The story was the basis for the 2006 film, “Hollywoodland,” in which Reeves was played by Ben Affleck. https://www.grunge.com/36112/scandalous-stories-old-hollywood The yacht he was on belonged to newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, and the guest list included Charlie Chaplin and actress Marion Davies. The young actress' death led to a … There have been a huge number of discussions about just what happened on the day she died, but we're not here to talk about that. By the time Natalie Wood was 25, she had three Oscar nominations under her belt. 22-year-old Dominique Dunne was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend which was the first death that was said to be caused by the curse. Her memoirs were published after her death in 2000, describing a girl who grew up poor but beautiful, whose devout religious upbringing shamed her into silence. Dorothy Mackaye, Paul Kelly, and Ray Raymond. His company would eventually become MGM. Possibly the first big Hollywood scandal took place in 1921. He… Christian pleaded guilty and spent five years in prison. Natalie Wood was a star at an early age, appearing in the 1947 holiday classic Miracle... 2. Many others were put in physical danger. He said he had gone into the bathroom when she collapsed in the room. He married two 16-year-old girls (Mildred Harris in 1918, after a pregnancy scare, then Lita Grey in 1924). See more ideas about hollywood, hollywood crime, movie stars. She suffered from a chronic condition called cystitis, or bladder inflammation. Don't recognize the name? But it remains shrouded in mystery to this day. Okay, so technically she was his first cousin once removed (she was the daughter of Lewis’ cousin J.W. funeral for her lover, Rudolph Valentino. However, the Hollywood rumor mill quickly generated other ideas, the main one being that Hearst, who suspected his wife of having an affair with Charlie Chaplin (who was also onboard the yacht), accidentally shot Ince instead of Chaplin. Young's response was simply, "That's what happened between me and Clark.". To refute rumors of an affair, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich denied having ever met each other. In what seems to be a strikingly similar series of events to those … She was 14 when her first movie came out. His insistence that he didn't care what she looked like — it was that voice that he wanted — ended up being horribly ironic. Ramon Novarro. The pressure on young women actors like Garland to become (and stay) thin was intense and often left a lifelong, devastating legacy. It wasn’t just age difference that got between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey … At the same time, she turned to amphetamines and alcohol on an ever-increasing scale. In 1966, Young finally told not-so-little Judy the truth: her father was Clark Gable. See more ideas about old hollywood, hollywood, actresses. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. These eerie demises were far from glamorous. The story of the curse started when the word got out that the skeletons used in the film weren't fake. Here are some great ones you might not have heard. Reeves was found dead in his California home with a gunshot wound in his head, not long after he had broken off an affair with Toni Mannix, the wife of infamous MGM “fixer” Eddie Mannix. The cogs and gears that actually move Hollywood forward are oiled with dirty back lot stories. The contents of the note were never divulged. All that's really known for sure is that both he and Rappe were guests at a booze-filled Labor Day party. Crawford played an amateur actress named Gloria. Once quoted as saying, “I like my whiskey old and my women young,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood” actor Errol Flynn was accused of having sex with two 17-year-old girls, charges which he denied. His career was ruined, though, at least as Fatty Arbuckle. Overcome with jealousy, Wanger reportedly started firing a gun at Lang’s groin. The funnyman was charged with manslaughter but was eventually cleared after three trials. Entwistle took her own life by jumping off the “H” on the Hollywood sign. That didn't keep Maria from pushing her, though. Decades before #MeToo, Hollywood was a playground for men who lorded their power over vulnerable women. He also died in an incredibly suspicious way. Case closed, at least, according to MGM head of publicity Howard Strickling and MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer, who conveniently brushed contrary evidence under the carpet. Indeed, these famous celebrity deaths are particularly haunting. Good tried to make a comeback, and strangely, discovered a young comedian named Bob Hope before dying of a heart attack at 46 years old. According to the public, he had killed her during an attempted rape. Back in the day, it certainly wasn’t uncommon for Hollywood stars to marry much younger women. Her cause of death was peritonitis and a ruptured bladder. Killkare." She was signed to an MGM contract when she was 13, discovered by MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer. He'd also "pretend" to beat her in public, and when she'd douse herself in ketchup to simulate blood, they'd revel in the hysterics of the people around them. But it brought me and Jerry very close, and we had ten incredible, wonderful years together after that.”