Old Hollywood gossip & stories

[NineTails20]

Ladies and gents, may I introduce Tallulah Bankhead. She was a wild child before the term was even coined.

She was bisexual and proud of it way back in the 30's and 40's, and wasn't shy about declaring her love of sex. Once gave an interview in 1932 where she said "I'm serious about love. I'm damned serious about it now ... I haven't had an affair for six months. Six months! Too long ... If there's anything the matter with me now, it's not Hollywood or Hollywood's state of mind ... The matter with me is, I WANT A MAN! ... Six months is a long, long while. I WANT A MAN!"

Had an emergency hysterectomy in 1933 due to venereal disease. When she left the hospital, weighing barely 5st, she defiantly yelled at her doctor "Don't think this is going to stop me!"

Among her alleged lovers were Rex Whistler, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Hattie McDaniels.

Tallulah Bankhead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[explodeyourgoss]

Because I love The Wizard of Oz I researched the actors who played the Munchkins....a harder drinking group of actors you would be hard pressed to meet lol. But it was interesting because it showed how in the 1930s and before then they actually used to dress dwarfs (hope I am using the right term) as children. There is photos of them dressed as children. Its quite difficult to watch it to be honest. But what came out of it was how hard they tried to retain their dignity and their humanity through it all. They often lived together and looked after each other when they were sick. They were incredibly tenacious people.

Looking back I wish I had taken the time to ask more questions regarding Hollywood celebs but because I was so invested in putting them on a pedestal I couldnt bear hearing anything non complimentary about them. That was my fault. Through going to an old school beauty salon I used to hear a lot but you have to take it with a large pinch of salt. So many old Hollywood stars die in very miserable circumstances
Marlon Brando had a lock on his fridge and couldnt face going out because he was nearly 300lbs, however he used to see Heidi Fleiss on the regular.Such a beautiful man in his time
Ava Gardner lived a reclusive life in London struggling with money and alcoholism. But she was beautiful and generous to the end she used to invite the bin man in to have a Brandy with her. Rod Steiger was so paralysed by depression he wouldnt leave the house for months and months at a time. He literally couldnt get out of bed or shower even. Marlene Dietrich.....well a shadow of herself but went on the Caberet circuit for too long.

The last photo of Ava Gardner.

The Remarkable Story Behind Ava Gardner’s Last Portrait

 

[Tilly41]

If anyone gets the chance read The Moons a Balloon by David Niven. Just a wonderful raconteur and genuine man by all accounts. It is hilarious as well. It's written as of he cannot quite believe he is acting in Hollywood movies.

 

[Mags44]

I think the Old Hollywood thread is one of my favourite threads on Tattle. I met Marlon Brando when I was younger. I was shadowing an older person on my job and he took him to meet him. He was in his 70s at the time and it was just a business lunch. He was very nice to me but he was very very eccentric. He was also I believe very shy but I saw him very much as a tragic case really. I was reminded during the Depp/Heard testimony. I also met Billy Wilder who was as sharp as a tack in his 80s and he was so frustrated that he felt he wasn't given the opportunity by Hollywood to keep making movies. He was still writing scripts but he felt he was out out to pasture
A brilliant man. RIP

 

[Jelly Bean]

Just watching The Ghost and Mrs Muir on Film 4.
I know she's been mentioned here before but wasn't Gene Tierney a beauty?

 

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

Something I rarely see mentioned these days:

Errol Flynn first wife was the very beautiful French actress Lili Damita, and they had a son, named Sean Flynn, after which they immediately divorced and Sean grew up not really knowing his father. Sean resembled his father physically and became an actor, but wanted more from life than dress up and pretend stuff. So he started working as a freelance photojournalist in the 1960s. He did several tours covering the war in Vietnam for various media outlets. On his last tour in 1970, he and another photojournalist named Dana Stone took off on motorbikes with the aim of interviewing some Viet Cong guerillas at a checkpoint where other foriegn journalists had already been disappeared. This was a bad idea, as they were immediately taken at gunpoint and marched into the woods, and from that point until this day, neither were seen or heard from ever again. Both are believed to have been murdered, with reports that they were held as prisoners by the Viet Cong then turned over to the Cambodian Khmer Rouge who killed them.

