17 Shocking Things You Never Knew About Old Hollywood Actors

Bette Davis and Ginger Rogers were pals

Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock had an affair when shooting Practical Magic’

Edward Everett Horton favored mauve chiffon negligees.

Mamie Van Doren is a carpet muncher.

Fred and Ginger were BOTH crossdressers.

Op, this is the DL. We know.

OP, Audrey Hepburn died in 1993, so I hardly think she was receiving letters from Brando or anyone in 1995.

Pola Negri was Hitler’s favourite actress.

Wow Paul Newman looks delicious in that pic!!! OMG!

Long Hot Summer, IIRC^^^

shirley temple also really really liked the boys from a young age and got a lot of action while in her teens at the studio.

I find it hard to believe that Rock boned Liz.

He didn't bone James Dean either. They hated each other.

Eartha Kitt was one lucky bitch.

I can believe number two. Dean and Newman fucked while Kitt watched......

Marlon Brando personally phoned up Hollywood Squares and asked them to stop making fun of his heavy weight in later years. Apparently they did stop the jokes and questions.

R14 interesting.

When the Clintons won the election and took over the White House, Saturday Night Live began making fun of their daughter Chelsea Clinton concerning her unattractive looks. As time went on Hillary had had enough so she sent a letter to SNL and asked them to stop targeting their daughter because it was cruel and uncalled for - and SNL stopped all the jokes.

Do you believe Joan Rivers was really murdered.

R17 No. It was her time to go.

Not a shocker on the list, but at least it wasn't full of idiotic Kenneth Anger "scoops".

Theda Bara screwed all of UCLA.

Louise Closser Hale killed William Desmond Taylor but pinned the rap on Mary Miles Minter's mother.

I think it was Minnie Maddern Fiske.

What interest did the Vatican have in Shirley Temple or her possible dwarfism?

like most people here I imagine, I knew all of the true ones on your list. Several items on your list are absolutely false however.

As always some truth, some bullshit.

And it does appear you've read Hollywood Babylon recently..

Butterfly McQueen was Steve McQueen's great aunt.

WHET Lana Turner's daughter?

Elizabeth Taylor said that she and Rock Hudson had a bet between them as to who could bed James Dean first. Rock won.

Judy Garland invented ice cubes.

Rock Hudson never went near a vagina let alone Liz's well- used hole

R18 = Michelle Obama

R32 lmao

In her memoir Mamie Van Doren said that she and Rock Hudson went on a date many years ago and when they got back home to her mother's home late at night Rock date raped her in the kitchen - her string of pearls fell all over the floor.

Those were his pearls, r34.

Jean Harlow got knocked up by William Powell and got an abortion.

In 1933 John Huston was driving while intoxicated and struck and killed the wife of Brazilian actor Raul Roulien. Walter Huston, John's father, had MGM pull strings to get the whole story hushed up.

Why is Chelsey Clinton so ugly?

R18, don't be an ass, that was Madame Cremeton.

Helen Lawson was a huge drunk.

Dinah Shore had negro blood, and had a black baby that she gave up for adoption!

Joan Crawford fucked everyone on the MGM except for me.

On the MGM lot, rather.

Madame Cremeton was a spoof of the Norma Shearer/Greer Garson type of grand dame star. It was written for Garson to perform, for whom it made sense. It made no sense after Garson eventually turned it down and it was given to Judy, who never had that type of persona and didn't do a particularly convincing job of imitating it.

R41– Dianah Shore’s parents were Russian Jews. try to keep up.

^ Sorry, "grande dame" not "grand dame." Autocorrect.

The actors who play the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings trilogy have orgies and are in love with each other. They communicate with each other through the color of their clothing.

Was it Dinah Shore or Doris Day who had the reputation for being the back of the bus pass around bottom for the boys in the band during her big band days? I can never remember.

So did I, R20.

It was Clara Bow who was alleged to have fucked the entire UCLA football team one year in the early 1930s. Kenneth Anger told the story in the original Hollywood Babylon. Film historians give no credence to it.

R34 now we know how reliable THAT book is.

R41 Frank Langella who dated Dinah Shore and knew her for a long time said that it was a myth that she gave birth to a black baby and neither was she a lesbian.

LMAO R52. Frank Langella of all people.

Jack Benny isn't really 39.

OP, why post a pic of Judy Garland if you’re not going to post any gossip about her?

I believe EVERY WORD Kenneth Anger wrote.

