby's suicide, Loretta Young's bastard by Gable, Rex Harrison the suicide magnet, Liberace, Sal, Jimmy, Jack Nicholson, Mitchum's pot bust, etc.).

But nowadays who knows who knows what? If we post something, people will either complain about it being obvious or complain they don't know who the players were.

BUT if you don't know of one of the things mentioned, I'm sure many of us would be happy to oblige. Eager, even. Just whistle.

You know how to whistle, don't you?

[quote]Loretta Young's bastard by Gable

I didn't think that was a scandal at the time because it was kept hush-hush and it wasn't revealed until decades later. Though Loretta privately confessed to her daughter when she was an adult, she didn't acknowledge it to the world until her autobiography was published after her death in 2000.

Nothing about La Lawson?

She ate pussy. Next!

DL people know this, but I haven't seen it mentioned so I'll throw it out. Joan Bennett's husband Walter Wanger shot her agent, Jennings Lang, when Lang and Joan were having an affair. He didn't kill him, though.

[R4] It wasn't that Marilyn was a slut - the fact is, and I was told this by a female star, that the starlets were expected to sleep with everybody. This particular actress I knew was (and actually still is) incredibly beautiful and worked on stage. She got offers from Hollywood but didn't take one until the contract was for $1250 a week. Under that amount, you were part of what she called the "visiting fireman brigade." I'm talking about the young beauties, not character women. Someone like Marilyn was expected to entertain at parties, probably even distributor conventions.

In truth, a lot of times when you see an actress in an old film and think, why didn't she have a bigger career, it's probably because she wouldn't sleep with the right person. I had another actress, now deceased, tell me that she made it pretty clear that she wasn't going to cooperate, and though she did a few good films, her career never took off. She eventually had huge success and made a fortune on television.

I'd heard of a lot of these but I hadn't heard anything of George Kaufman's sexual skills, Mary Astor's diary, Albert Dekker's lipstick-and-drag hanging, Harlow's wee-cocked hubby's suicide or Rex Harrison the suicide magnet.

Details, please?

Robert Wagner and the death of his wife Natalie Wood.

"Joan Bennett's husband Walter Wanger shot her agent, Jennings Lang, when Lang and Joan were having an affair. He didn't kill him, though."

But he did shoot him in the groin.......

Anna Magnani used to fuck younger married guys and paid them with pieces of furniture. One night a wife of her boy toy came screaming below her apartment window: "You bitch, you stole my husband and you didn't even give us the complete dining-room set!"

[quote]I'd heard of a lot of these but I hadn't heard anything of George Kaufman's sexual skills, Mary Astor's diary

George S. Kaufman was extremely skilled at pleasuring women orally, among other ways. His long list of lovers included Natalie "Lovey Howell" Schaefer who turned down an MGM contract telling Louis B. Mayer that she didn't want to leave her boyfriend in NYC. Mayer told her to bring him to Hollywood with her.

She replied, "I don't think his wife will let him."

To which Mayer replied, "And I thought you were a lady."

Mary Astor also had an affair with Kaufman and she chronicled their sex life in an extensively detailed diary. She wrote that Kaufman was the kind of lover she would go over a cliff for. Eventually, parts of the diary were read aloud in a courtroom during Astor's divorce trial. The edited but still spicy details were printed in papers nationwide.

This caused Kaufman great pride and also great distress. He and his wife had been in an "understanding" marriage after losing a severely deformed child in stillbirth. Their agreement had been to seek lovers elsewhere but to never embarrass each other publicly. Friends later reported that tarred as he was by the scandal, Kaufman was also annoyed when people misremembered the identity of Astor's great lover and wrongly attributed Kaufman's great skills at cunnilingus to his gay collaborator, Moss Hart.

[R13] OUCH

Joan Crawford's stag movies. We know it was you, Joan. Or should I say Lucille.

Scandal free, Bette dear? What about that husband you killed? Supposedly he fell on e sidewalk, but everyone knew you pushed him and had been abusing him at home.

I'd rather be known for snowing my snatch at a young age than for murder.

R5, I can't believe you listed all those scandals and left out William Desmond Taylor's murder. It had everything, drugs, drag, homosexuality, lust for young boys, a queeny African-American butler, glamorous clothes, and careers destroyed. One of Hollywood's BEST scandals, and they STILL don't know who did it.

Wasn't it the mother of Mary Miles Minter who killed Taylor? There's a book about it. King Vidor played detective and found outbthe true story.

Ramon Novarro's demise ... death by dildo.

I haven't heard many of these stories and would love our resident experts to flesh them out.

Rex Harrison the suicide magnet?

Ingrid Bergman had a child with a man she wasn't married to and was blacklisted for awhile.

Violet-eyed silent film star, flapper, and former Ziegfeld girl, Olive Thomas was a walking, talking scandal. Carrying on with the married Florenz Ziegfeld before eloping with Jack Pickford, a marriage that sister Mary and the rest of the Pickford clan disapproved of due to Olive's wild reputation. The high living, wicked pair traveled the world, indulging in "champagne and cocaine orgies." But it ended all too soon when an intoxicated Olive accidently ingested a mercury bichloride liquid solution used to treat Jack's chancres from his chronic syphilis. Olive died a slow, agonizing death from acute nephritis at the tender age of 25 in a Paris hospital. Jack would follow Olive to the grave thirteen years later, at age 36, from a myriad of illnesses brought on by his excessive drinking, drug taking, and syphilis.

Let's post some ground rules.

If it's not in the Kenneth Anger Hollywood Babylon books or been prominently featured in print within the last few years (like Loretta Young's baby with Gable or the gay prostitution ring that operated out of a Hollywood gas station), it's fair game.

If you haven't read Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon books or haven't been keeping up with recent gossip about classic Hollywood, just read and learn.

"Wasn't it the mother of Mary Miles Minter who killed Taylor? There's a book about it."

That was "A Cast of Killers", by Sidney Kirkpatrick, a hell of a good read. I'm astonished that nobody has made a film out of it, it must still be stuck in development hell.

Let's see, we covered Clara Bow, Jean Harlow, and Charles Manson on recent threads... how about the unsolved murder of Thelma Todd?

Wasn't Flo Ziegfeld gay?

To add another non-scandal to this completely unscandalous thread: the rumors of Grace Kelly's sluttiness are greatly exaggerated.

Big Bill Tilden was overwhelmingly voted the greatest tennis player of the first half of the 20th century in an Associated Press poll only six weeks after being released from prison for the second time on a conviction of having fondled and made unwanted advances to a teenage boy. In November of 1946, a patrol car noticed a Packard convertible driving erratically with what appeared to be no one behind the wheel. When they stopped the car, Bill Tilden had hastily switched places with a young boy who had been driving the car while Tilden was going down on him. The boy's fly was open.

Tilden, was never able to equal his great success as a tennis player. Born into wealth, in later years he sunk a lot of his own money into Broadway shows he wrote and produced. Shunned by everyone in Hollywood after this last arrest, only Charlie Chaplin would allow him to use his tennis court in Hollywood.

Dot Mackaye was a comedic actress along the lines of Lucille Ball back in 1920s Hollywood, and she was involved in one of the first and saddest love triangles in the history of Tinseltown.

Dot's hubbie, Ray Raymond, was a tireless song-and-dance man who traversed the country plying his trade — from Broadway to motion pictures to vaudeville houses. He was a slight man, devoted to their daughter.

The man who came between them, Paul Kelly, was a child actor from Brooklyn who became one of the country's busiest supporting actors, on stage and screen. He was also a hunk and a trained fighter.

Kelly's house boy, a young Japanese immigrant known as 'Jungle,' revealed that he had served breakfast to Mrs. Raymond after a number of their all-night pajama parties in Kelly's bachelor pad. Her insistence that their friendship was innocent became even more absurd when a stack of Kelly's love letters were found tucked in her marital mattress.

When Raymond confronted Kelly, Kelly beat him so badly he died from his injuries. Dot Mackaye got a doctor to say Raymond died of "natural causes," but the truth came out. She served two months, Kelly served two years, they reunited, appeared together on Broadway, and then bought a ranch together in Northridge. Dot wrote a story about her imprisonment at San Quentin which was made into "Ladies They Talk About" with Barbara Stanwyck.

Dot Mackaye died at age 40 from internal injuries that went undiagnosed after her car ran into a ditch and rolled over several times. Paul Kelly went on to have a long career, remarried, and made a lot of money. But Kelley also died young, from a heart attack at age 56 in his Beverly Hills home at 1448 Club View Drive in 1956.

What? No one has brought up the Lana Turner/Cheryl Crane/Johnny Stompanato scandal yet? It was the biggest Hollywood scandal of the late 1950's!

Billy Haines always played a young arrogant man who is humbled by the last reel. It was a formula at which he was very successful and he worked in Hollywood films all through the 1920s. By 1930 he was listed as the number one box office attraction in the country.

On a trip to New York in 1926, Haines met Jimmie Shields, possibly as a pick-up on the street. Haines convinced Shields to move to Los Angeles, promising to get him work as an extra. The pair were soon living together and viewed themselves as a committed couple.