Last photo of Flynn (left) and Stone on the day they were taken by the Viet Cong:

There's a really great write-up about Sean Flynn's life and death here:

THE SEAN FLYNN I KNEW (pythiapress.com)

Lily Damita apparently spent endless money trying to find her son after his disappearance and had him declared legally dead 14 years later in 1984. Occasionally someone in Cambodia turfs up a body of a westerner and stories go around that it's Sean Flynn or Dana Stone. Genetic testing has ruled this out every time.

According to Francis Coppola, in his film Apocalypse Now, Dennis Hopper's photojournalist character was based on Sean Flynn.

 

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Kirk Douglas allegedly raped Natalie Wood so violently that she required hospital treatment.

Aren't there rumours he was involved in the murder of a girl in the late-1940s?

 

[Clovis]

My favourite quote about Frank Sinatra came from his wife at the time Ava Gardner. When a reporter asked what she saw in skinny Sinatra, Gardner breezily replied, "he may be only 119lb, but 19lbs of that is cock"!

 

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

It's funny when people say actresses were more natural back in the day because 90% of the time, they did have surgery to fix stuff that the studio heads thought needed fixing, it's only that it wasn't talked about then like it is now. Marilyn, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and were just a few among many who had stuff done.

The Pre-Plastic-Surgery Era: 4 Weird Ways Old Hollywood Stars Changed Their Faces

If you think today's stars go to extremes, think again.

www.marieclaire.com

Yes, they did, within the confines of what was actually possible back then. There was one actress who ended up with a nose prosthetic because of early nose surgery that went wrong. The rest was pure glamour ie. artificiality which was expected, unlike now where there's an expectation that a woman look uber-glam AND 'natural' (which seems to mean bearing no signs of artificial improvements while having all of them money can buy, and a pro glamour squad). I think half of this weird expectation of natural' glam is down to technology - the horrible intrusion of high res digital camera that amplify any texture or pore or stray hair into something that wouldn't even be noticed at all with the normal human eye in real life.

It's really interesting to me, the old fashioned glamour - the transformations that occurred due to not only physical 'improvements' (look at utter goddesses like Garbo and Dietrich pre and post stardom and you see the massive changes made in every aspect of their presentation) but make-up, hair styling and just as crucially, lighting to create these visions that were supposed to look super-human, not 'relatable' or 'natural'. Von Sternberg's lighting of Dietrich was incredibly complex - tiny little pencil thin lights pointed here and there on her face to conjure up the sculpted effect you see in her classic shots from films like Shanghai Express. They'd paint a streak of silver greasepaint down her nose which the light would pick up ... lots of stuff like this. I love those older black and white films because they are all about painting with light - scenes and faces and the best of them to me are way more interesting than anything that came later, visually. They're much more like paintings, no surprise that many of the best early directors had trained as painters.

 

[catscradle]

Ooooh great thread.

Probably well known but one of Agatha Christie's books - The Mirror Crack'd - is based on Gene Tierney. She had contact with a fan who had measles whilst she was pregnant. The child had disabilities and was put into care. Gene had a break down as a result. She was incredibly beautiful.

I love Gene Tierney. I actually have a copy of her autobiography that I managed to get second-hand. I really admire how candid she was about her mental health struggles at a time when the stigma was so fierce...

And yeah I think Gene is one of the most beautiful woman ever, hands down. Her face is literally perfect!

 

[Jelly Bean]

Elizabeth Taylor with her brother Howard, who was an oceanography professor at Hawaii University.
They have the same eyes.

 

[Jelly Bean]

I did not recognise this famous actor at all - he is gorgeous.
From a 1930s film with actress Sylvia Sydney.

Spoiler: Reveal!