Paul Newman had a pretty face, but man, he was scrawny.

[quote]15. Greta Garbo was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress, and he'd often send her letters and invite her to visit him in Germany.

16. Garbo also revealed to close friends that she would have killed Hitler if she had the chance: "If the war hadn't started when it did, I would have gone, and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him."

Yeah, but you didn't, did you, you lazy Swedish cow?

I read Cheryl Crane's autobiography many years ago. In it she revealed that after her mother married Lex Barker, Lex would go to her own room every night and rape her. Cheryl was 11 at the time. When Lana eventually found out, she kicked Lex out and divorced him. Cheryl turned out to be gay and had a long time relationship with a woman. Lana referred to them both as her daughters.

Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck invented pegging in 1948.

Trog was addicted to bennies!

Joan Crawford was able to get through Trog with an entire straight face - now that's acting!

By his own admission, Anger admitted that he made some of his stuff up. He’s crazy.

Hitler's favorite movie was "Broadway Melody of 1940" and he apparently had his own copy of it.

If you aren't familiar with it, it's the black and white musical starring Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing the Cole Porter "Begin the Beguine" number.

Wonder if he knew Astaire had Jewish ancestry.

Although the trial seemed to prove the "Cheryl Crane killed Johnny Stompanato" story, I think the scandal was so big because nobody in the world believed that story. I think it was accepted that Lana killed Stompanato, and invented the story about her daughter Cheryl Crane to clear herself.

Woody Allen's "September" is based on a fictional mother/daughter like Lana and Cheryl thirty years later. It's not great, but sort of interesting.

Ginger Rogers and her mother Lela Rogers were apparently two of the shrewdest actress/stage mother combos ever to arrive in Hollywood. Their bio is bleak and rather tawdry, and Warner Bros. wanted to dramatize it in a film. Apparently the screenplay was hitting a little too close to the truth, and Ginger and her mother threatened to sue. Warner's changed the pair to sisters rather than mother/daughter. I guess it was enough, or they were paid a settlement.

The movie is great, with Ida Lupino as the Lela Rogers character. Lucille Ball was a huge fan of Lela, who ran an acting program for young talent in Hollywood.

Apparently Rock Hudson was obsessed with men's assholes.

R67 "The Hard Way" - Lupino was terrific and won the New York Critics Award.

At the end of "The Major and the Minor," Wilder's first US film, Lela plays Ginger's mother. Then Ginger plays her own mother (you have to see it). Very funny movie.

I think Lela was a rat fink at HUAC hearings. Very right wing.

Joan Crawford was NOT fired or let go from MGM in 1943. They were ready to re-sign her, but at a lower salary. Joan was insulted and walked after buying out the last picture she owed them on her contract at great cost. Her Warner Bros. contract wasn't as much as she'd been making at MGM.

Joan didn't "lose her contract at Warner's" as she tells Christina in "Mommie Dearest", but once more bought out her own contract so she could do "Sudden Fear" at Universal, which she was helping to produce. Both times it proved to be a wise move.

The following year had Joan making the biggest error of her career, making such a stink about top billing that she was dropped from the classic "From Here to Eternity" and replaced by Deborah Kerr. She was freed up to make the campy howler "Torch Song", back at MGM. Oops.

So, R68, that was his "Magnificent Obssession."

Wallace Beery got into a drunken nightclub fight in 1937 which ended up killing comedian Ted Healy who had worked with and launched The Three Stooges in his stage and film act. The great fixer Eddie Mannix had it fixed.

Part of the reason he succeeded was that Healy was not well-liked by anyone, but then again neither was Beery.

Some say the basis for all "A Star Is Born" movies was the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay. Fay was a huge star on Broadway but his talent didn't translate on film. As Stanwyck became more popular Fay began to drink heavily and frequently beat her up. Years later Fay stopped drinking and found success as the original Elwood P. Dowd in "Harvey." (Directed by Antoinette Perry!)

The site at the link is dedicated to Old Hollywood and makes a point of debunking Kenneth Anger's bullshit.

Marjorie Main invented the microchip.

I've seen a couple of films with Frank Fay and he was revoltingly oleaginous.

[quote] Bette Davis and Ginger Rogers were pals.

Lucille Ball and Ginger Rogers were great friends. Bette Davis was a staunch Democrat and had no time or patience for John Birch Society Ginger Rogers.