However, in 1933 Haines was arrested in a YMCA with a sailor he picked up in Pershing Square. Louis B. Mayer gave him an ultimatum - a sham marriage or no career. Haines walked away from an acting career, and subsequently became one of the best-known interior designers and antique dealers in America.

Haines' and Shields' lives were disrupted in June 1936 when approximately 100 members of a white supremacists group dragged the two men from their El Porto, Manhattan Beach home and beat them, because a neighbor had accused the two of propositioning his son. The incident was widely reported at the time but Manhattan Beach police never brought charges against the couple's attackers. The child molestation accusations against Haines and Shields were unfounded and the case was dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Haines and Shields stayed together from 1928 until Haines' death from lung caner in 1973, after which Shields took his own life, being unable to live without "my Billy." Joan Crawford described them as "the happiest married couple in Hollywood."

Liza got arrested one night at Studio 54 for having sex in the balcony. This was during her run in. THE ACT.

Shine it on!

[quote]Ramon Novarro's demise ... death by dildo.

He actually didn't die that way. That was one of the many, many untrue rumors Kenneth Anger passes off as truth in the HOLLYWOOD BABYLON books.

Ramon Novarro was brutally tortured and killed by two hustlers he picked up who were out to rob him. But they didn't kill him with a lead dildo trophy given to him by Valentino, as Anger reported; Novarro asphyxiated on his own blood because they beat his chest so hard.

R33, such a beautiful thing those two had. Brought tears to my eyes, thanks for telling it.

Wasn't Novarro the one who was killed over a simple misunderstanding? I think he was the one who told a young neighbor he had "put five thousand dollars into his house" meaning he had invested that amount of money on home improvements.

The stupid kid thought he meant he was keeping five thousand in cash in the house. Word got out and the killers showed up to rob Novarro of the loot and ended up killing him when he insisted there was no pile of money to hand over.

Tom Neal-Barbara Payton-Franchot Tone were covered in 1951 by the paps like Rihanna-Chris Brown in this day and age.

And don't forget the Darwin Porter books!

In 1915, when a kitchen stove fire singed his sister Mabel’s lashes and brows, Tom Lyle Williams watched in fascination as she performed a “secret of the harem,” mixing petroleum jelly with coal dust and ash from a burnt cork, and applied it to her lashes and brows. Mabel’s simple beauty trick ignited Tom Lyle’s imagination and he started what would become a billion-dollar business and remains a viable American icon after nearly a century. He named it Maybelline in her honor and began selling mascara and brow powder.

Williams got married to a woman and had a child at 16 but the love of his life was Emery Shaver, an advertising exec. They lived quite the Hollywood life. First, they bought Valentino's house after the star died, made it Maybelline's West Coast headquarters, and planted hundreds of palms around it for privacy. Apparently, Williams was fond of his own product.

“We didn’t think anything of it, when he had his own makeup on. We just thought he was a glamorous man. We adored him so much that it wouldn’t have mattered.” Shaver died of a massive heart attack in 1964, after which Tom Lyle fell into a deep depression. He carried on until 1976.

The only "scandal" here was that Williams stayed in the closet so long while hiding in plain sight.

Some of murdered actor Bob Cranes self-porn has been making the internet rounds lately. It looks as is he had member of great girth.

Bob Crane takes a finger up his arse.

The documentary "Six Degrees of Helter Skelter" contains some interesting trivia on the Manson Gang murders: Roman Polanski thought for a time that John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas had been the murderer and had John's house searched for a murder weapon. The original Tate/Polanski house on Cielo Drive (no longer there) was across the canyon from Doris Duke's house, Falcon's Lair, which had been Valentino's mansion earlier. Doris would later die there possibly as a result of neglect by her butler/housekeeper. Before the Tate/La Bianca murders, the Manson gang lived with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, who later committed suicide, some think partly as a result of guilt at being associated with them, but more likely multiple problems. The Beach Boys actually recorded a song written by Manson but retitled as "Never Learn Not to Love." Brian introduced Manson to Doris Day's son, a record producer names Terry Melcher, who was living in the Cielo Drive house before Roman and Sharon moved in. It was Terry Melcher the Manson Gang was looking for initialy when they murdered all of the occupants of the Cielo Drive house along with a guy who was visiting the housewatcher. Jay Sebring, the celebrity hairdresser who ws murdered, was credited with giving Jim Morrison of the Doors his signature fabulous hairstyle.

The rape of Patricia Douglas in 1937.

Rex Harrison IMHO was a nasty piece of work.

Carole Landis (mistress) and Rachel Roberts (wife) committed suicide. However it was the circumstances of Miss. Landis's death that are quite disgusting.

There are plenty of websites devoted to Carole Landis and her death, but here is my favorite.

Was Bob Crane bisexual?

I want to thank R43 for that super ,but very sad link. I'm renting the documentary from the library. Why did people like Ann Miller and many others say Mayer was a gentleman when in reality by R43 link, he was a corrupt monster! I once watched an interview with Helen Hayes many moons ago and she said Mayer was an evil man. She said she was friends with Irving Thalberg ,and she said he was a wonderful, nice, very intelligent man and he really was ahead of his time because he thought out of the box for making movies. Helen Hayes said when Irving Thalberg was dying Mayer was thrilled almost jumping for joy and was waiting for him to die.He hated Irving Thalberg so much because he was jealous of his great talent,and having such talent at a young age as well.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Last Tycoon is loosely based on Thalberg.

A lot of women back then tried and did commit suicide over men. Such as Rita Moreno trying to kill herself over Marlon Brando. Women be crazy.

Yep. And Frank Sinatra threatened to do the same--over Ave Gardner.

Frank was playing the bitch. No way would he have offed himself over her.

Helen Lawson's nickname was "Hoover."

[quote]Helen Lawson's nickname was "Hoover."

Coincidentally, J. Edgar Hoover's nickname was "Helen."

Famous Hollywood scandals:

Olive Thomas's suicide or accidental death

Fatty Arbuckle's wild party where a young woman died

Clara Bow's unbridled promiscuity

Paul Bern's suicide

The murder of William Desmond Taylor, which was never solved

Charlie Chaplin's disastrous marriage to the teenage Lita Grey and later, his unfortunate affair with a mentally ill woman named Joan Barry, which resulted in a nasty paternity suit

Francis Farmer's crack-up

William Ince's mysterious death on William Randolph Heart's yacht

Thelma Todd's death, which was probably a murder

The murder of Lana Turner's lover Johnny Stompanato by her daughter Cheryl

Mary Astor's hilariously pornographic diary detailing her trysts with homely George S. Kaufmann ("He fucked the living daylights out of me!"), portions of which were excerpted during a divorce battle

Errol Flynn's rape charges

Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys

Elizabeth Taylor stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds

Elizabeth Taylor stealing Richard Burton from Sybil Burton

Hollywood sure has had its share.

Milton Berle was hung like a horse

I'm intrigued by John Huston and his connection to the Black Dahlia murders. The doctor he was friends with was a suspect.

John Huston seems like he was a 1% psycho. Cold and creepy.

It's rumored that John and Anjelica Huston had an incestuous relationship.

What's also weird about Huston/Black Dahlia and that doctor is the odd looking house on Franklin that was the Dr.'s house with secret rooms is or was the house used on "America's Next Top Model". The exterior looks like a stone vulva.

Any interest in

Love this thread!

Patty Duke slept with an underage Desi Arnez JR

Desi Jr. knocked a girl up when he was 15. Lucy had the entire thing covered up with payoffs, etc.

Another weird Huston connection-his friend Dr. Hodel was accused of raping his daughter whose best friend was Michelle Gilliam who later married John Phillips.

I'm beginning to think incest and sex with child actors is as common to the top Hwood families as anorexia and cocaine use. A tradition and they all do it.

The relationship between Sammy Davis Jr. and Kim Novak

The sham heterosexual relationships of Rock Hudson

Someone on DL posted a link to this great True Hollywood Story about Montgomery Clift. It covers a lot of ground. He sounds more disturbed than I thought.

Today's deranged television viewing makes this AJ Benza-hosted series look like a major investigative report in comparison:

[quote]What? No one has brought up the Lana Turner/Cheryl Crane/Johnny Stompanato scandal yet? It was the biggest Hollywood scandal of the late 1950's!

Before that sensational case Cheryl Crane wrote in her book that she was repeatedly raped by Lex Barker who was married to Lana Turner. Once Lana learned about the rapes/molestation she divorced Barker.

Lana = trouble magnet

The kids who worked with Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins on The Little Rascals set at Hal Roach Studios knew there was something different and wrong about the way he was being raised. His watchful father prevented him from talking to the other kids off camera.

Bobby's father had a plan to keep the child star small and employable by underfeeding him. He didn't want Bobby and his siblings to learn that normal kids got a lot more to eat than they did. NO one ever attempted to intervene on the children's behalf.

What made it worse was that the plan backfired. Although he was incredibly photogenic and he delivered some fine moments on screen, "Wheezer" was not a particularly resourceful child actor. His natural charm sustained his career as the kid brother from ages two to five. But by age six and seven when he grew to leading boy status, he looked and acted like the slow-witted, malnourished child he was.

