- 3 years ago
These scandals defined cinema, some even inspiring movies. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Hollywood scandals that had the biggest impact on the movie industry as a whole.
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00:00 Vince's death was caused by an ulcer and subsequently a heart attack,
00:03 then why all the mystery about what took place on that guy?
00:06 Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the Hollywood
00:09 scandals that had the biggest impact on the movie industry as a whole.
00:13 It is a scream that will destroy one of Hollywood's biggest stars and cripple
00:17 an entire film industry.
00:18 Number 10. Roman Polanski flees from the US
00:22 I was then booked and the proceedings started.
00:26 In 1977, director Roman Polanski was arrested on a sexual assault charge.
00:31 Samantha Galey accused him of drugging her at the home of actor Jack Nicholson,
00:36 Polanski's friend.
00:37 He pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, but then fled the country when he caught wind
00:42 that the judge was planning to reject his plea deal.
00:45 His comments since then and accusations from several other women have been an ongoing point
00:50 of contention, particularly since his career has remained intact.
00:54 What she is saying is that she's coming forward to make sure that people know that
00:57 Roman Polanski, this was not an isolated incident.
01:00 His 2020 win for Best Director at the Cesar Awards was met with walkouts.
01:05 However, Galey has reportedly said she wishes the case to be dropped,
01:10 saying he's endured enough in the decades since.
01:12 People wonder why I didn't want him to go to jail, and it's like, well,
01:16 is that going to take back what he did?
01:18 Number 9. Christina Crawford publishes Mummy Dearest
01:21 That if your mother reached from the grave to slap you by leaving you out of the will,
01:25 you have returned the indignity with this public disclosure of her indiscretion.
01:34 After being cut out of Joan Crawford's will,
01:36 her adopted daughter Christina published a memoir.
01:39 In this book, Christina depicts Joan as a cruel and insecure person with alcohol use
01:45 disorder who committed horrendous acts of physical and emotional abuse on her children.
01:50 My brother had some different choices. He tried to leave,
01:53 but those were my choices and that's the way I dealt with it.
01:56 Given how scandal often works in Hollywood,
01:58 it's hard to say if this is just a case of the industry protecting its own.
02:02 Rightly or wrongly, Mummy Dearest destroyed the reputation
02:06 of one of classic Hollywood's greatest stars.
02:09 1981's lambasted film adaptation became so ingrained in the culture
02:14 that it's the first thing people think of when they hear the name Joan Crawford.
02:18 That wasn't exclusive to Hollywood.
02:20 No.
02:21 No, that's the way it was all over. Nobody talked about child abuse.
02:24 To some degree, that's the way it was when the book was originally published.
02:28 Number 8. The murder of Lana Turner's mobster boyfriend.
02:34 When Lana Turner took the stand, it was said that she gave the performance of her life.
02:38 That was part of the problem. The scandal that ensued after the fatal stabbing of reputed mobster
02:44 Johnny Stompanato in 1958 could have been a career ender for the glamorous star.
02:50 "I saw this wound. I remember it was barren, hearing my daughter sobbing."
03:00 Her young daughter, Cheryl Crane,
03:02 confessed that she stabbed the abusive Stompanato in defense of her mother.
03:06 Rumours swirled from the beginning that Lana Turner had done it,
03:09 and that her daughter was protecting her.
03:11 "Emotionally troubling nature of your childhood at the time that all this was happening. Is that so?"
03:17 "That's true. In fact, she only found out about many things in reading the book."
03:21 Contrarily, the responding officer actually reported that Turner tried to take the blame
03:26 for her daughter. Despite skepticism among the press and the public, Crane was exonerated,
03:32 and her story has not changed in the decades since.
03:35 "Honest recounting of a tornadic childhood with a mother who loves her. And isn't this
03:41 a good ending to this story?"
03:43 7. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher's Affair
03:46 Before Brad and Angelina, there was Liz and Eddie. In 1958, movie star Elizabeth Taylor
03:53 and singer Eddie Fisher were part of two separate famous supercouples. Taylor was
03:58 married to Oscar-winning producer Mike Todd, while Fisher was with the MGM star Debbie Reynolds.
04:04 "I only know I never felt this way before."
