Anonymous child star dishes dirt about Hollywood sexual harassment. Who is it?

Louis B. Mayer? It has to be Judy!

I'll bet the abuser was NEVER Lennie Hayton. He was too "sweet."

Here's the Norma Shearer in the article:

[quote] One day, when she was around six, as she remembers it, she and her mother were waiting to see Mayer. The door to his office opened, revealing a woman, with her back to them, shouting at Mayer, “Don’t tell me! I fucked every one of you bastards on the way up.” The woman turned around: it was Norma Shearer, who was married to Irving Thalberg, Mayer’s partner at M-G-M. That was the first time the young actress heard the word “fuck.” Later, in Mayer’s office, she asked him what it meant. She didn’t get her answer right away.

Can't be Baby Peggy I guess, she's 100, but she would have been my first guess.

Might have been Rose Marie before she died. She was contributing to articles right up until the end.

The Norma Shearer stuff sure makes it sound like Margaret O'Brien, though.

Cora Sue Collins?

I also think it's Margret O'Brien; the "90 years old" is to throw us off.

Yep, Cora Sue Collins

Ah, here we go: Cora Sue Collins.

Wow, posted at the same time.

There's an outside chance it's Marilyn Knowlden but I think Collins fits better. Collins has the eyebrows.

Yes, it's Cora Sue, who was in Anna Karenina with Garbo, Evelyn Prentice with Myrna Loy, and The Dark Angel with Merle Oberon.

The clues include:

- 90 years old (born 1927)

- still alive, living in Beverly Hills

- MGM child star

- appeared in 110 films

- "alongside Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Merle Oberon—as the little-girl version of all the big-name stars" (did she play these women's characters in flashbacks as a child?)

- friends with Lucille Ball and Ava Gardner

- eyebrows never grew back

Has to be Cora Sue... her filmography stops abruptly in the mid-1940s.

She was such a tiny little thing when she started out, it's incredibly fucked up that men would have been after her like that.

It is a good day when I can contribute to a perplexing Hollywood Golden Era sexual harassment question on DataLounge.

In which Judy Garland picture did Cora Sue Collins get her start?

Probably one of Judy's daughters. I am sure Judy told all, I would hope so.

Never heard of her, why anonymous?

Never heard of Cora Sue Collins so I guess "star" is being used very loosely here.

"her filmography stops abruptly in the mid-1940s."

That's when she stopped putting out.

She was in All This and Heaven Too as well as Queen Christina (and Magnificent Obsession, Blood and Sand, and Mad Love) so hand in your gay card if you really think she was a nobody.

Anonymous because her kids dont know.

Here's an 2014 interview with Cora Sue where she talks about playing the younger version of the big stars and repeats Louis B. Meyer threat about never working on a soundstage again (although here she doesn't disclose the sexual harassment stuff).

I think R19 means hand in your Eldergay card.

[quote]Given that she worked for MGM and got her start on a Judy Garland picture, I thought it had to be Margaret O'Brien.

The New Yorker article didn't say she got her start on a Judy Garland picture. It said she met Judy at her very first casting call and got the part.

R22, if you think only old people know who classic film stars are nowadays, then you're the one who's out of touch.

I don't know why we always get people like you on these threads. You never heard of TCM or home video? You've never seen one of the literally hundreds of classic movie blogs, Tumblrs or Twitters?

^ R24

R24, you're an Honorary Old Person.

Cora Sue first married in 1944, so was 17 at most (40 in Hollywood years). Now that I have a name for the face, and read her CV, I remember her as the baby Garbo in Queen Christina.

I knew you'd come through! Thank you DLers for solving this mystery.

Angela knew....

Because she's never told her kids, R16.

Just yesterday someone started a thread on how come child stars of the pre 1970s aren't yelling about abuse, then today this comes out.

Datalounge SCOOPS again.

Oh, I love Cora Sue Collins! She's just adorable as little Norma Shearer in one of my all-time favorites, "Smilin' Through"

Was that before or after she heard Norma say that she (Norma) had fucked her way to the top?

That Norma incident doesn't ring true. She didn't have to fuck them all, she fucked Thalberg and that was more than enough. Sure, she had a few affairs before she got married but there aren't any stories about her and Mayer.

The little girl was six. I'd take that anecdote with a grain of salt.

[quote]R32 Was that before or after she heard Norma say that she (Norma) had fucked her way to the top?

Yeah. When she shot her scene as Young Norma, did she ask the director, "So, I guess I should I play this scene like a hardened whore, or what?"

Cora visits the recent and now closed Harlow exhibit at the Hollywood Museum.

R35, wow! She hasn't aged a day!

Billy Barty?

Did you click the link asshole?

So, So sad. How do you know Norma didn't have to fuck her way up to meet Thalberg? Or that in her official bio Norma would lie? Old Hollywood was notorious for changing the star's bios. And Norma wasn't the prettiest thing.

I was going to guess Virginia Weidler, little Mary from "The Women" and then "Philadelphia Story", but looked her up and saw she died back in the 60s of a heart attack --age 41. I had no idea.

Which hwood grand dame said she could Work with any bitch in town except Margaret Obrien.

There seem to be a number “child stars” of that era that we’ve never heard of. My mother had Gloria Jean paper dolls and I’d never heard of her.

[quote]R42 Gloria Jean

Poor man's Deana Durbin...but non-objectionable, really.

Good compilation.....and she introduces it.

When is Olivia de Havilland gonna speak out? It's common knowledge that Sophocles wanted sexual favors from her in exchange for title role in Antigone.

Betty White

R39, Joan?