Stronger and sharper boys his age were given the better parts while Wheezer spent the last year of his contract standing in the background with little to do. He made one non-Rascals short at age eight and his film career ended. He died at age twenty in 1945 crashing his fighter plane in the last half hour of basic training.

Bobby Hutchins' abuse was the sort that Christina Crawford claimed was rife in Hollywood. Average society considered it intrusive to question other people's parental methods in those days. People in Hollywood who raised kids as actors or PR props could get away with all sorts of abuse. The code of silence was strict with real reason.

"Code of silence". That's what I'm talking about re: incest and child sex. It's like a nod they give each other or something, a separate culture they don't discuss. They're all way too casual with sleazy and weird things. After giving her a pass for many years, I think Anjelica Huston's behavior after walking in on creep Roman photographing the child was deplorable. Normalized to her probably, but still deplorable.

There was a book about the Paul Bern "suicide" that said he was murdered, and not by Harlow, but by his mentally disturbed ex-commonlaw wife Dorothy Millette. She then killed herself by jumping from a steamboat. Harlow is said to have paid for her burial and grave marker. I can't recall the title of the book, but it was an interesting read.

R65 Yeah, but Lex Barker told a friend that teenager Cheryl was a little Lolita who couldn't keep her hands off his crotch.

Barker and others wondered if Lana caught Cheryl in bed with Stompanato on the night of the murder.

Of course she couldnt keep her hands off his crotch. What a hunk...

Bette Davis was responsible for the untimely death of her second husband, the police and practically everybody on the Warners lot believed. She apparently knocked him on the noggin with a blunt instrument in one of her notorious rages. He collapsed and died on a Hollywood street a few days later.

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Danny Thomas like to take pictures of women shitting on glass tables.

Lupe Velez was a popular actress who died, mysteriously. She was a lover of Gary Cooper.

Wallace Reid was #1 at the box office, when he was injured badly on a rugged movie location. The studio apparently wanted him in more films, and assigned him a doctor, who prescribed morphine for his pain. He became hooked, and died too young.

Child actor, Bobby Blake, grew up to become a great actor in movies and television. Always eccentric, he did everything his way, or not at all. He most probably murdered his wife, but was acquitted in a court of law.

R72, you got style.

The Murder of Thelma Todd is a tale worth telling in movie form again. The beauty queen came to Hollywood against her wishes. Her producer Hal Roach put a "five pound clause" in her contract allowing him to fire her if she gained weight. This led to her getting addicted to amphetamines.

Thelma was more than a blond bombshell. She was a skilled comic and a shrewd businesswoman. She lived on the third floor above the building that housed her Seaside Cafe. After putting the kibosh on her gangster boyfriend's plans to convert her cafe into a casino, Thelma turned up dead in a car in the garage of her building.

The crime was never solved. Her last movie was re-filmed with another actress even though she had completed it. Thelma was rubbed out completely. Her beautiful building went up for sale last fall for $8 million.

What a complex web, R42

R55, I always thought John Huston raped his daughter. He was considered pure evil ,and he liked girls as young as 12 and 13 years old. I think Angelica is sick because she talks about her father fondly ,and the man was a monster.

Robert Blake said when he was a little boy his parents made him eat out of a dog bowl and he had to crawl on all fours around the house. They kept him in the closet as well. When he received his pay checks from the studio his parents took them.

BTW, in general, the our gang kids all had tragic ends accept for Spanky and Butch. Even the original dog Pete was poisoned and no one knows who did it, sick!

R76, someone on here some time ago that her death was an accident and stood by that claim. Right! anyone ,especially in those days, who told the mafia to go screw off which she did, were dead. No one got away with telling the mafia off. She was a very independent and liberated lady who took no BS what so ever but sadly she paid the ultimate price for it.

No one on here has mentioned one of the real puzzling cases that should be reopened, which was Mickey Rooney's ex wife's death. Remember that one? Apparently she blew her brains out. I don't know the full story on that one ,but apparently Rooney was at her home when it happened ,and it was labeled a suicide. I used to work with this lady whose friend was one of those Vegas show girls. She said Mickey Rooney was in Vegas to star in his show at the time Sugar Babies and she had to do a dance routine for Mickey's show.She said her friend, the Vegas dancer, said Micky had a very, very scary temper especially when he drank which was a lot. After hearing that it wouldn't surprise me if he murdered his ex wife.

Does anyone on here believe Lana Wood is going to reveal who raped her sister when the bastard, her words, dies? She claimed her sister was afraid of the water but on YouTube there is a home movie of Natalie Wood playing in the ocean at Roddy McDowall's seaside home. Check the link out. What is up with Lana Wood? Is she nuts? Why did she make that up about her sister having a phobia of water?

There is a difference between being afraid of open water and playing on the beach. Maybe that is what she meant.

R79, here is a YouTube link to an interview that was done 3 years ago ,which Lana Wood is discussing her sister's death. In the interview she brings up her sister's fear of water to the extent she had a pool in her home and she would not go in it, and as a whole she was afraid of water period. Also, read the comment down below in the YouTube home movie link on R78 by the guy who posted the home movie his YouTube name is SoapBox. He said that he knows various famous people who said that Natalie being afraid of water was bull.

BTW, I have a fear of water ,and there is no way I would go near the ocean.

Natalie diving into a pool with Robert Redford @ 3:23.

R78 On TCM Robert Redford's tribute to Natalie has him saying she had a fear of the water too.

R72 What book on Merv Griffen are you speaking of? Darwin Porter's?

I love to see the elders gayducating the gaylings; listen and learn, kiddies. Believe it or not, this is a wonderful legacy, especially because it's being passed down to with care, patience and passion. I love this stuff! Thank you for the contributions.

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Last year I did a lot of reading on the silent film age. Those actors were pretty decadent. They had a lot of money and fame with virtually no press digging into their personal lives.

I was up for a role in Polyester, but Mr. Waters thought my pussy stank too much, even for Odorama.

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any gossip on Katherine hepburn

I think Danny Kaye/Laurence Olivier were really a thing. Talk about an odd couple. They had houses built next door to each other and lived next door to each other for over a decade. Vivien Leigh hated Danny Kaye with a passion. I wonder what their pillow talk was like and what they had in common.

Danny Kaye was an asshole. Most people in Hollywood couldn't stand him.

R90, all true, but neither here nor there. With how difficult both their personalities were rumored to have been, Larry O. seemed to have no trouble putting up with Danny for years and years. They even vacationed with Noel Coward and whoever Noel's latest bf was a few times.

[R68]That was the Harlow book by David Stenn.

[R74]I don't think Lupe Velez died under mysterious circumstances. She killed herself and left a note. Apparently she was pregnant. The way she was found was fictionalized by Hollywood Babylon. She did intend to die on the bed surrounded by flowers, but photos of the death scene show she was found on the floor.

[R82]No, it's not documented online by Wikipedia. Wikipedia used Darwin Porter's book as a reference. He's basically a fiction writer. Now a lot of people have complained and editors on Wikipedia are no longer accepting a lot of bad bios as references.

Danny Kaye's cousin was the fabulous cabaret singer and out lesbian Frances Faye.

The Ramon Novarro death-by-dildo thing is an urban legend, too, arising from the gay panic surrounding his murder in the 60s. He was beaten to death by two hustlers and choked on his own blood. Really sad way to go.

My dad met someone who got into the entertainment business because of Danny Kaye. She said he was very nice but a major protectionist. However, I to have read that he was a major jerk. In fact Susie Lee who used to post on DL, said he was an awful person.

Was Danny Kaye bisexual? Does anyone know of any primary sources who have stated he was bisexual? or gay?

R81, great link! I think Christopher Isherwood was in that home movie reel. WOW! Robert Redford was so handsome!!!

BTW,I once heard that Daisy Clover was loosely based on some real life movie star. Dose anyone know who it was?

I'm interested in the story of the FBI's harassment of Roddy McDowall over his film collection. The official line is that it was for copyright infringement, but they threatened to out him unless he cooperated, so it was obviously more than that.

R97, I clicked on the links to the various documents in the Roddy McDowall case, and it won't let me view them? Why is it locked?

"[R65] Yeah, but Lex Barker told a friend that teenager Cheryl was a little Lolita who couldn't keep her hands off his crotch."

And what a crotch it was! Arlene Dahl admits at 17:15 in this interview that Lex Barker had the biggest cock she's ever encountered, and that would include Fernando Lamas.

So we know that aside from being a bad-news magnet, Lana Turner was also a size queen.

After all, Johnny Stompanato's nickname wasn't "Oscar" for nothing.

And r88, if you read that gossip book by the "gas station" pimp (I think it's called "Full Service", and the author's name is Scotty something), there's lots of gossip in it about Hepburn not only being a butcher dyke than Kristen Stewart, but also cranky and nasty.

Nicholas Ray's 'tutoring' of Natalie Wood during the filming of RWAC.