Did Eartha Kitt peg Dean and Newman? They both look like bottoms that would love to be fucked by her. She looks like the girl that would peg someone!

The Hedy Lamarr one is true- apparently she was a genius so she really wasted her talents in Hollywood.

What about the charming and gorgeous Cesar Romero? He was gay and loved having scat parties....how fabulous is that?he blew a slew of stars like Desi Arnaz, Tyrone Power and quite shockingly, Gary Cooper and John Payne.

Well that John Payne photo in the boxing ring, where he's in trunks and sitting with his legs spread...

Some of these are such bullshit.

r28 That's Headly!!!

Ginger Rogers took James Stewart's cherry.

Ronald Reagan took Piper Laurie's cherry (when they were making the film "Louisa").

Mickey Rooney took Ava Gardner's cherry ( disgusting thought isn't it).

Reagan was 21 years her senior and played her father in that film.

Uncle Miltie had the biggest cock in Hollywood

Did Miss Romero get to blow Gary Cooper?!?!?! Then a VERY lucky sister she was indeed!

And Dietrich was not a "hero" except possibly to herself. She was a traitor to her country and her people. And all for money and fame.

Unfortunately, I am shit at remembering gossip. There was a bordello in LA where the girls were chosen based on their resemblance to a famous actress. You could fuck "Mary Pickford" or have a three way with "Dorothy and Lillian Gish". (I think this was in the 20s or early 30s). One of the famous actresses was alleged to go there and play the role of herself.

What an odd preview image and one that's not even in the article itself. You'd think Newman's nips were used to rejuvenate Garland's face or something.

I'm loving the idea of Brando writing Hepburn a letter years after her death.

R88 they were. Everyone knows that.

[QUOTE] Erna

Shit-eating eating, Nazi, tin hat wearing cunt.

[quote]Wallace Beery got into a drunken nightclub fight in 1937 which ended up killing comedian Ted Healy who had worked with and launched The Three Stooges in his stage and film act. The great fixer Eddie Mannix had it fixed.

You forgot to mention the other person involved--future James Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli supposedly held Healy while Beery beat him to death. Considering the fact that MGM later distributed all 24 of the James Bond films, the studio's cover-up may very well have been the most profitable piece of work Eddie Mannix ever accomplished.

How sad that ppsm is so physically unattractive that she is unable to score sizemeat (8 long and 6 around on the tape measure) for free and has become an angry and bitter woman!

Took the words out of my mouth. A stench arises from those posts.

Busby Berkeley fatal drunk driving

Rumored: Gable fatal DUI

Convicted of murder: Tom Neal (Detour), Paul Kelly

R78, there is a recent documentary about her. It is on netflix, I believe.

R87, unlike Kenneth Anger's lies that the Gish Sisters were lovers.

R97, yeah, that never happened. The ghost writer of Lillian Gish's autobiography also wrote a thinly veiled fictional character in another book that made Lillian Gish out to be the blowjob queen of the silent era. She must have really hated working with Lillian Gish.

OT gossip, back in the early 70s I had a Pacific Palisades landlady involved behind the lens in the industry who would entertain us all with stories on the Stars she worked with. She said that Rock was called Princess Tiny Meat and was a bottom. Heresay of course. Use it as you will.

R99, are you sure she did not say Tyrone Power?

You were all against me. I still made something of myself.

R99, allegedly that was Montgomery Clift’s Nickname behind his back as well....

Didn’t Bette Davis allegedly kill her second husband Arthur Farnsworth?

More details please, R98. Who is the ghost writer and which book has thinly-veiled Lillian?

I wish I could remember my source, but I read that Dana Andrews allowed equal access to his hose.

R104, the book is titled Vanessa. It is by Ann Pinchot and was published in 1978.

I’m a bit leery of Karina Longworth's facts after listening to her Sharon Stone episodes. She states that when Roman Polanski returned from London after the 1969 murder, he was given the bungalow just vacated by Julie Andrews during filming of The Sound of Music at Paramount (SOM was made in 1964 at 20th Century Fox), and that Terry Melcher's mother Doris Day's TV series theme song was her most famous recording, "Sentimental Journey."

R106 Thanks! I just ordered it.

Greer Garson invented the blow-up sex doll, aka "The Inflatable Datable"

Ronal Regan auditioned for the part of President of the United States in the film The Best Man in 1960, but he was turned down by producers as not being presidential enough for them.