. He was taken from the yacht, supposedly to the care of a doctor at a Los Angeles hotel. Can you imagine if they’d been successful? “I had no idea that his intentions were to ‘date’ me,” Henderson said. Jul 7, 2012 - Their Lives might or might not have been tragic, that's not what's in question here. During a press conference in February 2018, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department said they were “still working” on the case. A Colorado senator even called Bergman “a powerful influence for evil.” Meanwhile, Rossellini didn’t get off lightly; he was named a “Nazi collaborator inspired by cocaine.” Their romance even spurred some government officials to try to start a system where actors would be banned from working if they engaged in illicit activities. Gable never publicly acknowledged that Judy was his child. John Lennon, Selena, and Dimebag Darrell are just a few entertainers who were killed by people obsessed with them. Both Garbo and Dietrich were major stars, being nominated for Oscars in the 1930s. But she may forever be best known for drowning under mysterious circumstances. In November 1924, movie pioneer Thomas Ince attended a party on business mogul William Randolph Hearst’s private yacht. We'll start with the fact that he was 48 and estranged from his third wife when he first hooked up with the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland in a tryst that, according to her, was nowhere near consensual. Paramount called it quits with her after she was arrested for drunk driving, and she spiraled out of control. Her career disappointments, combined with the breakdown of her marriage and ongoing mental illness, lead to her tragic death in September 1932. Actress Joan Bennett starred in 1933’s “Little Women,” alongside Katharine Hepburn, and married the film’s producer, Walter Wanger. Copyright © The Delite, All Rights Reserved. To maintain her weight, the studio had her on a diet that included only chicken soup, black coffee, 80 cigarettes a day, and appetite suppressants every four hours. After filming, Young headed off to Europe for a few months before returning to California. She also described herself as a surrogate daughter for him. It — whatever "it" was, exactly — happened on Labor Day in 1921, in Room 1219 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. When someone asked her what he had died from, she answered, "My mother." There are few Hollywood stars who take the idea of the girl next door and elevate it to iconic, but that's exactly what Judy Garland did. When Aadland finally went public in 1996, she wove a bizarrely fascinating story of their life together. “It was something that marked Jerry for life,” Myra told Cuepoint. Garland's abortion affected her for life, but when Davis later had children, she was reportedly proud that she could conceive and carry even after all the abortions she'd had. Lang recovered in the hospital, Wanger served four months in jail, and Bennett’s career took a nosedive. When he starred in 1935’s “The Call of the Wild” with Loretta Young, leading man Clark Gable got a little more than he bargained for. Despite the couple divorcing so the “Casablanca” star and Rossellini could be together, the public couldn’t get over the scandal, which was intensified when Bergman had a child with Rossellini out of wedlock. They were going to call their baby Woodland, as he called her "Woodsie" because he was fond of saying she reminded him of a wood nymph. Natalie Wood (Pictured Above). According to her, there were plans for them to marry (their engagement was announced at her 17th birthday party), have children (he reversed his vasectomy), and move to Jamaica (a house was being built and a wedding chapel renovated). Biographers for Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford (who was also pregnant by Clark Gable), Bette Davis, Lana Turner, and Judy Garland all say they went to Strickling, sometimes not entirely willingly. But of the estimated $4 million he earned from them, his parents refused to give him a cent. The most persistent rumor to plague legendary “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” actress Joan Crawford throughout her career was that she starred in a sex tape when she was starting out in Hollywood. Jerry Lee Lewis had already been married twice before he wed his cousin, Myra Gale Brown, in 1958. Behind the scenes, though, what happened to her was nothing short of abuse. According to the rumors, Hearst had stumbled upon Davies (who was his mistress at the time) and Charlie Chaplin getting a little