Dark History of Hollywood: A Century of Greed, Corruption and Scandal behind the Movies (Dark Histories)

by Kieron Connolly

  As a result of the scandal, Bergman was barred from Hollywood. She moved to Italy to be with Rossellini, had three children with him and made four further films with him. Of Hollywood, she said: ‘People saw me in Joan of Arc and declared me a saint. I’m not. I’m just a woman, another human being.’ Bergman had had earlier affairs, but the public hadn’t known about them. Only after she’d separated from Rossellini, seven years later, was she able to return to America and resume her Hollywood career.

  In Like Flynn

  In his prime, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Errol Flynn was a romantic leading man known for his swashbuckling roles, such as Robin Hood. But his sex life nearly ruined his career when he was accused of statutory rape. The first case in 1942 involved two girls. Seventeen-year-old Betty Hansen had been at a party the 34-year-old star had attended and although he admitted having spoken to her, he denied they’d had sex.

  The district attorney added the case of Peggy Satterlee, who’d spent a weekend on Flynn’s yacht the previous year. Flynn admitted that she’d been on the yacht and in his autobiography wrote that he’d never asked her age.

  To this charge the district attorney added the case of Peggy Satterlee, who’d spent a weekend on Flynn’s yacht the previous year. Flynn admitted that she’d been on the yacht and in his autobiography wrote that he’d never asked her age. He almost certainly did have sex with her, although in court he denied it. Later on, it was revealed that she was over 18 at the time, anyway.

  The grand jury found Flynn not guilty of both charges and he thought he was off the hook, but later that day he received a strange telephone call. A man identifying himself only as ‘Joe’ told Flynn that he’d been lucky in court and demanded $10,000 to be dropped at a designated LA spot. Ignoring the man’s threat, Flynn put the phone down. Two days later, the DA’s office overruled the grand jury’s decision and proceeded with the rape charges. Flynn began to suspect that there were politics behind his case.

  Unlike his predecessor, Buron Fitts, the new district attorney, John Dockwiler, hadn’t had the studios’ backing and was determined to make a break with Hollywood connections and seal a conviction for the first big movie name to cross his path. Flynn happened to be that man.

  Peggy Satterlee in court showing photographs of her weekend on Errol Flynn’s yacht. ‘I knew those women would acquit him,’ Satterlee later said of the jury. ‘They just sat and looked adoringly at him as if he was their son.’

  AFTER HOURS

  WRITER GEORGE AXELROD helped busty Jayne Mansfield with her screen test for The Wayward Bus (1957). The climax of the test was where she’d rub her breast up against the camera lens. Axelrod had the test shown on the Bel Air circuit, where, as Axelrod said, ‘producers and high level people in Hollywood had their own projection rooms and no after-dinner conversation and therefore showed movies every night’. She got the part.

  Flynn had called Hansen’s appearance ‘gruesome’ and reporters commented during the trial that she was, indeed, a rather plain-looking girl for a film star to take to bed.

  At the court hearings, both girls dressed young, with Satterlee, who was in fact a dancer at a burlesque club in Los Angeles, arriving in bobby socks and pigtails. Flynn’s lawyer, Jerry Giesler, pared away at the girls’ stories, undermining their claims that they hadn’t consented to sex. Flynn had called Hansen’s appearance ‘gruesome’ and reporters commented during the trial that she was, indeed, a rather plain-looking girl for a film star to take to bed. Ultimately, the jury, largely made up of women, acquitted Flynn of all the charges.

  Although Flynn found himself ostracized for a while in Hollywood, his career with Warner Bros. continued uninterrupted. Unlike Roscoe Arbuckle, whose career was ruined by a scandal in which he was found to be innocent, Flynn’s scandal even provided a small boost at the box office, with audiences returning to his films to laugh at his movie They Died with Their Boots On. He’d been accused of having sex with Hansen with his shoes on.

  Fraught though this time may have been, it didn’t stop Flynn from noticing a slender girl at the courthouse’s cigarette counter. Striking up conversation with her, he learnt that she was Nora Eddington and all of 18. What he didn’t know at first was that her father worked in the LA County Sheriff’s office. Nevertheless, she was of legal age and the following year, 1943, they married.

