- 1 minute ago
Hollywood’s Golden Age was built on glamour, but behind the polished studio images were ugly secrets, shocking crimes, and ruthless cover-ups. From power players dodging justice to stars whose private lives were hidden from the public, these scandals prove old Hollywood was anything but clean. Which buried scandal shocked you the most?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I did 18 hours yesterday. I mean, I couldn't hardly remember my own name.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo. And today, we're looking at 10 scandals from the golden age of Hollywood
00:10that were actively covered up back in their days.
00:13You know what my talent is? I know in the first 30 seconds if somebody's got what it takes to
00:19be a star.
00:21Walt Disney was an FBI informant who ratted out colleagues.
00:25Magic mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest one of all?
00:31Turns out, the animation pioneer had a highly classified backdoor to J. Edgar Hoover.
00:37Decades before the Freedom of Information Act peeled back the curtain,
00:41Walt Disney lived a double life as a secret informant for the FBI.
00:45Beginning in 1940, the legendary animator secretly reported on labor organizers,
00:51actors, and fellow animators whom he suspected of having communist sympathy.
00:55Now you wash the dishes, you tidy up the room, you clean the fireplace, and I will use the broom.
01:04In exchange for feeding the Bureau names during the height of the Red Scare,
01:09Disney was allowed to film at FBI headquarters and was heavily shielded from any public scrutiny
01:14regarding his political maneuvers. This covert relationship remained a tightly guarded secret
01:19throughout his entire life and completely contradicts his carefully manicured and folksy public persona.
01:25Good, Geppetto. You have given so much happiness to others. You deserve to have your wish come true.
01:32Howard Hughes escaped a manslaughter charge.
01:35Johnny, you're a press agent. Are you not?
01:39Yeah.
01:39And you're supposed to know all the little ins and outs of Hollywood?
01:41Yeah, absolutely.
01:42Do you?
01:43Yeah, absolutely.
01:44Then you leave the big ideas to me.
01:48Billionaire filmmaker Howard Hughes was practically untouchable, even when his actions turned lethal.
01:54In the summer of 1936, Hughes struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel Meyer while driving in Los Angeles.
02:01A key witness told police that Hughes was driving, quote,
02:05erratically and too fast. And this was put into the resulting police report.
02:10The tycoon was promptly arrested for negligent homicide.
02:13I could do that.
02:15Do what?
02:16Buy it.
02:17You want to buy the airline?
02:18For crying out loud, Jack.
02:20We don't want a bunch of damn pencil pushers getting in the way of us making our plane, do we?
02:23Yet almost overnight, the narrative miraculously flipped, with the primary witness claiming that
02:28the pedestrian had stepped into traffic. Given Hughes' massive wealth and influence,
02:34historians widely agreed that he had the witness paid off. The authorities dropped all charges,
02:39allowing one of the most powerful men in Hollywood to sidestep a nasty manslaughter conviction.
02:44When I grow up, I'm going to fly the fastest planes ever built, make the biggest movies ever,
02:52and be the richest man in the world.
02:55Spencer Tracy went on wild benders.
02:57All right, I've been waiting for it.
02:59You're waiting for the undertaker, the cops, the kind of a life you're leading.
03:02On screen, Spencer Tracy was the gruff and reliable father figure of American cinema.
03:07Off screen, he was an extremely heavy drinker who frequently embarked on violent benders.
03:12So MGM employed a dedicated Tracy squad to protect his pristine reputation.
03:18Now let's see, I wonder who you'd get along with.
03:21Uh, there's Madame Laruga sitting over there.
03:24You probably don't speak Slovenian either.
03:26No, just a little broken English.
03:28When the actor would vanish into a hotel or brothel for a multi-day drinking marathon,
03:33this elite team of studio fixers tracked him down.
03:36They would physically restrain him until he sobered up,
03:39pay off terrified bar owners for any smashed property,
03:43and even bribe local police to keep his name off the arrest blotters.
03:47The public remained blissfully unaware of his destructive demons,
03:51and all because the studio functioned as heavily armed babysitters.
03:57Sorry?
03:58Nothing.
03:59I don't blame you, it's awful.
04:01Judy Garland had an abortion against her will.
04:04Did she hurt you?