frisky. So it was with Pierre Collings, screenwriter, whose screenplay of The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) won him two Academy Awards in 1937. She also said that she eventually did fall in love with him and spent the two years before his death traveling the world with him. Except she didn’t, really. “I was the last to find out about the affair,” Reynolds told the Daily Mail in 2010. The blonde in question was likely Bern's ex, Dorothy Millette, who killed herself days later. He was killed by a single gunshot wound, and MGM was quick to point out that he was also found with a suicide note. Released in 1950, she attempted a return to the screen, but a lifetime of alcoholism, addiction, and rebellion was impossible to change. Signed by Paramount when she was 22, Farmer made it a point to rebel against all the studio grooming and shaping that went into creating most of her contemporaries. Cue an international media frenzy and much speculation: many suspected that Turner herself was responsible and Crane took the fall. Another scandalous headline involving Charlie Chaplin came after he was scorned by U.S. Attorney General James P. McGranery, who believed Chaplin was anti-American. After the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain in 1994, his wife Courtney Love kept … After he sold MGM, he founded Paramount Pictures and sold it, too. The media labeled Elizabeth Taylor a “homewrecker” when she started dating her close friend Debbie Reynolds’ husband, Eddie Fisher, shortly after her own third husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash. Unhappily Ever After: Heartbreaking Old Hollywood Love Stories 1. Now, it's thought she died from the nightmarish concoction the studios used to keep her hair a desirable platinum blonde: ammonia, bleach, and peroxide. Delmont would never take the stand at the trial, as she admitted that she had tried to blackmail him and other powerful men she procured girls for. Go f**k yourself." Everyone goes through heartbreak, even Hollywood couples. See more ideas about Movie stars, Grave memorials, Hollywood. Jane And Peter FondaFrom the outside, Jane and Peter Fonda appear to have it all. For Clark Gable, Carole … The film studios controlled every aspect of the actors’ lives, with women suffering even more than men. Her wrist shattered, but her mother — and the director — kept filming to get the shot before allowing her to be saved. But in 1924 his new studio was failing, bankruptcy was looming, and he set out on a cruise in honor of birthday number 42. That was in March 1950, and the senator didn't let up, either. She's most famous for the mysterious way she died, on a yacht with her husband, Robert Wagner, and Christopher Walken. All in good fun, she said! Stalkers and deranged fans are another concern that celebrities have to deal with. But intensive research by author and film historian Diana McLellan uncovered evidence of a possible affair during the filming of the 1925 silent German film “The Joyless Street.”. For some reason, despite far bigger scandals being attached to John Lennon (both during and after his lifetime), the one that people seem most concerned with is his statement that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” It didn’t cause that big a stir when it was first published in the London Evening Standard in March 1966, but after it was reprinted in the teen magazine Datebook four months later, things got really heated. In the end, it was ruled a justifiable homicide. Sep 11, 2013 - Explore alice andersen's board "Tragic endings :’(" on Pinterest. His early departure from the festivities had, on the face of it, a simple explanation: an upset stomach. Stories vary about whether the U.S. forbade Bergman to return or if she left voluntarily, but she lost custody of her first daughter, Pia, either way. Chivalry still existed, and so did romance. Yes, Gable was married at the time, to Maria Langham. All the components for a great Hollywood movie. (Of course, everyone in Hollywood probably laughed as they signed those and then celebrated with a booze-filled orgy.). Some of these scandals have been all but forgotten, while others live in infamy to this day. Feb 27, 2016 - Explore Kim Kendall's board "hollywood crimes/scandals/tragedies ", followed by 471 people on Pinterest. In a jealous rage, Hearst tried to kill Chaplin, missed, and killed Ince instead. Old Hollywood is known for its glitz and its glamour, but a lot of shocking things went on behind the polished facade. Her Knight in Noir Armor. The death of George Reeves, who’s best known for playing Clark Kent/Superman in the 1950s TV series, was ruled a suicide. So, when faced with making a choice between their career or a child, many chose to call Strickling for an appointment with his friend, "Dr. Early in his career he was coached by MGM executives who turned him from an amateur stage presence into one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Growing