According to Lana, whenever she and her mother would pick up Natalie from one of her 'tutoring' sessions with NR, her mother would scream at a disheveled Natalie, "You'd better NOT be giving it away; you'd better be getting something out of it!"

About Lex Barker and Cheryl, rapist always say their victims ask for it. So absurd that people believe a young girl would be interested in touching an old man's dick.

R102 Lex Barker was hardly old when he married Lana. He was still in his prime, playing Tarzan in the movies.

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

Cheryl has an eBay account where she's sold costume jewelry and other pieces of Lana's.

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

I think she lives in Palm Springs. She's also trying her hand at mystery writing.

Esther Williams and Jeff Chandler were never married. She received much backlash for writing that Chandler was a cross dresser, especially from Liz Smith in her column.

Lex Barker had it all. Raised in wealth, Princeton educated, incredibly handsome and well hung, to boot.

Jack Cassidy used to make Cole Porter crawl across the room on his hands and knees before he'd allow him to suck his dick.

Betty Grable had an affair with a soldier about to go overseas in the early days of WW2. She met him at the Hollywood Canteen. Three days afterward she noticed a strange, foul odor emanating from her vag. Embarrassed by this she went to her doctor who immediately did a pelvic exam. Turns out the guy's rubber fell of and lodged in her canal.

Robert Taylor had a really small dick, but was pretty enough to be a kept boy during his early salad days in Tinseltown.

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

R78, Mickey Rooney's estranged wife, Barbara Ann Thomason, was shot dead in Rooney's home, along with her Serbian lover Milos Milos (aka Milos Milosevic). Rooney was not present at the time (allegedly). The official ruling was that Milos shot Barbara Ann before turning the gun on himself. However, rumors flew that both were murdered as revenge for carrying on an affair.

Milos Milos, btw, was a part time actor ("The Russians Are Coming"x2), who, along with his friend, Stevan Markovic, years earlier, had befriended Alain Delon, and became the French actor's bodyguards. Markovic was later found dead in a Paris suburb, sparking a political scandal involving Delon, his "godfather" François Mancantoni, and French President Georges Pompidou.

OMG! That Betty Grable was a dirty whore.

R112, I heard that Betty Grable story before, but in place of Grable and soldier were Lana Turner and Ty Power.

When Cheryl Crane wrote that coffee table book about her mother, she conveniently forgot to mention that she got plowed by Joe Louis. So did Sonja Henie. Joe was a fox when he was younger, but in the 1940s and 50s it was career suicide to date outside your race publicly. Otto Preminger had a torrid affair with Dorothy Dandridge while making "Carmen Jones", but chickened out when she wanted to marry him. She allegedly fell in love with Peter Lawford, and he did with her as well, but once again, he was afraid of what it would do to his rep.

Dorothy was such a tragic but beautiful young lady.

nick ray had a gay affair with gavin lambert

Where do the rumours that Mickey Rooney had something to do with his wife's death come from?

R119, Because when your pretty blonde wife and her young lover are gunned down in your house, with your gun, and your kids are upstairs in their rooms, people make assumptions that you were somehow involved in their murder.

During their stormy marriage, Frank Sinatra thought his wife Ava Gardner was having an affair, so he and his goons followed her to Palm Springs, broke into her bedroom and found her bed in with --- Lana Turner.

Yes, Ava was in love with Lana.

I just watched the interview with Arlene Dahl at r99, what a bright, charming woman. I got a kick out of the fact she grew up in my hood and went to my high school, who knew?

I posted this on the Joan Crawford thread and I'm wondering if anyone knows who these people Joan Crawford is talking about? She wouldn't reveal their names.I finished reading Conversations with Joan Crawford by Roy Newquist. I highly recommend the book btw. She talks about two blind items in her interview some movie stars who were in the studio system closet. She said a very major actor in 20th Century Fox who she said she won't reveal his name, was a dope addict and an alcoholic ,and he was gay as a goose? Does anyone know who this might be? Someone said they thought it was Tyrone Power because he was considered King of 20th Century Fox, but I don't recall reading he did drugs? I came across information that Errol Flynn did heroin and was an alcoholic. Also, Errol Flynn was a major 20th Century Fox actor so I wonder if that was him? However, Joan said earlier in the book that everyone in Hollywood knew Errol liked teenage girls.Also, at one point earlier in the book she said Tyrone Power, Marylin Monroe,and Judy Garland were dope addicts? maybe pill poppers but dope addicts? I never heard that about Tyrone Power before using drugs, only smoking a lot and drinking.

Another blind item Joan stated in the conversation was that MGM made a gay actor marry a lesbian who was older than him? Who was that? Geer Garson married a younger actor ,but I highly doubt she was a lesbian.

Does anyone have any ideas who are these blind items?

bump

Gail Russell: In 1950 Gail married matinée idol Guy Madison, one of the up-and-coming actors in Hollywood but Paramount refused to renew her contract due to Gail's out of control drinking problem. When Gail married Guy Madison (one of Henry Willson's manufactured pretty-boys) it was a very common and persistent rumor that Madison was in fact also gay and it was an arranged union. Indeed in the book 'The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson', there is a hefty amount of anecdotal evidence that Madison wasn't straight. Himself and fellow Willson boy Rory Calhoun are thought to have had a long-running affair. The marriage was an extremely unhappy one for Russell, and she left him in 1954.Her long-running alcohol problem led to Russell running into trouble with the law, ruining her once remarkable looks and becoming a pariah in Hollywood. Work began to dry up and by 1951 Russell's once promising star had dimmed drastically. Her looks were ravaged, and she endured several shocking, embarrassing public run-ins with the law. Including a famous drunk driving incident that nearly killed a man. Despite struggling with her drinking problem and making many attempts to go straight, Russell was ultimately unable to control her addiction and on August 27th she was found dead on her apartment floor, surrounded by empty liquor bottles. She had died alone and her body had lain undiscovered for days. She was found to have been suffering from extreme malnutrition at the time of her death.Gail was long rumored to be a dyke amongst Hollywood insiders from almost the very beginning of her career, as is stated in the biography of Henry Willson 'The Man Who Created Rock Hudson'. * Several women have come forward in off-the-record interviews and have stated that they slept with/had affairs with Russell * The book 'Fallen Angels' names a late in life lover and mentions that Russell was spotted at dyke bars/hangouts. * Her marriage was extremely unhappy and there have been rumors about her husband Guy Madison's sexuality since the 40's. * Gail herself bitterly denied ever having an affair with John Wayne and several lovers of Russell's who were interviewed off-the-record have stated that the relationship between Wayne and Russell was that of brother and sister. * Gail's severe drink problem points to someone struggling internally with themselves.

The fappening. Sorry im part of the mtv generation, my memory span has been shot.

Joan's pussy tasted like Vodka and Pepsi.

R124, in Joan's day, "dope" was slang for any type of street drug, from marijuana to cocaine to opium. Someone as priggish as Joan likely would've dismissed any recreational drug user as a dope addict.

Was this "lesbian" an actress herself? At MGM? Could it have been Ginger Rogers? Good conservative Christian Scientist Rogers [italic]allegedly[/italic] had an affair with Marjorie Main(!) Now, that doesn't necessarily make Ginger a lesbian, but in Joan's mind, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck... Ginger's fourth husband was handsome actor Jacques Bergerac, who was 16 years her junior. Bergerac would go on to marry Dorothy Malone, sire two kids, quit acting altogether and become head of Revlon in Paris.

[R107] Cheryl certainly seems to do a lot of posting here at Datalounge.

R129, the older woman was an actress and her younger husband was an actor.

Any guess who the big male movie star Joan was pointing out being gay as a goose and a dope and alcoholic addict? I couldn't be Tyrone Power? He was the major 20th century Fox star from around that period. Errol Flynn was a drug and alcoholic addict ,but she refereed to him liking teenage girls.

R129, someone who knew John Wayne wrote a biography on him. He said John Wayne was just friends with Gail. The author said Gail Russell went on the casting couch and whatever they did to her messed her up with men completely there after. She thought if a guy was nice to her in the least, he wanted to use her and expected sex. The casting couch corruption lead to her becoming an alcoholic because it ruined her life. John Wayne tried to be there for her as best as he could. The author said John Wynne hated what the studios did to women more than everything else. The corrupt Hollywood system enraged John Wynne tremendously because it was a form of rape. Also, the author said it wasn't true that John Wayne abused his wives. There was one wife who he was married to when John was young who was Mexican with a major temper. Both of them used to get into major fights. However, they were very passionate in their marriage.

There's some wild stuff in this thread.

If you've read the book Clara Bow by David Stenn, the same man who did the documentary on Patricia Douglas, mentioned above, a lot of that Clara Bow stuff is exaggerated and incorrect.

[R124] Joan was one to talk and she was full of it besides.

Tyrone Power never did drugs and he slept with both men and women. Errol Flynn to my knowledge did not do heroin. Also he was with Warner Brothers, not Fox.

MGM did that marriage thing more than once. Mayer made Van Johnson marry Evie Wynn and Gene Raymond marry Jeannette MacDonald. That was because there were heavy rumors about them.