  The Betty Hansen–Peggy Satterlee trial was only Flynn’s first court case for statutory rape. On the night of Flynn’s third wedding in 1950 in Nice, this time to 23-year-old Patrice Wymore, he was charged with having raped 17-year-old Denise Duvivier on his yacht in Monte Carlo the previous year. At the trial, Duvivier, whom Flynn said he’d never seen before, appeared, like Peggy Satterlee, looking as young as she could with her hair in pigtails. She’d claimed that they’d had sex in the shower, so Flynn, representing himself, showed the judge the tiny cubicle of a shower, which wouldn’t have been able to fit two people, and the judge soon dismissed the case. While Flynn certainly liked girls of barely legal age, being a star also made him, and others, an easy target for false accusations.

  It’s also been suggested that Flynn liked boys, too, and that he and David Niven, friends known as great ladies’ men, may have had a relationship. Marlene Dietrich, who enjoyed both men and women, heard from Carole Lombard that she’d found Flynn and Niven in bed together. ‘None of us thought it such a big deal, though,’ said Dietrich. ‘Lots of actors slept with each other if there were no women around.’

  Flynn was proud of his roistering and womanizing, writing in his autobiography in the final year of his life: ‘My problem was not to get girls into my life, but to get them out.’ But he always liked teenage girls. His companion when he died, aged 50, was Beverly Aadland. She was 17.

  Cary Grant

  Although Errol Flynn survived the statutory rape allegations, talk of another ‘no-no’ haunted Cary Grant’s career – homosexuality.

  Two days into Grant’s first honeymoon in 1934, his marriage still hadn’t been consummated. Instead, Grant took his bride, actress Virginia Cherrill, around New York, showing her his old haunts from his earlier theatre days in the city. When she made a joke about all the adolescent boys from England he’d had to live with, he told her stories about teenage boys comparing the sizes of their penises and rubbing themselves up against each other at night. To her, it was the closest he ever came to admitting that he was bisexual.

  Marlene Dietrich, who enjoyed both men and women, heard from Carole Lombard that she’d found Flynn and Niven in bed together.

  On reaching his New York home that weekend, Grant carried Virginia across the threshold, but their matrimonial moment was spoilt by her discovery that Randolph Scott, Grant’s good friend, and, it was rumoured, former boyfriend, was not only still living there, but had no intention of moving out. Their marriage lasted only a year before Cherrill divorced him. Before Grant had moved to Hollywood, there’d been no talk of girlfriends in New York. He’d worked a little bit as a gigolo for wealthy women and had been close to George (Jack) Orry-Kelly, an openly gay set designer and later Hollywood costume designer, with whom he shared lodgings along with actor Lester Sweyd. But Broadway wasn’t as high profile as Hollywood and Grant hadn’t been a star there. Los Angeles was different. His early co-stars Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead and Carole Lombard gossiped that he was gay and his studio, Paramount, had to counter this with magazine articles about him being a ladies’ man.

  When Louella Parsons in her newspaper column suggested that Grant was gay, he sued her for libel and they settled out of court, but the talk didn’t go away. In the 1950s, his 25-year-old chauffeur, Raymond Austin, made a claim that he was the other man, Grant’s lover, in one of Grant’s divorces. A month later Austin tried to commit suicide and the claim disappeared. Then, in 1980, Grant sued Chevy Chase when he said of him on television: ‘I understand he’s a homo.’ Again, they settled out of court. On the other hand, and when still married to Betsy Drake (wife number three), Grant and So
phia Loren fell in love while on location. He tried to woo her away from her husband, producer Carlo Ponti, but in the end she stayed.

  Gay, straight or bisexual, Grant was a troubled man, which, given his childhood in England, might not be surprising. Born in Bristol, he was an only child, but his mother had suffered from depression since the death of a previous sibling. When Grant was nine, his father put his mother in a mental asylum and told Grant that she’d gone away. Grant came to assume that she’d died. The following year, Grant’s father abandoned him and left to marry another woman. It was only when Grant was 31 that he learnt his mother was alive and being looked after in a care home.