more and more difficult on set, Paramount "punished" her by pushing her into mediocre roles. We've all heard awful "casting couch" stories from recent years, and it turns out, Old Hollywood had its fair share of dirty secrets, from abortions to pedophilia. (It worked: Natalie's sister is Lana Wood, the Bond girl of Diamonds Are Forever.) Sometimes, they made the juiciest of today's gossip look like it was written by a devout Christian doing his best to be edgy ... and failing miserably. Old Hollywood From Bombshell Bigger Than Marilyn To A Tragic End At 34, The Rise And Fall Of Jayne Mansfield 117.2k readers Entertainment Why Did Bette Davis And Joan Crawford Have A Legendary Feud? It was the first time a film director had faced criminal charges for events that occurred while making a movie. Playing Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz” made her a teen superstar but things were far from perfect behind the scenes for Judy Garland. Then, in 1943, when Chaplin was 53, he married 18-year-old Oona O’Neill, the daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill. Coogan sued them for the money in 1938, but after he paid his legal fees, he was left with only $126,000. Jackie Coogan, who starred alongside Charlie Chaplin in “The Kid,” made 19 films before his 18th birthday. Sex symbols were all discouraged from getting married, and getting pregnant was a definite no-no. Tragic Hollywood Starlets: 11 Leading Ladies Who Hid Their Secret Past ... From scandalous secrets to heartwarming stories, there isn’t much … In 1958, he was stabbed to death by Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, who said she did it to protect her mother from Stompanato’s violence. With Rossellini, she had a child — also named Roberto — and they started divorcing their respective spouses so they could marry in 1950. She made peace with it.". Some stories from the heyday of glamourous Hollywood are disturbing, but Natalie Wood's story is just heartbreaking. When actresses withdrew into seclusion for "rest" or an "appendectomy," it was code for abortion. Loretta Young wasn't the only star facing the problem of having a child that wasn't planned, but most went to MGM head of publicity Howard Strickling to fix their inconvenient problem. She was told she was a "fat little pig with pigtails," and the studio started her on a diet. The accusations of rape first came from Rappe's friend, Bambina Maude Delmont, who would tell police that Arbuckle had raped her. And in 1921, he was the unlikely defendant in a murder trial. We like to think that it was a better, more honorable time, where the men were gentlemen and the women were ladies. Meanwhile, when Lennon later sang about a fantasy world with “no religion” in his song, “Imagine,” it nearly topped the charts and became a classic. Wood was pushed into show business when she was 7 years old, and she was never entirely sure who her father was. Meanwhile, Young was such a devout Catholic that she insisted on a swear jar for on-set expletives, to which Spencer Tracy reportedly said, "Here's a twenty, sister. Not content with just restricting what she was allowed to eat, they went so far as to serve her food ... and take it away before she touched it. Some American radio DJs smashed Beatles records live on the air and urged listeners to send their Beatles records and paraphernalia to the station to meet the same fate. On January 4, 1991, with one word— guilty— the long and tragic path of Brando and his family hit the bottom. Blonde bombshell Jean Harlow married producer Paul Bern on July 2, 1932, and on September 5, they found his body. The tragic story of Pierre Collings Thursday, February 8th, 2018 Time, fame and money trip lightly in Hollywood, and the men and women who have them one day, find themselves alone and penniless the next. According to Tallulah Bankhead's biographer, she got "abortions like other women got permanent waves," and the list of women who had Strickling on the 1930s equivalent of speed dial was a long one. Fast-forward a bit. Florence Henderson, who played Carol in the beloved 1970s TV show “The Brady Bunch,” went on a date with Barry Williams, who played her eldest son, Greg, on the show. He went home the next day and died. When she was getting ready to film The Wizard of Oz, a good number of studio memos about her had to do with her diet. In exchange, Ray cast her in Rebel Without A Cause. On July 8, the actress,… According to Arbuckle, he had brought her upstairs to rest because she had been complaining of exhaustion and difficulty breathing. The evidence against him was pretty simply Rappe's words: "He did this to me.". We're here to talk about her mother. Wood, age 43, was on a boat ride with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, and her “Brainstorm” co-star and rumored lover, Christopher Walken. Brown), but it was enough to make the singer’s career hit the gutter. It was afternoon when Rappe's screams brought people