Contrary to popular beliefs about bearding, the studios did not want matinee idols to get married too soon if at ALL. Mayer encouraged Robert Taylor to break his engagement -- I forget the actress -- and I don't think they wanted him with Stanwyck. Zanuck did everything he could to get Annabella away from Tyrone Power. He offered her three films in Europe and when she refused to leave he had her blacklisted. Zanuck did force William Eythe into a marriage because again, there were a lot of rumors about him.

[R122] All Ava ever talked about was sex. If you've read the book that came out a little while ago, based on an autobiography she didn't write at the time, she was obsessed with it.

I don't think JC was referring to Flynn. He was a Warner's star. I always thought it was Power. Could the older lezzie/younger man be Stanwyck and Taylor?

[R124]Sorry, you said a gay actor marrying an older lesbian - that I don't know offhand. I know Edmund Lowe and Lilyan Tashman were gay and married to one another, but I don't know their ages. They go way, way back.

No, read the Stanwyck book. That was a love match. Robert Taylor was not gay, and the author went to some guy who founded a gay society - sorry, the name escapes me but he's well known - and he told her unequivocally, Robert Taylor was not gay. The book is a dry read but the info is well researched and accurate.

[R136]I don't know who it is but I think the studio is wrong. She certainly knew Tyrone Power slept with both sexes. I think she was as prone to hearing and believing rumors as anyone else.

[quote][R65] Yeah, but Lex Barker told a friend that teenager Cheryl was a little Lolita who couldn't keep her hands off his crotch.

Unlikely, given that Cheryl Crane is a lesbian.

Danny Kaye was the original male lead in Cy Coleman's and Comden & Green's "On the Twentieth Century", and the reason Madeleine Kahn turned it down at first. She'd had enough of Kaye co-starring with him in "Two by Two"some years earlier, and refused to work with him again. Once John Cullum was chosen as the male lead, Kahn signed on.

I hear he was a Zero Mostel-like stage monster.

Van's arranged marriage to Evie Wynn kind of backfired on the studio, though. She had been married to Keenan Wynn and he and Evie and Van were all good friends. There was even speculation that Keenan and Van had an affair. Who knows? Ed Wynn (comic vaudevillian father of Keenan) made some quotes around that time about the bizarre friendship of the three. "Evie loves Keenan. Keenan loves Van. Van loves Evie. Who knows WHAT is going on?" Something along those lines. The studio wanted Johnson married because he was a a major star $$$ and there had been not only rumors about his being gay but also some evidence that Johnson was caught soliticiting men (maybe a sailor) in a restroom somewhere in, I believe, Santa Monica. The studio covered it up but definitely wanted Johnson married. It was complicated and bizarre but the story went that Keenan and Evie divorced (not sure what the official reasons were) and Evie then IMMEDIATELY married Van even before the "ink was dry" on the divorce papers. Evie stated years later that it was all a set up, that she was offered a sort of ultimatum. That Keenan would never get work in Hollywood again if she refused. And she knew how powerful MGM was. Well, the public thought it was all odd, as well, and since Van's fans had been primarily teenage girl (he was called the "voiceless Sinatra") bobbysoxers, that once he was married he was no longer "dreamworthy material" for the girls. And it caused his popularity to drop!

[R142]Agreed, it was a stupid idea. Normally they wouldn't have wanted Van married but the minute there were rumors, as with Gene Raymond and William Eythe and Rock Hudson, they pressure them into it. Van and Keenan lived in the same neighborhood with the Coopers etc., and when Van was told he had to get married he said he would never consider marrying anyone but Evie.

r29, Tilden was one of Dietrich's many affairs.

Evie Wynn was once engaged to Tyrone Power.Keenan Wynn was straight,and his father hated him. Van Johnson was gay and Debbie Reynolds out him in her autobiography. If outing someone as fruity as Van Johnson is possible.

[quote]She said a very major actor in 20th Century Fox who she said she won't reveal his name, was a dope addict and an alcoholic,and he was gay as a goose?

It might have been Dan Dailey, the song-and-dance man who made a string of musicals with Betty Grable at Fox. Dailey is also supposed to have been a cross-dresser.

He was only 62 when he died of complications from hip replacement surgery. Longtime alcohol and drug abuse may have contributed to that.

No, r140, that could actually make it more likely. Sexual identity conflict and overactive sexual behavior go hand-in-hand (no pun intended). If she were promiscuious at a young age, it could mean she was very confused about her sexual orientation.

Largely forgotten, Marie Prevost was a popular silent screen star and flapper beauty who specialized in light and romantic comedies, usually paired with Monte Blue, Harrison Ford (the original), and real-life beau Kenneth Harlan. The latter pairing led studio boss Jack Warner to announce that his star couple would officially marry on their next picture, "The Beautiful and the Damned." The problem was, Marie was already married, secretly, albeit estranged from her absent husband. When word got out, a humiliated Warner was livid. Rather than fire the adulterous pair, Warner kept them on (Marie was making the studio too much money to let go), but punished Prevost by assigning her lousy pictures and loaning her out to other studios for what he thought were sure-fire failures. When those pictures turned out successful, an irate Warner dropped her contract.

Marie would continue to work, successfully transitioning into talkies, but after the death of her beloved mother in a car accident, the breakup of her marriage with Harlan, who blamed her for his stalled career, and a failed relationship with Howard Hughes, Marie fell into a deep depression and took to the bottle and binge eating. Marie would gain a considerable amount weight, pushing her out of the running for leading lady roles, and into supporting roles as blowsy dames or best friend of the leading lady (Crawford, Stanwyck, Harlow, etc.).

Desperate to shed pounds and regain her leading lady status, Marie crash dieted, subsisting on alcohol and not much else. On January 23, 1937, she was found dead in her bedroom (she had died a couple of days prior), surrounded by empty bottles of liquor. At her side was her loyal dachshund, who, according to the police report, had chewed up her wrists and ankles trying to rouse her awake. A promissory note to Joan Crawford for $113 was also found in the room. Marie had died of heart failure brought on by acute alcoholism and malnutrition. She was 38.

In attendence at her funeral, which was paid for by Joan Crawford, were such Hollywood luminaries as Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, and Mack Sennett, who gave Marie her start as a Bathing Beauty.

More likely her loyal dachshund was hungry.

WOW! R148! Great post! Gosh I'm loving this thread! Threads like this make DL super fun.

I don't mean to throw off the thread ,but I just have a question. Why do the children of the movie stars and fans of the movie stars who are long gone get angry when a person brings up the slightest hint that they, actor or actors, might have been bisexual or gay? In this day in age no one gets shocked about things like that anymore. Even if someone who doesn't agree with being gay doesn't finch when that subject is brought up anymore because it is a subject that is prominent in our contemporary society.

I belong to myriads of Facebook groups on movie stars on the Golden Age of Hollywood because I adore old Hollywood and the movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I brought up a question about an actor and the administrator of the group would not allow my question to go up on the group's timeline. I wasn't insulting the actor's image and it was just a question. There are relatives on the Facebook page who apparently didn't like the question.

The question was on Tyrone Power and I have said, I have heard he had an affair with someone and the woman gave the baby boy up for adoption. Has any of the family located the child? Also, I asked, is it true that Judy Garland had Tyrone's child and gave it up for adoption or is that hearsay? Liza Minnelli claims her mother did and the child is some where in the Mid West is that true or bull? Those things have been floating around for years its not like this is new. The big question you must never ever ask, was Tyrone bisexual or gay, YIKES!

I noticed that out of all the movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Tyrone Power for some reason is the highest guarded actor when it comes to his personal life after almost 60 years of his death. People want to rip your fingers off from ever typing on a computer key board ever again, WOW!

Once again, I apologize OP, I'm not trying to throw off your thread.

"Why do the children of the movie stars and fans of the movie stars who are long gone get angry when a person brings up the slightest hint that they, actor or actors, might have been bisexual or gay?"

Children of movie stars don't want to believe that they are the products of sham marriages, duh, or cynical "arrangements".

As for the fans, they don't want to believe that someone they love lied to them and manipulated them. Obviously a gay actor couldn't have done anything else back in Power's day, but people still want to believe that the persona they love is real.

[quote]Why do the children of the movie stars and fans of the movie stars who are long gone get angry when a person brings up the slightest hint that they, actor or actors, might have been bisexual or gay?

Guy Madison's daughter was one of those who got upset over talk about his hook-ups.

Merv Griffin's son, Tony, began publicly denying that his father was gay immediately after his death and continues the charade to this day.

Hollywood is supersaturated with self-loathing frauds - and their spawn.

R65, Cheryl Crane was TEN when her mother Lana Turner married Lex Barker. Barker raped her from the beginning of the marriage, when Cheryl was only a child. He was a monster.

How many gay actors of classic Hollywood were arrested or charged for cruising or public sex?

There is a major website on Jeremy Brett which goes into great detail about his life but that won't mention he was homosexual.

His first wife, the wonderful Anna Massey with whom he had a son, said he was and was tortured by the fact his whole life. For some reason the fangirls claim she was lying but what reason would she have had?