04:05Oh, she tried to, didn't she?
04:08Come on, we'll go tell Uncle Henry and Addie M.
04:11MGM's Ultimate Girl Next Door was treated less like a human being and more like a corporate asset.
04:16Judy Garland was the studio's golden goose,
04:19provided she maintained her virginal appeal, of course.
04:22So when the 19-year-old star eloped with bandleader David Rose in 1941 and got pregnant,
04:28executives hit the panic button.
04:30A baby would shatter her youthful illusion and derail countless multi-million dollar productions.
04:36Wonderful.
04:37Why, if our scarecrow back in Kansas could do that, the crows would be scared to pieces.
04:42Instead of celebrating, the studio, with the terrifying complicity of Garland's own mother,
04:48orchestrated a brutal intervention.
04:50They pressured the young actress into a clandestine abortion,
04:54stripping away her bodily autonomy in order to protect their box office returns.
04:58It was a traumatizing violation that reportedly haunted Garland for the rest of her life.
05:03What's she doing?
05:04Well, I can't quite see why she's crying.
05:09Someone has hurt her.
05:10Someone has just about broken her heart.
05:13Paul Byrne probably didn't take his own life.
05:15I'm not interested in your literary recommendations.
05:18Well, perhaps it would be a little heavy for you.
05:20If you'd like something lighter, something with a touch of romance.
05:23When you are married to the original platinum blonde, Jean Harlow, your life tends to make headlines.
05:29In 1932, MGM executive Paul Byrne was found dead from a gunshot wound in the home he shared with Harlow.
05:36But the police weren't the first ones on the scene.
05:39Studio fixers Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling arrived before law enforcement,
05:44turning a potential crime scene into a carefully curated stage.
05:48Something tells me I better leave.
05:51That's an excellent idea.
05:54Oh, hello, mother.
05:55Oh, hello, hello, Mrs. Scarlett.
05:57Come right in.
05:57We'll have a slug of tea.
05:58Rumors have swirled for nearly a century that they scrubbed the house,
06:02destroyed evidence, and may have even planted a suspiciously vague note.
06:07The prevailing theory is that Byrne was murdered by his estranged common-law wife, Dorothy Millett.
06:12Regardless, the fixer's mission was clear.
06:15Keep Harlow's name away from any hint of murder, lest a scandalous murder trial destroy her box office potential.
06:22I'm sure you're quite willing to be decent about this.
06:25Decent?
06:26Why, Ms. Scarlett, I want to be noble.
06:28The William Desmond Taylor crime scene was sanitized.
06:31A dead director, a bungalow crime scene, and a cast of suspicious A-listers.
06:36The 1922 shooting of Paramount heavyweight William Desmond Taylor is one of the ultimate unsolved Tinseltown mysteries.
06:44When Taylor's body was discovered, Paramount executives supposedly beat the LAPD to the house and totally ransacked the place.
06:52Witnesses reported seeing people frantically throwing documents into the fireplace,
06:56supposedly to protect two massively famous actresses of the time, Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand,
07:03who were romantically involved with the victim.
07:05By the time the actual detectives showed up, the scene had been thoroughly compromised.
07:09Thanks to this brazen corporate tampering, the trail went ice cold, and Taylor's killer got away with murder.
07:17MGM fed its child stars drugs.
07:20Good morning.
07:22It's the lovely morning.
07:23Good morning.
07:24What a wonderful day.
07:26We danced the whole night through.
07:30Good morning.
07:31Good morning.
07:32It wasn't just adult stars who were subjected to Hollywood's ruthless problem-solving.
07:37Teenage sensations like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were the financial backbone of MGM,
07:43but their grueling schedules were impossible to maintain.
07:46Instead of easing their workloads, MGM turned its studio doctors into glorified drug dealers.
07:54Those will take the edge off.
07:56No, I gotta sleep tonight.
07:59Halpert will give you something for that later, down the hatch.
08:02They prescribed powerful amphetamines to keep the young actors energized for grueling 18-hour shifts,
08:08and then gave them barbiturates to knock them out.
08:12Repeat day after day, week after week.
08:15This studio-sponsored pharmaceutical abuse was completely hidden from the public,
08:19painted instead as youthful exuberance and natural pep.