to the suite, and she died a few days later. If you've ever read the Twitter storm that happens when someone makes a snide comment and things get out of control, that's nothing compared to what Bergman and Rossellini went through. If it did happen, they were put under extreme pressure to get an abortion. It contains murder, betrayal, and lust. The death of Judy Garland is a prime example of how Tinseltown might sparkle on the surface, but roil with trauma just below.. Garland was a child actor-turned-Hollywood songbird who found fame through films like The Wizard of Oz, For Me and My Gal, and A Star is Born.But her tenure in Hollywood was a double-edged sword, as with the fame came a lifetime of judgment and abuse on … Hollywood conjures visions of celebrity and glamour, but underneath the twinkle of Tinseltown lies a sinister underbelly that has led some of the brightest stars to their tragic ends. It may be going too far to label Disney an anti-Semite, but there’s definitely evidence that he at the very least admired Riefenstahl. 34.1k readers Entertainment In Old Hollywood Child Stars Were Forced To Do Drugs, And Other Awful Realities 337.5k readers Old Hollywood What Marilyn Monroe’s Colleagues Said About Working … At the time, movie studios were banking on being able to market their female stars in a very particular way. (We warned you it was going to get creepier.) It was a stunt that was only possible pre-internet. Walt Disney has long been accused of anti-Semitism, and the insinuation isn’t entirely baseless. After guests heard screaming from the room, they rushed in and found Rappe writhing in agony. Declared mentally incompetent, she went through a series of shock therapies, and she was possibly even lobotomized (although that's disputed). Mobster Johnny Stompanato began an abusive relationship with actress Lana Turner in the mid-1950s. These Old Hollywood scandals give another insight into what life, love and illicit liaisons were like for yesterday’s biggest stars of the stage and screen. They were born … However, it’s worth noting that the “date” ended with a peck on the cheek, at which point Henderson went home to her husband and four kids. The former Glee star died in July 2020, following a boating incident where she went missing. According to IMDb, the film, known as “The Casting Couch,” showed aspiring actors and actresses at a Hollywood party, where they act out scenes from different movies. A jury found him not guilty, potentially swayed by Flynn’s star power. There's a certain undeniable elegance about old movies. Old Hollywood is known for its glitz and its glamour, but a lot of shocking things went on behind the polished facade. Comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was at a party with an unknown actress, Virginia Rappe, and they ended up in a hotel bedroom together. Judy, who died in 2011 at the age of 76, was 31 before she learned the full truth about her parentage. Even the U.S. Senate got involved, with a Colorado senator going so far as to denounce her behavior and call her "a powerful influence for evil." Sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen. When he was 16 and she was 36, they went to a restaurant for dinner. It's not surprising she would spend her days fantasizing about food or that being forced to turn to pills and alcohol in the face of the eating disorders she developed led her to a condition doctors called "permanent semi-invalid"... at 37 years old. About 19 months later, she announced that she was going to adopt a young girl and picked one up from an orphanage. In case you hadn’t noticed, Old Hollywood was a dark place behind the scenes. Clark Gable was more of a creation than an actor. The Death of Bobbi Kristina Brown. In 1951, Bennett found herself at the center of a scandal after Wanger witnessed her chatting to her long-time agent, Jennings Lang. In 2016, actress Tippi Hedren accused director Alfred Hitchcock of harassment, claiming that he grabbed her, tried to kiss her and had a secret door installed between his office and her dressing room. “We kept thinking every year, every six months, that it was going to go away, they’re going to stop talking about it, and it just didn’t happen. That mother was Maria, who had moved the family to L.A. in hopes of pushing her daughters to stardom. Musician Peter Ivers was best known for being the host of early 1980’s music show, New Wave Theatre.On March 3 rd 1983, Ivers was found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in his LA apartment. Let’s lighten things up with the time that Carol Brady dated her son. Things took a serious turn when Ince died several days later, reportedly by natural causes. She referred to their relationship as a "game," where he did hilarious things like arrange to have her arrested on bogus charges in France. See the tragic stories behind these old Hollywood pairs that were never told. After three trials, he was finally acquitted. 