A recent biography on Olivier denies he was bisexual though it seems that many important people who knew him have said he was in love with Danny Kaye(though I can't imagine why. Yuck.) I love David Niven's anecdote about visiting Larry and Vivien at their manor and finding Olivier making out with Brando on the pool.

I guess children of stars who were gay or bisexual have a major problem with the fact they were accidents or simply accessories for a Hollywood pr machine.

The irony is that most of us are. And if not for a Hollywood pr machine then accessories for a hetero lifestyle involving church, social and corporate image.

Homosexuality for many people is still an ugly secret and a slur. I once mentioned that I thought all male actors were gay. And instead of simply responding that it wasn't true that it was just some fantasy I had people got angry and defensive.

The Karyn Kupcinet murder. Karyn was the starlet daughter of a powerful Chicago columnist who was found dead in her West Hollywood apartment. Was it murder, suicide or an accident? It was never solved.

Lots of weird detail with this one, including the prime suspect: Hope Lange's brother. There was also a rumor that Karyn (who was killed a week after the Kennedy assassination) blabbed that she had inside info about the shooting -- pretty much disproven. And then there was the rumor that she appeared in the original "Little Shop of Horrors" under the name "Tammy Windsor." Also not true -- but Tammy Windsor pretty much disappeared after Karyn was murdered, although IMDB lists one more credit years later.

Montgomery Clift was arrested for propositioning someone right after he made Red River. The studio hushed it up.

Ginger Rogers and/or her mother were members of DAR who voted against Marian Anderson performing at their venue. Ginger was a right-winged cunt with oodles of facial hair.

Does anyone know if Mr. Hollywood is still alive? Dose anyone know who he was because some people on DL claim they know who he was?

A lot of these children whose parents were movie stars act like they are liberal minded ,but if you bring up their parents might have been bisexual or gay,all hell breaks lose. Tyrone Power's daughter will rip your eyeballs out if you remotely say he might have had at least one affair with a man.In fact, she wrote a book to prove that her father was not bisexual, gay, nor had any affair with a man. Her book is based on interviews by people who knew the real man. The straight man. Yet, if they have gay friends they are open arms ,but if you claim one of their parents might have gay that is different. If their parents were gay then that is fact end of story.I think these phonies are homophobic.

R160, wow! that is awful! where did you hear or read that? I know that Rita Hayworth was Ginger Roger's cousin and they said Ginger Rogers ignored that fact. Maybe she didn't like the fact that Rita Hayworth was have Spanish? Was ginger Rogers over all a mean person? some people claim she was while others claim she was very nice?

R158! That is so interesting! gosh I'm loving this thread!

" Yet, if they have gay friends they are open arms ,but if you claim one of their parents might have gay that is different."

That response doesn't mean the person is anti-gay - more likely they're horrified by the suggestion that a beloved parent lied to them.

Because again, the worst thing about the closet is all the fucking lies - people even tell great big long-term lies to their own children.

R162, that makes sense. It must be confusing for them to deal with.

Re: 160

It was Ginger's mother. She also named names for HUAC

Ginger allegedly turned down playing Mama Rose in the '74 BWay revival of Gypsy because it hit too close to home

Tarquin Olivier, the product of an alleged lavender marriage, to this day vehemently denies that his father was homosexual or bisexual, despite the fact that many of Lord Olivier's colleagues insinuate that he dabbled in m2m sexual relations. Even the senior Olivier's third wife and widow Joan Plowright dances around the subject, but never fully denies her husband's bisexuality. But then again, Tarquin was enamored of his stepmother Vivien Leigh and perpetuates this romantic mythology that Leigh was the great love of father's life. Throwing Danny Kaye into the mix shatters that illusion.

Anyway, Tarquin was quite the looker in his youth and continued to be well past middle age.

^ Sorry.

Tarquin's biography of his father is one of the most anodyne books I've ever read...

R157, I'm surprised there hasn't been a Wikipedia edit war over Jeremy Brett. It doesn't mince word about Brett:

[quote] On 24 May 1958 Brett married the actress Anna Massey (daughter of Raymond Massey). Their son, David Huggins, born in 1959, is a British cartoonist, illustrator and novelist.[21] Brett and Massey divorced on 22 November 1962 after she claimed he left her for a man.[22][23] From 1969 until 1976, Brett was in a romantic relationship with the actor Gary Bond, who died exactly one month after Brett's death.[24] In the late 1970s, he was involved with actor Paul Shenar

R168, Both Gary Bond and Paul Shenar died of AIDS-related symptoms. I had wondered if Jeremy Brett's death, officially from heart failure, had been AIDS related.

I want to know if there is truth to the rumor that Richard Burton fucked Eddie Fisher in the ass as a way of humiliating him even further after taking Liz Taylor away...

I always wondered if Gower Champion died of aids. He died in about '80 and the cause of death is not very clear.

John Culshaw the great Decca record producer is another one. And he never married.

Gower Champion was gay?! I have read that he had many mistresses and took drugs,but I never heard anything about him being gay.

Paul Shenar was very, very handsome,and so was Jeremy Brett.

If you see Jeremy Brett in My Fair Lady he is incredibly handsome in those Edwardian tailored suits. And his delight at Eliza's small talk at Ascot is perfection.

I got his autograph once after a play called Aren't We All on Broadway. There was nobody else there except one older gentleman.

Brett seemed astonished and happy that I presented him with the souvenir book of the film to sign as if he hadn't seen it in ages. I told him it was one of my favorite films and he told me it was one of his as well. I wanted to ask him more questions about it but this older guy took over the conversation and wouldn't shut up.

Anyway I saw Brett walking towards 8th Av smoking like crazy on a cigarette looking very skinny and drab in plain english clothes and worn shoes. Had it been a few years later after Holmes hit I'm sure he would have been mobbed by hundreds of fans and I wouldn't have gotten near him.

I was stunned and very saddened by his early death.

Speaking of scandal and classic Hollywood, has anyone seen "On Cukor"?

[quote] From the PBS series "American Masters" comes this revealing, 90-minute documentary that examines the life of cinematic legend George Cukor, who helmed a string classic films that includes The Philadelphia Story, Born Yesterday and My Fair Lady.

Does it provide any interesting stories about old gay Hollywood?

Cukor was fired from Gone With the Wind and replaced by that hack Victor Fleming. Some say it was Clark Gable's homophobia; others say it was because Gable was once rough trade when he was down and out.

R174 It really is an excellent look at Cukor's work, not so much at his life. It doesn't skirt his gayness but doesn't dwell on it either.

Cukor was openly gay but discreet as well. When asked in the 70s about his experiences with the newly arrived Gable in Hollywood he neither confirmed nor denied the rumors.

Louis B asked him point blank if he was gay and he said yes much to Mayer's dismay. The mogul probably never felt comfortable about him again.

R176, thanks. I've got "On Cukor" saved in my Netflix queue. Look forward to seeing it eventually.

bump

Tyrone Power was not only gay, he was into scat.

Ginger Rogers was detested backstage when she replaced Carol Channing in the Broadway company of Hello, Dolly! I've heard that story about her being offered the 1974 Gypsy revival but can't believe it's true. That production was a transfer of the hugely successful London production a year before with Lansbury, who already had two Tony's and was a bigger Broadway star than Rogers at that time. That production was always intended to transfer with Angela.

The situation with Selznick, Cukor, Gable and GWTW was very complicated and tangentially involved a very salacious story involving Gable's rentboy past, Cukor's BFF Billy Haines and a bar of soap. I'm too tired to type it all out. But in the end, Cukor was replaced on GWTW not because of Gable's discomfort but because some of Cukor's footage wasn't satisfactory to either him or Selznick, he was fast falling behind schedule and he could no longer tolerate Selznick's micromanagement and interference. It was a mutual decision between him and Selznick that made Gable very happy and Leigh and de Havilland outraged and devastated.

I misspoke above. Power was bi, not gay. But he also had the other paraphilia I mentioned.

My father did NOT take it up the ass, and FUCK Barbra Streisand!

[quote]Ginger Rogers was detested backstage when she replaced Carol Channing in the Broadway company of Hello, Dolly!

Ginger Rogers was the highest-paid actress in London stage history when she starred in Mame there in the late '60s. Stars then customarily gave Christmas presents to all the members of the company. The highest-paid woman in London stage history gave the eighteen members of her orchestra one nine-pound jar of chocolates to share amongst themselves. The orchestra donated the economical gift to a children's charity.

The 1973 London production of Gypsy, btw, was first announced with Stritch, but the producers couldn't raise the money they needed on her name. The part was then offered to Angela, who at first turned it down but reconsidered. Maybe Rodgers turned down the London production at some early point but she was never offered Broadway.

I'm sure Richard Rodgers would have made a formidable Madame Rose but I was referring to Ginger Rogers above.

Great story, R183.

Jesus christ.

I don't care how much I was paid(and remember this was London in the 60s not Broadway) if I was expected to give every member of the cast and chorus along with every member of the orchestra of a big musical a gift(and what about the stage crew?) I would have been 'Are you fucking kidding me?'