Zeppo Marks invented a device to measure pulse and owned a company that made the clamps that held the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

R107 were Karina's parents wealthy? She seems to have a jet set lifestyle and she does a beer budget job.

[quote] What about the charming and gorgeous Cesar Romero? He was gay and loved having scat parties....how fabulous is that?

Having scat parties is "fabulous"?

Freak.

Despite Clark Gable being a masculine knockout and being taken care of by a number of older women in his early days, his wife, Carole Lombard, said that his endowment was not impressive and if it had been one inch less he would have been known as not The King but The Queen of Hollywood.

R85 Nope.

R105 not according to a recent bio. But he was surprisingly liberal and supported the Black Panthers.

Ed McMahon's laugh was pre-recorded.

Ronal Regan?

Kathy Bates eats Count Chocula at 2 a.m.

Between them, Julia Roberts and Diana Ross have over 700 teeth.

R85 nope

R107 I tried to read her Hughes book but it there were too many errors and it read like fan fiction.

Say what you want about Lillian Gish, but she worked from the advent of silent films into the late 1980s, and her final performance in "The Whales of August" is excellent, she was at the top of her game.

What most don't know is that upon Lillian established a prize named for herself and sister Dorothy which is one of the most prestigious and generous in the arts world. The yearly recipient gets a check for $300,000. Pretty nice payday, and the winner isn't required to do anything special, just keep creating. Sweet!

Lillian Gish also had a distinguished stage career. She played Ophelia opposite John Gielgud's Hamlet on Broadway in the 1930s to rave .reviews. Gielgud thought she was superb.

Allegedly the director of The Whales of August was directing Gish in a close up when Bette Davis interrupted him: "You don't need to tell Lillian how to play a close up. She invented them."

I had the pleasure of seeing her in Uncle Vanya with George C Scott. She was wonderful. For a non-singer, she also did a few musicals.

I know it’s difficult to believe but Karen Carpenter had anorexia.

Karen Carpenter’s mother was a first class cunt. She ruined her daughter.

Dana Andrews was hot. I think that he was passing for white though.

[quote]1. Shirley Temple was such a talented child actor that there was a rumor she was actually a dwarf, so the Vatican literally sent someone to investigate.

Why would the pope care if she was a midget? Was it because she wasn't eligible for molestation if she wasn't a child? Seriously what business was it of the fucking pope?

Bette Davis was very difficult on Whales of August and the comment about Lillian was not supposed to be nice. Someone on the set complimented Gish saying to her, "you were wonderful on that close-up," and Bette brayed "Well she OUGHT to be! She inVENTed the GODDAMN thing!"

[quote] 5. Lucille Ball was told by drama and acting teachers that she didn't have enough talent to make it and should just "give up."

And then when they one day saw "Mame," they said, "Told ya so."

[quote]R94 A stench arises from those posts.

Speaking of [italic]stench, [/italic]Betty Grable once had a used condom stuck inside her for months. Tyrone Power broke up with her because of the noisome state.

A gynecologist later fished it out: mystery solved.

Lillian Gish got her revenge. As the filming of "The Whales of August" wore on, she would infuriate Davis by quietly turning her hearing aid off every time Davis went on one of her many rants.

And when People profiled her after the film was done, they asked Gish about working with Davis. The only comment of hers they recorded: "Have you seen that face? What a tragic face!"

Jean Harlow's mother got quite a bad rap in that terrible book about Harlow in the 60's. It basically said that her mother, being a Christian Scientist, didn't allow Jean to be seen by a doctor, and that's why she dies. The truth is, her mother did get a doctor, but there was nothing anyone could do as the disease was long manifesting before it became clear that she was sick and it wouldn't have made any difference anyhow.

I met Ertha Kitt. I was about 1981. I was sweeping the floor at the club she was performing at. There was a pot plant growing in the parking lot. She said she’d never seen one before, so I showed it to her. It was only recently that I realized that she was probably not being honest with me. But she was very nice.

[quote] OP: 16. Garbo also revealed to close friends that she would have killed Hitler if she had the chance: "If the war hadn't started when it did, I would have gone, and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him

Tallulah Bankhead was also very anti-NAZI. When filming Lifeboat, she refused to even speak to Austrian native Walter Slezak when not filming. Of course, he was a ex-pat, not a NAZI himself.

Hitchcock insisted on filming the movie in scene-sequence, raising costs. He always appears in a cameo in his films. This one is shot entirely in a Lifeboat, so he appears in a newspaper ad. It’s a good movie.

