Who was considered particularly stupid in Golden Age Hollywood?

Well, Shelley Winters considered Liz Taylor stupid.

Loretta Young was famously....

Determinedly simple and proud of it.

As in the anecdote from David Niven:

"Director Cecille B de Mille was not getting the right performance from actress Loretta Young when filming his epic The Crusades. According to David Niven, she was not adequately delivering the line 'Richard, you gotta save Christianity' so de Mille told her to put more awe into the line.

Her next delivery of it was 'Aw, Richard, you gotta save Christianity.'"

Who are the famously dumb ones today even?

Brad Pitt? Chris what’s his name, the dum dum who’s been sucked into the Kennedy/Schwarzenegger maelstrom?

Pretty much all of them, r3. Seriously, social media has not been good for entertainers, as the vast majority have revealed themselves to be incredibly dumb. The mystique of the movie star is completely gone.

[quote]The mystique of the movie star is completely gone

It was never real to begin with

R3 Alec Baldwin

I don't see how Brad Pitt or anyone that successful could be dumb. I was impressed with how intelligent Johnny Depp was hearing him speak at his trial. Altho he was dumb too get hoobastanked by Amber Turd. He only has high school education. Pitt is one semester short of his degree.

Britney Spears told one interviewer she thought Canada was overseas, and another one that London is a separate place from England.

Kanye! Oh, my sides!😂

How many posters didn't understand the assignment in a post about stupidity? Th eGolden Age of Hollywood seems to be a time of intellectual giants by comparison.

Justin Bieber seems to have an IQ of about 85.

Jean Harlow, may she rest in peace, seemed dense to me.

Sean Bean seems dumb.

Understand, I'm fond of both these actors.

R2: I don't even care if that story is true or apocryphal, it is a great one!

Gary Cooper seemed dumb. He kept quiet so much because he couldn't learn lines. I like him though. Nobody is like Gary Cooper.

Avan Gardner too. Very beautiful, but not quick-witted.

Keanu Reeves is stupid. I like him, though. He seems kind and generous.

Cher famously thought the president's faces on Mount Rushmore happened naturally.

George Raft was supposedly illiterate, and couldn't read the scripts he famously turned down (which were given to Bogart).

That faggot with the SCRAWNY ass

He was on the Bill Mahr show years ago and couldn’t keep up with the conversation. He’s a DUM DUM

Ben Affleck

Obviously no one was interested in Marilyn for her brains - but I feel sad for her, knowing how insecure she was about her own intellectual capabilities, or lack thereof. I do know she was said to have absolutely *remarkable* comic timing (a kind of intelligence in itself), when giving a performance. She made sure to be photographed studying method acting and reading James Joyce. Funny, I thought she came off very quick-witted, eloquent, and insightful (also humble) when I've heard her interviews. Obviously not a mental giant, but not the vacuous airhead she was portrayed to be in many of her roles. Frankly, I know that brains have never been among the star-making qualities sought by the public, or by the studio heads, but in general, when general decorum and comportment in public where so much higher in the Golden Days than they are now, even just a modicum of class and restraint could fool many into believing that you were indeed smarter than you might really be. As the poster above said, an air of mystique and inaccessibility likely contribute to an "intelligent" public persona. Plus, elevating yourself and your status in life were generally valued back then. Nowadays, debasing yourself, a la the Kardashians is laudable.

Also, OP, why that picture of The Merm? She always struck me as a hard-working, loyal, talented gal...especially the way she treated her old friends at the bottom (as equals, going back regularly to visit and hang out) once she'd made it to the top. Okay, maybe her disco album betrays a serious lapse in judgement 🤣, so touché

Jessica Simpson.

Anne Margaret, Elvis, Van Johnson, Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power and Rock Hudson.

No offense intended. They were all great talents or lookers.

[quote]Anne Margaret,

Pot, meet kettle.

Ryan Lochte (today)

You have to differentiate between being smart and being savvy. A lot of actors in Golden Age Hollywood (and Broadway) started working when they were children or teenagers, and barely got through seventh grade in school. But they certainly learned, in the School of Hard Knocks, how to get ahead in the business. They might not have known how to balance an equation or spell correctly, but they made damn sure that no one got the best of them in contract negotiations or billing.

Good point, R25, Drew Barrymore has a second grade education, if that, and yet her career would suggest that she clearly knows what to do to stay visible in the business.

R18

Why are some dopes off-limits? Why is Anne-Margaret above and beyond the label "dumb?" I read her autobiography. Everyone who worked with her thought she was stupid and she none-too-soon realized their opinion.

Again, why? Why am I marked as dumb for calling someone dumb WHEN THE ENTIRE FUCKING THREAD IS DEVOTED TO NAMING DUMB ACTORS????

reply 23 Hypocrite.

Oh, and go fuck yourself, reply 23

Veronica Lake was called Moronica Lake

Was the golden age of hollywood really the 90s? Some people on here think so apparently. I can add this find from the link below:

"JLo is just plain stupid. Listen to an interview sometime which she is not able to be coached with responses, she will come off dumb as a rock. She' s definitely a smoker, my guess is the nonsmoking bs is a pr stunt of some kind....that is unless she gets so bored watching Ben play cards that she smokes to keep from falling asleep. Jennifer Lopez is at the tables many time with Affleck (a big time player), he plays cards, she smokes Marlboro Ultra Lights. To hear her in a normal conversation, you would think her IQ is 10 at best. Her smoking style isn' t anything special, but everytime I' ve seen her, she has been smoking at the tables."

R28 You're dumb because you don't seem to know that her name is ANN-MARGRET.

Among other things.

Lana Turner

Anne Miller

[quote]reply 23 Hypocrite. Oh, and go fuck yourself, reply 23

No one's used "reply" on DL this century. Sounds like you've been fucking YOURSELF.

[quote]Cher famously thought the president's faces on Mount Rushmore happened naturally.

Sonny made that joke and she repeated it at his funeral, but it was obviously a joke and not something that really happened.

Elmer Fudd, he could never pull one over on that rascal rabbit...

There's also a difference between being stupid and being "basic".

I wouldn't consider Ethel Merman to be stupid but she wasn't an intellectual....at all. That's true of lots of people (and quite a few celebrities).

There's street smarts and there's book smarts. Hollywood survivors seem to have a lot of street smarts

I think lots of actresses were pigeonholed as "stupid" on a whim by whichever semi-influential person happened to resent them on any given day - I also think a lot of people confuse being unpretentious or quirky with "stupidity" when they're in a particularly uncharitable mood.