The orchestra would have been lucky to get a box of Russell Stover cremes for the entire crew.

R187, you miss the point that stars are paid far more than most of their co-workers. And it's the job of those co-workers to give their all in order to make the star look good. A year-end thank you in the form of a token gift to each member of the the crew might have cost Ginger all of three hundred bucks when she was probably making at least five thousand a week.

Film queens like Ginger and Roz would only speak to the company through the stage manager where the real great stage stars tended to be generous and considerate. When Ethel Merman learned that producers Rodgers and Hammerstein docked the company of Annie Get Your Gun a portion of their pay to make up for lost ticket sales during her vacation, the star refused to go on again until the producers paid the cast their full back wages.

Mary Martin was so friendly to the chorus of South Pacific, she set up a barber pole backstage and gave free haircuts to any member of the company who dared to accept her services.

"[R160], wow! that is awful! where did you hear or read that? I know that Rita Hayworth was Ginger Roger's cousin and they said Ginger Rogers ignored that fact. Maybe she didn't like the fact that Rita Hayworth was have Spanish? Was ginger Rogers over all a mean person? some people claim she was while others claim she was very nice?"

Highly doubtful that Ginger and Rita were cousins, but Ginger and Lucille Ball were, according to Lucie Arnaz.

How was it a mutual decision when Cukor was bitter about it and considered himself 'fired.'

Cukor was too ambitious a man to ever quit a film like that. He could only have been pushed out.

Not that I ever got to talk to Cukor about it but everything I've read points to Gable pushing him out. And let's face it Gable probably had more power on that film than anyone.

Unless everything I've read about it was pure gossip. But I don't believe in the many interview's I've read with Cukor that he ever said it was a 'mutual decision.' It was always more of the 'I don't know what happened' variety.

He also allegedly said to Bette Davis 'I was fired from the biggest film of all time.'

The killing of Carl Switzer. As a child actor, he played Alfalfa on the Little Rascals/Our Gang.

Gower Champion gay??!! FUCK NO!!!!!

You have no idea what you're talking about, R191, beginning with the ridiculous idea that Gable had that kind of influence over Selznick.

My reply to R191 should have been to R190, obviously.

R193 you miscounted or misnumbered

You're absolutely right R191. You have NO idea what you're talking about.

190, 194, 193, 192, 196, R197 keep trying.

If Gable had demanded that Eleanor Roosevelt direct GWTW Selznick would have done cartwheels all the way to DC to get her to do it. He was the one irreplaceable factor.

R188 Very nice response to my bitchy post.

But would Rogers in London in the 60s really have been paid as much as 5k a week?

And did R and H really do such a shitty thing? I genuinely find it hard to believe.

Selznick wanted Ronald Colman and did everything he could to get him but he simply wasn't available. (Colman was also Margaret Mitchell's choice.) He also tried to get Gary Cooper and discussed a deal with Jack Warner for Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, but Davis, who wanted to play Scarlett, would not agree to Flynn.

Gable, despite being the public's pick, was the LAST person Selznick wanted. It meant making a deal with MGM and his former boss and current father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer. Going with MGM meant being forced to allow them to put up half the production costs in exchange for distribution rights with Loewe's, among other things. It was an act of desperation.

And Gable didn't want to do the part. AT ALL. HE didn't think he could meet the public's expectations and dreaded trying. (Not to mention he didn't want to work with Cukor for more than one reason.) He finally consented when Mayer did the old carrot and stick thing: he offered him a big bonus if he did and threatened to suspend him if he didn't. Gable needed the money to pay off his first wife, who was refusing him a divorce so he could marry Carole Lombard. Wife No. 1 accepted the deal and Gable was able to marry.

You really don't know much about the situation at all.

Richard Rodgers, who peed melody, was not a nice man.

(Not to mention he didn't want to work with Cukor for more than one reason.)

That was my entire point which for some reason you onitially chose to ignore.

And though publically it might have been a 'mutual decision' in everything I've read Cukor was clearly upset, never forgave Selznick(I think in fact he never worked for him again not for Selznick's lack of trying) and went the rest of his life claiming he was either 'fired' or he 'didn't know what was happening."

If Selznick didn't want Gable the public overwhelmingly did and Selznick knew the public of '39 was right. Which is why Selznick ditched his old friend in placating Gable.

The couple of scenes we know Cukor filmed that remain in the film are excellent. I think everyone would agree with that. And considering he directed Leigh and de Havilland behind the scenes and they both give brilliant performances all that 'unsatisfactory' stuff is whitewash.

If Cukor ever denied it was on Gable's say so because of an uncomfortable mutual past which he was being asked in the very open 70s I am not aware of it. He never confirmed it either as he was a discreet gentleman.

Someone said they did security of the Errol Flynn estate many years ago back in the 1980s. She said she walked right into secret passageways in his home behind walls in which he watched friends of his having sex through two way mirrors. She said the mirrors were still there at the tome. Has anyone heard of who were the actors who had sex in those rooms Flynn watched? Does anyone think his friend, Tyrone Power had sex in those rooms with the two way mirrors?

BTW, the tore down the estate in the 1990s and built subdivisions on the property. Also, the house was highly haunted and Tracy Nelson's father once owned the house. She said there was all kinds of supernatural activity going on.

As late as 1980, George Cukor told Dick Cavett that he had no idea why he was fired from GWTW, but would like to know before he died. He also insisted that scenes he shot were included in the final cut of the movie.

"The couple of scenes we know Cukor filmed that remain in the film are excellent."

I thought the problem was that Cukor was behind schedule? Or that Selznick wasn't happy with the direction the production was taking?

Or maybe it was Gable, it certainly could have been. The public overwhelmingly wanted him in the role, and he was the biggest cheese in the whole production. Once he signed on, he had to be kept happy, and that wasn't easy when he was working on THE most difficult role of his career.

"GWTW" really was the high point of his career, the one time where he combined his trademark charm and charisma with real depth of feeling. If Selznick had realized that Gable wasn't going to be able to achieve that because he hated the director, replacing the director would have made sense.

This thread is good! come on don't stop!

Mary Astor's diary which revealed her affair with the then married George S. Kaufman, x-rated excerpts were read aloud in court and they threatened to take her daughter away.

The Clara Bow-Daisy DeVoe trial which ended Clara's career

DW Griffith dying broke and alone at the Knickerbocker Hotel in LA (same place where Frances Farmer was dragged out of and put into the psych ward)

A 1948 blind item in one of the movie magazines that insinuated that Judy Garland had five doctor feel goods on the MGM lot. LB Mayer called his oak J Edgar Hoover to pay off the magazine so they wouldn't spill any more dirt on MGM's stars and Judy was shipped off to Brigham Hospital in Boston to "dry out"

The Charlie Chaplin- Joan Barry paternity trial, which made him move out of the US due to the public backlash mainly started by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Barry, who was mentally unstable and whose child's father was not Chaplin's, later killed herself.

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (among other stars in the early 30s) visiting with Mussolini in Rome. W.R. Hearst and Marion Davies met with Hitler in Berlin in the early 30s.

producer Walter Wanger shooting his wife Joan Bennett's agent after he suspected them of having an affair

Does anyone know what happened to the files the studios kept on the movie stars?

The studios had all the dirt on everybody back then and kept files.The studios had spies back then who would report to the main office on what they found out on the person.Closet homos, womanizers, drug users, orgies, etc. Certainly after all these years info would have been revealed to the public by now?

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What happened with Marilyn at the Cal Neva lodge not too long before she died?

I want to know more about the Lizabeth Scott scandal in about 1955, when it was alleged that Confidential found out that she was a regular at a lesbian brothel. Has it ever been substantiated? There is a wonderful youtube interview with her from 1996, she seems very humorous and warm, yet at the same time you can detect a certain bitterness when she talks about her career.

Do lesbian brothels even exist?

Lesbian bars have a hard time staying in business because the gals don't even like to pay much for their drinks.

I don't think Lizabeth Scott was exposed as a regular at a lesbian brothel. It was just a generic brothel. And no, it was never proven.

Maude Adams - who was the most famous stage actress of her time -the actress in Somewhere In Time is based on her. The people that worked with her absolutely adored her. She was a lesbian.

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Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Katina Paxinou (For Whom the Bell Tolls) had rival Greek actress Eleni Papadaki murdered and turned the whole country against her (if you google the latter you can basically get the gist). It was later found out to be false accusations and planted stories of Nazi involvement (amongst other things) - in reality she had saved many from the Germans. There are several Greek biographies and websites that blatantly name Paxinou as the actress who falsely denounced her, but she was very powerful for decades and was never publicly acknowledged as the culprit during her lifetime.

R200, you forgot about one of Gable's wives in your post. Clark was looking to divorce his second wife, a Texas socialite named Ria, so he could marry Carole.

His first wife, the older lady who was an acting teacher and who shaped him into the actor and man he became, was long gone by then. He cut her out of his life completely when he got famous.

The story I read was that Gable knew that Cukor knew that Gable had been fucked in some toilet by Billy Haines when a much younger Gable was on the hustle. Haines would show up on the set of GWTW to visit Cukor and Gable could not handle it. Cukor or Gable had to go.