04:14 When Todd died, Fisher rushed to Taylor's side. Ultimately, as Carrie Fisher, Eddie's daughter
04:20 with Debbie, would put it, he found an unusual way to console the grieving widow.
04:26 "They were best friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband at the time, Mike Todd. Mike
04:31 Todd tragically passed away in a plane accident and my father consoled Elizabeth with his penis."
04:37 The scandal ended Eddie's TV show, but Taylor's career would only grow over time. By the mid-1960s,
04:44 Eddie and Elizabeth had divorced, and Debbie and Elizabeth had reconciled.
04:50 The rest is Hollywood history.
04:52 "We actually had a discussion about it, and that's over 30-some years ago,
04:58 and now I think, you know, you move on in life. It seems that the men leave and the women stick
05:02 together."
05:03 6. Ingrid Bergman's Affair and Hollywood Exile
05:07 For a time, Ingrid Bergman was the very model of virtuous femininity. Her elegant performance
05:13 style made her a go-to for characters who were repressed, romantic, and dignified.
05:19 "We knew very little about each other when we were in love in Paris.
05:22 If we leave it that way, maybe we'll remember those days, not Casablanca."
05:26 When the news broke that she was having an extra-marital affair with her director,
05:31 Italian neo-realist filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, let's just say,
05:36 the American public didn't take it well. In fact, Bergman was effectively cancelled.
05:42 "And why I was treated to such an extent. I was a danger for American womanhood. I was
05:48 such a corruption for everybody."
05:52 She was denounced on the floor of the Senate, she lost her brand sponsorships and radio deals,
05:58 and she was all but forced to continue her career in Europe.
06:02 She would not appear in another Hollywood movie for seven years.
06:05 "My decision to have a child, so therefore I felt naturally very hurt by it.
06:11 But it took 25 years and then I was forgiven."
06:15 5. Jackie Coogan Sues His Parents
06:19 Stories of wayward child stars are always in the news,
06:22 but it's a story that's almost as old as the movie industry itself.
06:26 Jackie Coogan made his name as a juvenile co-star of Charlie Chaplin,
06:36 before becoming a star in his own right. He should have been worth millions when he came of age,
06:41 but he soon discovered his mother and stepfather had squandered all the money he had earned.
06:47 With massive public support, his ensuing legal battle led to the passing of the Coogan Act,
06:53 which protects child actors' earnings and outlines their labor rights.
06:57 The 1939 law has been amended since then, but is still the standard in the business.
07:03 "I want my daddy and I was hysterical.
07:05 And if you are going to portray yourself being hysterical, you better get yourself hysterical."
07:13 4. The Death of Thomas Ince
07:16 The death of filmmaker and producer Thomas Ince was so mysterious that it's still hard
07:21 to tell fact from fiction. He reportedly died of heart failure at his home in 1924.
07:27 Rumors circulated that he had actually been shot by William Randolph Hearst on Hearst's yacht.
07:33 "And Hearst was a great shot. He always carried a silver revolver with him.
07:38 And he was so enraged and so jealous that he shot him."
07:44 It was also alleged that the true circumstances surrounding his death were being covered up by
07:49 Hearst, comedian Charlie Chaplin, actress Marion Davies, and columnist Luella Parsons.
07:56 "I don't think he had any set out mission to kill Ince. I think he had more of a mission to
08:03 get rid of Chaplin for having an affair with his girlfriend."
08:07 The story surrounding Ince's death became a game of telephone, where each new detail
08:12 hinted at something crueler and more grotesque than the one before it.
08:16 Although the true details may be far less scintillating than the myth,
08:20 Ince's death was an example of the public's growing suspicion of cinema luminaries.
08:25 "It may have been purely speculation too."
08:28 "Ince's widow, Eleanor, tried to dispel rumors that her husband was murdered by Hearst.
08:32 That led to accusations that Eleanor was bought off."
08:35 3. The Trials of Fatty Arbuckle
08:38 The death of Virginia Rappe gave the film colony's naysayers
08:42 plenty of salacious details to spin conspiracy theories around.
08:46 In 1921, Rappe fell ill and died of a ruptured bladder, days after attending a
08:52 rarefied hotel party thrown by silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
08:58 "The next day, Arbuckle returns to Los Angeles.