[quote]Garbo also revealed to close friends that she would have killed Hitler if she had the chance:

Riiiiiiiiight. Woulda coulda shoulda, Greta

I am reading a book about Bette Davis at present and she was awful, terrible to work with on a movie set, period. When she was in a bad mood, which was often, she was hellish to be around. She bullied just about everyone around her, including the directors. A great actress but a dreadful personality to be around.

Rock Hudson was a total Kinsey 6 -he was never intimate with a woman in his entire life.

[quote] Wonder if he knew Astaire had Jewish ancestry

I bet Chaplin knew. The neighbouring country to Tomania that Hynkel's army marches into is Austerlitz, Astaire's surname at birth.

[quote]As Stanwyck became more popular Fay began to drink heavily and frequently beat her up.

During those drunken brawls, Stanwyck would take refuge in Joan Crawford's house, which was next door. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. They were probably more than friends on several occasions.

Katharine Hepburn was a witness at Leigh and Olivier's elopement, not a maid of honor. Garson Kanin tells the story, with his usual embellishment, I'm certain. While Hepburn's recollections may be just as embellished, per Hepburn she knew Kanin but didn't know Olivier and Leigh. I forget how events came together so that Leigh/Olivier decided to Justice of the Peace it that night, but Hepburn was recruited. She told that she was quite embarrassed by Leigh and Olivier's conversational fighting that would segue into racy talk, since that wasn't her thing and she also barely knew them. Anyhow, the deed was done and the foursome squirreled themselves away on Ronald Coleman's yacht near whatever body of water is near Catalina island, listening to the radio hoping to discover their secret elopement had been discovered. When it was literally radio silence, they became uncomfortable and disgruntled, and some pouting ensued. Ultimately they let it be known so the H'wood gossip corps could tell the 'scoop" and they could recommence feeling like big important stars.

R138 there are tapes of his "wife" (the sec'y who supposedly did not know she was a beard) interrogating Hudson on their sex life (his with her) versus his sex life with guys.

R140, They had met as showgirls in NY in the 20s, iirc. There's a story that during that time Al Jolson once burned Stanwyck's chest with a cigarette. Maybe when she had refused his advances?

R142 strange. I just watched a documentary about being gay in the old Hollywood scene. Rock Hudson’s wife was actually his agents secretary. She was a lesbian IRL.

many of these are total bullshit.

OP, none of those are shocking. All stale old news...

R70, Crawford would've been laughable in Kerr's role in From Here to Eternity. Just like she was in almost all of her films from the 50's...

"A number of women" were not the only ones who 'took care' of Clark Gable in the early days......

R146 ok then get off the thread. Shoo Fly don’t bother me.

Yvonne Craig invented Spanx.

Charles Laughton was a scat queen.

[quote]They had met as showgirls in NY in the 20s, iirc. There's a story that during that time Al Jolson once burned Stanwyck's chest with a cigarette. Maybe when she had refused his advances?

The other version of that (probably apocryphal) story is that a gangster put out a cigar on her chest when Stanwyck was a chorus girl dancing in Texas Guinan's saloon.

Vincent Price was always popular in Utah after he played the martyred Joseph Smith in the 1940 film "Brigham Young."

We know an eldersister in LA who was dear sisters with Coral Browne.

R37, the story wasn't hushed up, it caused a huge stir in the media and Huston had to go into hiding for quite some time.

[quote]It was Clara Bow who was alleged to have fucked the entire UCLA football team one year in the early 1930s. Kenneth Anger told the story in the original Hollywood Babylon. Film historians give no credence to it.

Except that hack Marc Wanamaker dedicated an entire chapter to "debunking" the story, as if it was so believable he had to debunk it. Of course it wasn't, and his debunking was actually muckraking.

But then again, Wanamaker spent a lot of time criticizing Clara for having sex while praising other stars of the day (like Gary Cooper) for having tons of it themselves. There's even a part of the book spent outing her friend and stepmother Tui Lorraine as being a secret lesbian who only married Clara's dad to get close to Clara. There's no proof of it, he appears to have taken one dude's story and exaggerated it. Worse, the guy who implied Lorraine was lesbian didn't like her and was insulting her with that old "gay is bad" crap.

I think in Harlow's day things like diabetes and what she had, kidney failure were a death sentence. For that matter so was heart and liver failure. There was nothing they could do for them.