Gary Cooper

 

[BellJob]

Loving this thread. Apparently Ava Gardener had a threesome with Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton declaring that only an Irish man and a Welsh man together could satisfy her

 

[shellie]

Don’t think anybody has mentioned Rita Hayworth? Part Spanish but Hollywood gave her a makeover which basically got rid of any Spanish heritage which is a shame but she’s so gorgeous, ultimate femme fatale imo.
Also Vera Ellen who I think is the best dancer to ever grace Hollywood. People speculated she always wore high necks to hide the effects of an ED but not sure how I feel speculating about that given I don’t think she ever spoke about having an ED. She stepped out of the lime light and I barley hear anyone mention her which is a shame because she’s so talented

Rita was used by everyone. She admitted to Orson Welles that her dad used to abuse her. Her mother and father used to dance but after having kids, her mother gave it up and she was taken out of school at 12 to do it instead. Some of the dances they did were very erotic and had people talking and thinking they were an actual couple rather than father and daughter. It turned out he was assaulting her and as well as physically beating her. Her mother knew and did all she could to stop it, even sleeping with her in the same bed.

She was used just as much in Hollywood. When she got there, they did all they could to take the 'Latina' out of her including raising her hairline with electrolysis which was agony but they didn't care about it. They also dyed her naturally brunette hair red so she looked less 'simple' and because of this, she had to have it tinted every other day for years.

It's funny when people say actresses were more natural back in the day because 90% of the time, they did have surgery to fix stuff that the studio heads thought needed fixing, it's only that it wasn't talked about then like it is now. Marilyn, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and were just a few among many who had stuff done.

The Pre-Plastic-Surgery Era: 4 Weird Ways Old Hollywood Stars Changed Their Faces

If you think today's stars go to extremes, think again.

www.marieclaire.com

 

[thegirlscout]

Didn’t realise how much Vincent Price looks like Brucie!

 

[Tilly41]

If you get a chance read Dave McGowans Laurel Canyon book as it explores the musicians who lived their in the 60s and 70s and the iconic music they produced. Be prepared to go down a rabbit hole tho.

Did anyone watch Feud? Bette Davis and Joan Crawford's rivalry is the stuff of legends.

Bette Davis was an absolute force of nature and when she came on the screen it was like a hurricane. I have all her movies and she was a true pioneer. I often just spend evening watching her movies especially All about Eve.She even lobbied the studios to get more diverse and interesting parts which was unheard of at the time. Also she had no issue with appearing unlikeable on screen. Again this was very novel. Her and Joan well that was like the never ending feud. Bette was always considered the better actress and she used to shame Joan terribly saying that she slept with all the Male stars at MGM except Lassie..but Joan was incredibly chic so there was this endless rivalry between them. But there was also parallels. Both had daughters who wrote very unflattering biographies of them that they both believed tarnished their images
Also Bette made it despite not being a glamazon or sex symbol
To me she is beautiful because of the power she transmits. But when she first came to Hollywood the studio sent a car to pick her up from the station and the driver came back alone because he said ' there was no one on the station who looked like a movie star.' She had to carve out her own path. Also she told her daughter she felt she had to fight every day of her life and that comes across on screen.

 

[cee-bee]

As someone who loved old Hollywood movies… the fashion… the glamour… the elegance.. the transatlantic accent..

It’s pretty demoralising when you scratch the surface and realise how corrupt, exploitive and generally shitty the industry was (and probably still Is?) The studio system was awful, the way women were traded like cattle (Lauren Bacall was threatened to have her career destroyed because she rejected the romantic advances of a director who was jealous of her involvement with Bogart).

most of the men I loved and thought were so debonair and handsome and charming, were utter shits.

Clark gable - potential rapist? Serial cheater
Bogart - a groomer, a drunk and abusive. And a cheater.
Errol Flynn - voyuer, statutory rapist, fascist and lied about sending aid to a war torn Spain to self promote.
Gene Kelly - abusive and a bully towards Debbie Reynolds
Marlon Brando - egomaniac who exploited his female costar in “last tango”
Mickey Rooney - cheated on his pregnant wife with an underage Elizabeth Taylor

it just goes on and on. Marilyn Monroe was supposed to have said Hollywood was like an overcrowded brothel

 

[Jelly Bean]

I have to say that in his late 60s/early 70s 'only' wanting sex once or twice a week sounds quite impressive to me

 

[D.W's Library Card]

Does anyone know of any films like Aviator and Babylon (I haven’t seen either but adding them to my list) which are about old Hollywood and film making etc?

The absolute classic in that genre is Singin' In The Rain.
Sunset Boulevard is also magnificent.

 

[Jelly Bean]

This popped up on FB - thought it was interesting!