The Facebook groups on Tyrone Power they will block you if you even remotely ask if he was bisexual. Tyrone Power's family controls those fan groups and anything other than he was married and had children is CENSORED. It is amazing after all of these years children of celebrities ban any remote hint that their parents or parent were capable of having affairs , being bisexual, gay, lesban, etc. In fact, people are claiming that Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift were bisexual which is a complete lie because they were 100% gay. They only point out made one or two actors and/or actresses that MIGHT have been gay. They still want everyone to believe that everyone in Hollywood was squeaky clean and lived predictable lives.

Oh my, Big Bill Tilden was big in ways more than one...

I read somewhere that the matinee idol forced to marry was MGM star Nelson Eddy, whom studio head Mayer set up with an older woman, amenable to Eddy's situation. At the time, late 30's, Eddy was a major star, with a huge following, even though both him and the kind of kitschy pictures he made, are largely forgotten today.

Nelson loved the scent of fresh baked cookies.

And Olivier always came across as such a stagey fag in his movies. I've never understood the acclaim for him.

Used to have an older gay friend, who at the time I knew him, lived in Sedona, AZ. I spent the night once at his place, sleeping on the couch, BTW, and noticed an 8x10 b&w photo in the bathroom of a callow young man with a wry expression. When asked who this was, my friend, who at that time resembled Gabby Hays, with a full shaggy head of grey hair and beard, said it was him, back when he was a contract player in Hollywood. He later added he'd had an affair with an actor named John Hodiak, who, in the late 40's, was well-known for playing in gangster pictures, and had a pretty masculine public image. My friend added that other actors, such as Cesar Romero and George Montgomery, were also gay, but very, very careful. When asked what studio he was contracted to, my friend did not answer, though I came to assume it was Universal, where Hodiak made a number of films at that time. When I asked him about George Cukor's notorious Sunday afternoon, all-male pool parties, my friend said he'd never gone to them, adding that Hollywood was such a small town, and still is, that, if anyone went to those parties, it was all over town by Monday morning, and he could say good-bye to his career. That's the way it was back then.

And, frankly, though there seems to be a lot of leeway nowadays, I wonder if times have really changed, since the closet still seems to be the domain for the big money stars. Honey, it's all about the money...

Love this thread. Anyone got any gossip about the 'battling Bogarts? apparently Humphrey and Mayo would come to blows....frequently! I have always thought that Bogart was a conflicted man, conflicte over his acting ability ( which I think was shaky to say the least) and about his sexuality too! Thoughts?

Tired old queen at the movies, tired old queen at the movies, tired old queen at the movies with Steve Hayes and Johnnyyyyy!!!

[R224] Did your friend really tell you that George Montgomery liked the dick? wow he was a real hunk in the 40s and he kind of always sets off my gaydar when I see him in a movie.

The actor David Manners, who starred in Dracula 1931, and also opposite Kate Hepburn in Bill of Divorcement, was gay and very sexy. He left Hollywood in the 30s and went on some kind of spiritual journey of self discovery. He started a spiritual group out in the sticks somewhere that reads like a hippie commune. He lived alone till he met a guy at 48 who he stayed with for the next 20 plus years. He sounds interesting, much like Bill Haines. The gay guys of that period really had to find their own way in a world that was very hostile towards their sexuality.

Wow, R228! David Manners looks like Don Draper. I've never even heard of him before.

Tyrone!

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"I have always thought that Bogart was a conflicted man, conflicte over his acting ability ( which I think was shaky to say the least) and about his sexuality too!"

Sigh. But isn't EVERY MAN "conflicted about their sexuality" in your little world? Aren't they ALL secretely gay after all ? Aren't they all just like you? Why don't you entertain us and explain why you think Bogart was, according to you, a secret homo. I'm just dying to hear it.

[quote]Why don't you entertain us and explain why you think Bogart was, according to you, a secret homo. I'm just dying to hear it.

He was an actor. All actors are at least a little gay. Playing dress-up, and make-up and let's pretend is not a straight man's occupation.

Thank you for confirming what an imbecile you are.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote] There's been gossip that Bogart felt conflicted about his sexuality. It isn't for the reasons [R233] states, but it's out there.

Gossip by Darwin Porter ? lol Thanks for playing.

I've been exchanging Classic Hollywood gossip for decades, and this might literally be the first time I heard a gay rumor about Humphrey Bogart. Everything else I've heard about him is about pretty damn dysfunctional relationships with women.

Clark Gable, Burt Lancast, Monty Clift, Rock Hudson... I've been reading gay rumors and veiled hints about them for decades, including published ones, but nothing about Bogart.

Noel Coward, maybe (not 100% sure without Googling it) claimed to have given Bogart a blowjob at some point.

Loretta Young's and Clark Gable's illegitimate daughter.

Burt Reynolds accused of killing Sarah Miles' boyfriend on location.

Supposedly in 1931, there was a gigantic orgy at MGM's offices on Christmas Eve. Many of the regular workers, such as secretaries, accountants, script girls, etc., got plied with alcohol and had a giant romp in the office, on the desks, under the desks, wherever. I don't remember all of the sordid details, but Gregory Mank's masterful book "Hollywood Cauldron" goes into detail about it, as did an issue of the great old film mag Scarlet Street. I'll post the issue number of the mag later when I find it, since it's probably not too expensive on eBay, though Mank's book is(and worth every penny).

R41, I googled for Mank's book and couldn't find anything. "Hollywood Cauldron" brings me to horror films.

Never mind.

What isn't known? It wasn't really a scandal but I was always impressed with William Haines' refusal to deny his sexuality and the sweetness that he remained in a loyal relationship for over 40 years with the same man.

I do wonder what the name of the young girl who Marion Davies mentioned was raped by the crew on a French yacht she was on (or was it French crew for one of Randolph Hearst's boats?) was.

Was Janet Gaynor gay and in a lavender marriage with Adrain, who was also likely gay?

R237, Hollywood Cauldron is a book that focuses primarily on the horror genre, but it intertwines the history of the studios and the personalities behind them with the making of these pictures. For instance, the MGM orgy story is told in a chapter about the outrageous 1932 Karloff picture The Mask of Fu Manchu. There's information about Ted Healy's death in the section on Karl Fruend's Mad Love. The suicide/murder? of Harlow's husband Paul Bern is also referenced in one of the chapters, possibly the one on Mark of the Vampire. There are lots of anecdotes about Laird Cregar's personal life in the chapters on The Lodger and Hangover Square.

And so on. It's a book for any fan of classic Hollywood.

The issue of Scarlet Street Magazine that references the MGM orgy is issue 24. It may be just be the chapter from Mank's book excerpted, so it might pay to just get the magazine if that's all anyone is interested in reading about. I see copies on eBay with BIN's of 5.99.

Has anyone seen that latest Enquirer? Supposedly the exhumed Natalie Wood's body and it says her head was crushed? Is this Enquirer BS or is this true? Is there more information about this story, and what they are finding out?

Montgomery Clift was beyond being a stud, but truly beautiful which he captivate people and everyone was in awe. Apparently he had an ability to seduce straight men because of his hypnotic beauty which they said is an extremely rare thing for a gay to be able to do. BTW, people keep saying he was bisexual which is bull! The man was 100% gay!

Nicholas Ray was fucking both Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo while they were making Rebel Without a Cause. Apparently he couldn't get into James Dean's pants.

While Ray was married to Gloria Grahame. He divorced her after he found her in bed with his 13 year old son, Tony. Gloria and Tony married ten years later.

We don't seem to have any interesting scandals anymore.

Judy Garland was into the booze.

Suzanne Clift, 21, niece of actor Montgomery Clift killed her Italian boyfriend, Piero B. Bretani whose nude body was found in her padlocked bedroom. Piero, 27, was shot through the back of the head with a 22 caliber pistol. She murdered him, because she was pregnant to his child and he refused to marry her.

> While Ray was married to Gloria Grahame. He divorced her after he found her in bed with his 13 year old son, Tony. Gloria and Tony married ten years later.

Why were all these stepmothers sleeping with their stepsons in those days? George Hamilton has a similar story in another post.

In fac, it's not just stepmothers - lots of very young boys were going to bed with older girls and women (neighbours, babysitters, maids etc). It's so not right.

It's always been a thing

Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were married to other people when they began sleeping together. They eventually divorced their spouses and married each other and the public forgave them.

During the 1930's-40's my great aunt was a nurse at a hospital in LA. She took care of Joan Crawford who was in being treated for syphilis. She didn't reveal this until she was almost 90 and even then could barely say the word.

Arlene Francis killed two people

Interesting article on the 2 young guys who killed Ramon Novarro.

That is pretty interesting, R256. Maybe that was why she couldn't have children? I remember reading she couldn't carry to term, but I don't know if that could be because of syphilis.

R237, Clark Gable was bisexual but this isn't some well kept secret.

I dont believe Loretta Young when she claims she was date raped by Clarke. She was a hypocritical self-loathing Catholic and her later lies and delusions were abominable.