Today's Blind Items - Old Hollywood - The Syphilis King
Plenty of studio heads in Old Hollywood basically forced actresses to have sex with them for roles. It wasn't so much a casting couch as it was sexual assault. One of the most famous studio heads, is still famous today, many years after his death. He is so famous that multiple movies have been made about his life. Funny though, most of those movies fail to discuss the horrors of working for him or being an actress under contract at his studio.
If you didn't agree to have sex with him, he would rape you. If you did agree to have sex with him then the odds were high you would contract syphilis. There was one actress who told her husband she was a virgin when they married. She wasn't. The husband figured it out when he contracted syphilis from her and divorced her almost immediately after marrying her. There was another actress who was set to marry our executive but suddenly didn't. Reason? Our executive basically sold her to a very rich man.
One of the women he really wanted but couldn't pressure because of her A+ list fame got secretly married. This enraged our executive who had the husband murdered. It was always portrayed as something else, but the executive did the killing and then had a torrid fling with the actress who was afraid she would be killed if she didn't.
Another actress who our executive loved kept putting off the executive by getting married. What did the executive do about it? Paid off the husbands to divorce the actress until she finally gave in and started sleeping with the executive. She also contracted syphilis from the executive and refused to have children for fear of passing it to them through birth.
There was an actress who was probably A- list. Academy Award nominee. There was always a fiction that she never slept with the executive. The story was he pursued but she declined. No such thing. He pursued and she slept with him and contracted syphilis. When she gave birth to a child with severe defects there was a story concocted as to why.
[…] Plenty of studio heads in Old Hollywood basically forced actresses to have sex with them for roles. It wasn’t so much a casting couch as it was sexual assault. One of the most famous studio heads, is still famous today, many years after his death. He is so famous that multiple movies have been made about his life. Funny though, most of those movies fail to discuss the horrors of working for him or being an actress under contract at his studio. If you didn’t agree to have sex with him, he would rape you. If you did agree to have sex with him then the odds were high you would contract syphilis. There was one actress who told her husband she was a virgin when they married. She wasn’t. The husband figured it out when he contracted syphilis from her and divorced her almost immediately after marrying her. There was another actress who was set to marry our executive but suddenly didn’t. Reason? Our executive basically sold her to a very rich man. One of the women he really wanted but couldn’t pressure because of her A+ list fame got secretly married. This enraged our executive who had the husband murdered. It was always portrayed as something else, but the executive did the killing and then had a torrid fling with the actress who was afraid she would be killed if she didn’t. Another actress who our executive loved kept putting off the executive by getting married. What did the executive do about it? Paid off the husbands to divorce the actress until she finally gave in and started sleeping with the executive. She also contracted syphilis from the executive and refused to have children for fear of passing it to them through birth. There was an actress who was probably A- list. Academy Award nominee. There was always a fiction that she never slept with the executive. The story was he pursued but she declined. No such thing. He pursued and she slept with him and contracted syphilis. When she gave birth to a child with severe defects there was a story concocted as to why. The post Today’s Blind Items – Old Hollywood – The Syphilis King appeared first on CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS. Source: Today’s Blind Items – Old Hollywood – The Syphilis King […]
ReplyDeleteLouis Mayer?
ReplyDeleteSamuel Goldwyn?
ReplyDeleteHoward Hughes
ReplyDeleteGene Tierney as the actress who had a child with birth defects.
ReplyDeleteThe A+lister Liz Taylor/Husband who died Mike Todd?
ReplyDeleteJoan Crawford for the actress who never had children (she adopted)
ReplyDeleteThe "germaphobe".
ReplyDeleteDorothy Dandridge for actress whose daughter had deects(brain damage)
ReplyDelete*birth defects
ReplyDeleteI forgot this POS did movies.
ReplyDeleteJane Russell
ReplyDeleteShe adopted her kids
ReplyDeleteHe directed a couple of movies but was a businessman/investor inventor etc. I thought....
ReplyDeleteWhat studio did he head?
Selznick (Jones, Walker, daughter).