17 Unbelievably Tragic Movie Star Deaths In Hollywood History. By the time they got together, Flynn's career was at an all-time low, in part because of his persistent drunkenness, and in part because of debt, lawsuits filed by a few ex-wives for back child support, and allegations of sexual assault involving two underage girls (but not Aadland). (The only real problem with that was that Prohibition started one year before.) He was one of the comedic greats, the first star to be worth a million dollars, known as the king of slapstick. The fact they left us too soon is the tragedy. That included ignoring things like a neighbor's testimony that a "woman in black" had been dropped off at his home and that she'd been there when the gun went off. No one would buy a blonde bombshell who was a wife and a mother, and in other cases (like Judy Garland's), no one was going to believe a woman could be sweet, innocent, and virginal when she had a child out of wedlock. Maria once was told by a fortune-teller that she would drown, and she instilled a fear of drowning into her daughter. Amateurs. Garland’s treatment at the hands of MGM’s studio head, Louis B. Mayer, (she was reportedly allowed only black coffee and chicken soup, plus 80 cigarettes a day and a cocktail of pills) triggered an eating disorder and arguably contributed to her death, at age 47, from an accidental drug overdose. She died in 1970, 56 years old, once saying, "I blame nobody for my fall. accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her, invited Nazi propagandist filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to Walt Disney Studios, banned Chaplin from re-entering the country, Entwistle took her own life by jumping off the “H” on the Hollywood sign, Tippi Hedren accused director Alfred Hitchcock. In Hedren’s autobiography, “Tippi: A Memoir,” she wrote that Hitchcock would “find some way to express his obsession with me, as if I owed it to him to reciprocate somehow.”. The death of actress Virginia Rappe has always been a haunting story from … Tragedy struck on the California set of “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” During a scene set during the Vietnam war, a helicopter hit a stunt explosion and crashed, killing actor Vic Morrow and the two child actors he was working with, Renee Shinn Chen and Myca Dinh Le. When Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier first met, they were both married to other... 2. So what really happened? She may have been a punchline to some and sex personified to others, but the life of blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe has become the ultimate tale of … And, as it turns out, this happened in the Golden Age of Hollywood as well. In his 1992 autobiography, “Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg,” Williams revealed that he was infatuated with his TV mom. I think I've won the right to control myself.". The big scandal wasn’t that they were related but that he was 22 and she was 13. And a heartbeat ago, 25-year-old Grammy nominee Demi Lovato, … Two years into their relationship, he died of a heart attack. No one knows; Ince was conveniently cremated very, very quickly. The Hollywood icons first met in 1932 when they starred together in the film No Man of Her Own, ... Love Stories: The tragic end to Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's Old Hollywood romance. In our last minutes we lost Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams, Kate Spade to suicide. You decide. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. According to Wood's biographers, she became a product of her mother's maniacal abuse and manipulation, forced to endure nothing short of torture for the career her mother wanted her to have. ... for which the then 18-year-old earned a Best ... Entwistle’s story has become Hollywood legend — a … Before then, Fatty Arbuckle was a massive Hollywood star. Actor Christopher Plummer once said of Hollywood, “The Stars end at La Brea.” implying that where the stars on famed Hollywood Boulevard end, the real Hollywood begins. When she got engaged to her first husband at 18 years old, she stood 4'11" and weighed what they thought was an acceptable 98 pounds. Thomas Ince worked behind the scenes, and he's known as one of the first tycoons of the film industry. "It" led to the death of an actress named Virginia Rappe, and that, in turn, led to Hollywood's first high-profile scandal. Negri fainted not once, not twice, but three times — the second time onto Valentino’s coffin, where she dramatically declared that he had proposed to her and called herself his widow. When wholesome actress Ingrid Bergman started an affair with director Roberto Rossellini, she was married to doctor Petter Lindström. Nirvana fans will recognize the name from the song Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle, and it's a fitting tribute to Hollywood's original hellraiser. This remains one of the most famous Hollywood scandals of all time.