  Grant married five times and had a daughter with his fourth wife. But even he said: ‘All my wives except Betsy have accused me of being a homosexual.’ There may have been rumours about his sexuality throughout his life, but Grant managed – and without the protection of a Hollywood studio because he worked independently from the late 1930s – to maintain a highly successful career.

  Gay, straight or bisexual, Grant was a troubled man, which, given his childhood, might not be surprising.

  Cary Grant with his first wife Virginia Cherrill. Two days into their honeymoon their marriage hadn’t been consummated, and when Grant carried her over the threshold of their new home, she was surprised to find that his friend Randolph Scott was still living there.

  SEX ADDICTION

  SURELY HOLLYWOOD PLAYERS, through attractiveness or money, can find as much sex as they desire? Well, not if they’re addicted to sex, which might explain why actress Gloria Grahame ended up in bed with her teenage stepson.

  Grahame (pictured below in 1955’s The Cobweb) married director Nicholas Ray in 1948, but it seemed she required the constant validation from sex that she was still young (she was 27) and beautiful. When Ray’s attention was insufficient, she’d go out and stay out. Suspecting that she was sleeping with other men, Ray hired private detectives to follow her.

  Then, in the summer of 1951, Tony Ray, Nicholas Ray’s 13-year-old son from his first marriage, came to stay at their Malibu home. According to biographer Vincent Curcio, Gloria Grahame and Tony made love that first afternoon and continued to do so for several days, before Ray barged in one afternoon to catch them together.

  ‘I was infatuated with her,’ Ray admitted years later, ‘but I didn’t like her very much.’ Ray and Grahame divorced the following year, but for Gloria Grahame things may have ended happier than expected. In 1960, after a subsequent marriage, she married Tony Ray, nine years after their first affair. They remained together for 14 years and had two children. Of her four marriages, it was by far the longest.

  Diane Baker became one of a number of actresses who found themselves the subject of unwanted attention from Alfred Hitchcock. Apart from inviting her to lunch and trying to shock her with smutty conversation, the director also forced her to kiss him.

  Hitchcock’s Blondes

  While directors such as Casablanca’s Michael Curtiz was said to have enjoyed sexual favours from extras behind the set, Alfred Hitchcock’s relationships with some of his leading ladies were dreamier, but more sinister and unsatisfactory for both sides. Not only did he fall in love with Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, a weakness many a man might well understand, he even insisted to others that Bergman had refused to leave his bedroom until he’d made love to her. No one believed him.

  Over the years, however, Hitchcock began to try to realize these fantasy affairs. During the filming of Marnie (1964), he developed an affection for Diane Baker, one day appearing in her dressing room, kissing her straight on the lips, before being turned away – all, like a movie, without a word spoken. He’d also invite her for intimate lunches where he’d talk about sex and going to the toilet – having a smutty, and at times, cruel sense of humour. Later, while making his final film, Family Plot (1976), he surprised actress Karen Black, thrusting his tongue into her mouth.

  Alfred Hitchcock fantasized about relationships with his actresses. He even insisted to others that Ingrid Bergman had refused to leave his bedroom until he’d made love to her. No one believed him.

  But his most damaging obsession was with Tippi Hedren. Having seen the model in a TV commercial, Hitchcock decided that he’d make her his leading lady for The Birds (1963). While claiming that he was nurturing a new talent, the director, now in his early sixties, had actually fallen in love with the 33-year-old. No other actor was allowed to share her car to the studio or mix with her on set. One day Hedren was in the car with him when, in her words, as they came into view of the crew, he ‘reached over and violently embraced me to make everyone think that we were in a romantic clinch!’ Hedren pushed him off and jumped out of the car.

  ‘He reached over and violently embraced me to make everyone think that we were in a romantic clinch!’