09:02 Three days later, at 1.30pm, 25-year-old Virginia Rappe dies."
09:08 A fellow party guest accused Roscoe of attacking Rappe,
09:11 and the comedian was brought up on charges of sexual assault and manslaughter.
09:15 Contradictory testimony, sensationalist journalism, and Rappe's own fragile
09:20 health before her death made the entire case all the more complicated.
09:24 "She said he had not touched her, he had not done anything to her.
09:30 And those statements were kept out of the trial as hearsay."
09:34 After three trials, Arbuckle was acquitted, but his reputation was in tatters.
09:39 The bad press was just one of the reasons that Hollywood established its own code of conduct
09:44 for its star's behaviour, on and off screen.
09:48 "And they indicated that there was never any evidence of any criminal act,
09:53 very unusual for a jury to ever come back."
09:55 2. Harvey Weinstein Allegations and the #MeToo Movement
10:00 Initially started by Tarana Burke in 2006, the #MeToo movement caught fire in 2017 with
10:08 the publication of two major exposés on Harvey Weinstein.
10:12 "New York Times is reporting bombshell allegations against Harvey Weinstein."
10:16 The mega-producer's decades of sexual misconduct was an open secret,
10:20 played for jokes on late nights and even by Oscar hosts.
10:24 However, once the extent and violence of his crimes became public, it caused a firestorm.
10:30 "I told my dad, I told my agent, I told the people with whom I was filming that night,
10:34 and Harvey punished me. I mean, he blackballed my career because I had the wherewithal to refuse him."
10:41 The story proved to be bigger than Weinstein, as women became compelled and empowered to share
10:46 their own experiences with powerful, predatory men. In just a few short years, it has shifted
10:52 the balance of power in Hollywood and brought awareness to misuses of power that went unchecked
10:58 in the film industry. "There being a taped confession of Harvey Weinstein saying,
11:02 'This is a pattern of behavior. I'm used to that,' was a game changer."
11:06 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable mentions.
11:10 The Death of Natalie Wood Wood's mysterious 1981 drowning
11:14 is still being investigated to this day. "Well, he says we should call somebody. No,
11:18 no, no, let's wait. And he's on a boat himself. He can unhook his own boat and go look for her.
11:25 He doesn't even do that." Rob Lowe's sex tape.
11:28 The megastar's leaked video became one of the first sex tape scandals.
11:32 "I think it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Honestly, I do. Because it got me sober,
11:36 sober got me married. I've been married 29 years and I have two great sons. I don't think any of
11:41 that happens without going through that scandal." Jane Fonda travels to Hanoi. Fonda became forever
11:47 known as Hanoi Jane for her controversial trip to Vietnam. "It was like I was thumbing my nose
11:53 at the military and at the country that gave me privilege." Marilyn Monroe's death. Her
12:01 sudden tragic death left a film unfinished and fuelled even more toxic gossip. "One of the most
12:07 famous stars in Hollywood history is dead at 36. Marilyn Monroe was found dead in bed under
12:14 circumstances that were in tragic contrast to her glamorous career as a comic talent."
12:18 Charlie Chaplin's exile. The Red Scare forced the controversial comic to leave America completely
12:25 in 1952. "Your name is poison to them. They don't want to touch you." "These days they
12:31 couldn't if they tried." "I'm sorry, but you must be made to realize the facts."
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12:52 Number 1. The Birth of a Nation Revitalizes the KKK. D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was a
13:01 silent historical epic most infamous for its depiction of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force.
13:08 As much as it overwhelmed audiences with its technical achievements, critics and the NAACP
13:14 called for boycotts over it and its makers' unrepentant racism.
13:18 Lynchings and anti-Black violence saw a notable uptick in its aftermath.
13:23 Months after its release, the Ku Klux Klan returned after a near 50-year hiatus.
13:29 There's no doubt where they took their inspiration. The new Klan adopted much of the iconography that
13:35 was actually invented by the story's original author and mythologized on screen. It remains
13:41 a sobering and disturbing reminder of how powerful Hollywood storytelling can be, for better or worse.
13:48 How many of these Hollywood scandals had you heard of? Tell us which one shocked you the most.
13:55 Welcome to Hollywood, a land just off the coast of the planet Earth.
14:08 [Music]