08:23I can't sleep at all anymore.
08:25Please.
08:26I can't sleep.
08:27Please.
08:28Please.
08:29That's not my department.
08:31Rock Hudson was gay and had a sham marriage.
08:34Oh, Brad.
08:37Would you sing it to me again?
08:39At the height of his fame, Rock Hudson was the ultimate masculine heartthrob.
08:43Behind closed doors, he was a gay man, terrified of being exposed.
08:47When the tabloid Confidential threatened to out his biggest client in 1955,
08:52ruthless talent agent Henry Wilson struck a devil's bargain.
08:56To kill the Hudson expose, Wilson literally sacrificed two of his other clients,
09:02feeding the rag secret arrest records for Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter.
09:06Shouldn't you be getting into your costume?
09:09Well, it's not much to get into, honey lamb.
09:12I know.
09:13But he didn't stop there.
09:15To solidify the heterosexual facade, Wilson strong-armed Hudson into a sudden and highly
09:20publicized marriage with his own secretary, Phyllis Gates.
09:24The lavender matrimony finally threw the press off the scent,
09:27saving Hudson's box office appeal at a terrible personal cost.
09:31You're wholesome.
09:32You don't perspire.
09:33No pimples.
09:34You smell like milk.
09:38And you got secrets churning beneath the surface.
09:41Patricia Douglas was assaulted and then blacklisted.
09:45So here we have two historic stories, and suddenly something's pushing both of them off the front pages.
09:51An underage dancer named Patricia Douglas goes public with shocking charges against MGM.
09:55This is easily one of the darkest and most stomach-churning chapters in movie history.
10:00In 1937, MGM invited over 100 young female dancers to a sales convention slash raucous stag party.
10:09But they quickly became bait for drunk studio executives.
10:12One dancer named Patricia Douglas was held down, forced to consume alcohol, and sexually assaulted.
10:19Unlike most victims of the era, she actually took her attackers to court.
10:23But MGM's response was merciless.
10:26This is the Pinkerton Detective Agency report.
10:28The same day Patricia Douglas goes public.
10:31There's surveillance of her.
10:33They're watching her.
10:34They're asking people questions about her.
10:36They're standing outside her house all day.
10:38They're seeing who's going in, who's going out, where she's going.
10:41The studio machinery launched a brutal smear campaign against Douglas,
10:45planting fabricated stories in the press, and intimidating key witnesses into silence.
10:51The federal case against the executives was ultimately dismissed,
10:54and Douglas's career was utterly tarnished.
10:57She moved states, changed her name, and spent her final days in impoverished seclusion.
11:02I'm writing a book about Jean Harlow.
11:04I ought to know everything that's going on at MGM.
11:06I've never heard of Patricia Douglas.
11:08Never heard her name mentioned.
11:11Never seen her name in any of the reference sources.
11:14Any.
11:14Loretta Young adopted her own biological daughter.
11:17Is he dead?
11:21Well, he isn't dead.
11:23And he isn't a he.
11:24Sometimes the best place to hide a scandal is right in front of the cameras.
11:29During the freezing 1935 shoot of Call of the Wild,
11:32devout Catholic actress Loretta Young was impregnated by leading man Clark Gable.
11:37He also happened to be very publicly married.
11:40An abortion was off the table due to her faith.
11:42And an out-of-wedlock baby would obliterate her career.
11:46The solution?
11:46A shockingly elaborate shell game.
11:49You will not leave this town without me.
11:50We'll leave without you.
11:52You'll wait here.
11:53And life.
11:54Young went into hiding to deliver the child,
11:57and then surrendered her to an orphanage.
11:59Months later, she proudly announced to the press that she had adopted a beautiful baby girl named Judy.
12:05The charade was maintained for decades.
12:08And Judy Lewis lived her first 31 years,
12:11not knowing that Hollywood's king and queen were her biological parents.
12:15I didn't have the courage to go to my mother.
12:18I instead went to my priest who was marrying us.
12:22And I said, I've just been told that my father's Clark Gable,
12:24and I'm going to ask my mother.
12:26And he said, no, don't.
12:27She won't tell you.
12:28Can you think of any other scandalous cover-ups?
12:31Tell us about them in the comments below.
12:32Tell us about them in the comments below.