  Undeterred, Hitchcock would arrange for the two of them to have drinks together each day after work, meetings she tried to avoid. Smitten he might have been, but he was also cruel towards her. In a scene where her character is attacked by birds, Hitchcock told Hedren that they’d use mechanical birds. In fact, Hedren endured five days of live gulls, crows and ravens (with their beaks tied shut) being thrown at her. Traumatized, she was finally signed off work for a week by a doctor when her cheek was gouged by a bird and her eye was narrowly missed.

  Hitchcock developed an obsession for Tippi Hedren. He controlled whom she spoke to on set, wouldn’t allow others to travel with her to the studio, and, ultimately, told her that he expected her to make herself sexually available to him. She didn’t.

  Their relationship reached breaking point on Marnie, their second, and final, movie together. On set one day, Hitchcock leaned across to Hedren. ‘Touch me,’ he whispered. ‘His tone and glance made it clear what he meant,’ she later said. ‘I was disgusted.’ On another day, Hitchcock called her into his office, explaining, ‘as if it was the most normal thing in the world,’ she said, ‘that from this time on, he expected me to make myself sexually available and accessible to him – however and whenever and wherever he wanted’.

  Having endured Hitchcock for three years, Hedren had finally had enough, but when she told him that she wanted to break her contract, he suggested what to Hedren could ‘only be described as prostitution’. After that, he began to threaten that he’d ruin her career. He did keep her under contract, paying her without using her or allowing her to work for anyone else. But the year after Marnie was released, he sold her contract on to Universal. He hadn’t made her a star and he hadn’t made her love him or have sex with him. Only on screen had he successfully resolved his sexual desires, frustrations and obsessions.

  THE LONGEST KISS

  ALTHOUGH UNDER THE Production Code, kisses were only allowed to be eight seconds long, in making Notorious (1946) Alfred Hitchcock designed the longest screen kiss of the time. By having his couple, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, embrace and kiss for as long as allowed, pause, exchange a few words, nuzzle each other, kiss again, pause again and so on, the kiss lasted for two and a half minutes – 18 times longer than a single kiss was permitted.

  Head of production at Warner Bros. in the 1930s, Darryl F. Zanuck had a different starlet sent to his office every afternoon. Even if she accepted his sexual advances, there was no guarantee of work – for him there were plenty of starlets around.

  The Casting Couch

  We hear a lot about the casting couch, but did it really happen? Not only did it happen, but for Darryl F. Zanuck who was head of production at Warner Bros. in the early 1930s, it happened at 4 o’clock every day. Behind his studio office was a hidden boudoir with a tiger-skin bedspread. Every afternoon, at the allotted time, a starlet would be sent up for a half-hour meeting. It was seldom the same starlet twice.

  So much for the couch, but what about the actual casting? In fact, that was by no means a done deal. Having had his fun, Zanuck, or other producers and executives in positions of power, had no need to invest anything more in the starlet
. If the executive became involved with the girl, however, or hoped to become involved, that could lead to her being cast in a role. In later life, Zanuck left his wife and produced films featuring a series of younger lovers.

  Having been a star who successfully made the transition from silent to talking pictures, Anita Page’s career waned in the 1930s. She later claimed that refusing the sexual demands of MGM’s Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg had wrecked her career.

  Harry Cohn at Columbia was also a notorious womanizer, while Louis B. Mayer would like to have been but lacked the personality for it. He made clumsy passes, developed crushes and was rather innocent when it came to sex, although he did manage a few affairs. ‘I can make you the biggest star in the world in three pictures,’ he promised Anita Page after she rejected his advances. ‘But, Mr Mayer, I’m already a star,’ she said. She was soon loaned out to other studios and by 1936 was out of the business. She wasn’t willing to trade sex for stardom, while Mayer, it seems, wasn’t willing to take rejection.

  ‘I can make you the biggest star in the world in three pictures,’ he promised Anita Page after she rejected his advances. ‘But, Mr Mayer, I’m already a star,’ she said.

  Things might be a little different today, but the ethos of the casting couch is still around. ‘It was not successful – for either of us,’ said Susan Sarandon about a casting-couch experience in her early days in New York in the late 1960s. ‘I just went into a room, and a guy practically threw me on the desk.’