ReplyDeleteRKO
ReplyDelete?thx:)
ReplyDeleteAdvanced syphillis can result in mental illness, which would explain Hugh's bizarre behavior towards the end. I wonder who he murdered.
ReplyDeleteWhoever this is, what an evil bastard. Hope he's frying in Hell!
ReplyDeletePreminger for the director
ReplyDeleteThis part is definitely about Ava Gardner:
ReplyDeleteAnother actress who our executive loved kept putting off the executive by getting married. What did the executive do about it? Paid off the husbands to divorce the actress until she finally gave in and started sleeping with the executive. She also contracted syphilis from the executive and refused to have children for fear of passing it to them through birth.
No, HH for the director.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Bette Davis had a husband that died.
ReplyDeleteGene Tierny had a daughter with major birth defects. "Daria was born prematurely in Washington, DC, weighing three pounds, two ounces and requiring a total blood transfusion. The rubella caused congenital damage: Daria was deaf, partially blind with cataracts, and severely mentally disabled. She was institutionalized for much of her life." The claim was that Gene contracted rubella from a sick fan.
ReplyDeleteBette Davis' husband?
ReplyDeleteJack Warner. Notoriously abusive, king of all assholes.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that nobody killed this guy.
ReplyDeleteMy thought too
ReplyDeleteHave they made movies about Jack Warner though? I'll be honest, I've never heard of him....
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. Think the murderess could have gotten away with it. The studio head's family sure wouldn't want the truth out there. No trial, terrible accident, soorree!
ReplyDeleteand Agatha Christie wrote a mystery book about it "The Mirror Cracked" and Liz Taylor starred in the movie.
ReplyDeletethis is totally Howard Hughes. Explains his insanity for not ever treating his syphillis. Gene Tierney had a mentally disabled daughter.
ReplyDeleteDarryl Zanuck head at Fox, had a standing "casting" appointment every day.
ReplyDeleteIn August 1943, Davis' husband, Arthur Farnsworth, collapsed while walking along a Hollywood street and died two days later. An autopsy revealed that his fall had been caused by a skull fracture he had suffered two weeks earlier. Davis testified before an inquest that she knew of no event that might have caused the injury. A finding of accidental death was reached. Highly distraught, Davis attempted to withdraw from her next film Mr. Skeffington (1944); but Jack Warner, who had halted production following Farnsworth's death, convinced her to continue.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is it is supposed to be Paul Bern, Jean Harlow's husband. Paul Bern was responsible for purchasing Harlow's contract for MGM from Hughes. Bern & Harlow were married just 2 days after their engagement, with not much planning. Bern died 2 months after the wedding from a gunshot wound to the head. The studio said it was a suicide.
ReplyDeleteWould Rita Hayworth be the one he sold to a rich man? They had a relationship, she married prince Ali khan.
ReplyDeleteWow. What a nightmare this person was. Hopefully his privates shriveled up and fell off before he died. This should be exposed. Maybe it didn't come out while he was alive, but let the truth tarnish his memory.
ReplyDeleteThat movie scared me when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone wants to take this course, they can: http://study.com/academy/lesson/howard-hughes-women-katherine-hepburn-his-wife-girlfriends.html
ReplyDeleteSadly, there's no such place.
ReplyDeleteif you google howard hughes syphilis there are many references to his having contracted it.
ReplyDeleteSubject clearly Howard Hughes
ReplyDeleteA- list nominee definitely Gene Tierney
2nd to last paragraph, Ava Gardner??
3rd to last paragraph, Jean Harlow, husband who was murdered Paul Bern?
HH didn't have Mike Todd killed - he insisted on flying his private plane during a terrible storm, and the wings iced up. However, there's an interesting story regarding HH and Taylor, bacause he really was obessed with her for a while, prior to her marriage to Todd. Liz was basking by the pool of a Beverly Hills hotel - she was still in her late teens - HH walked up to her, opened a briefcase over her body, and poured out a heap of diamond jewelry. When Liz sat up and fumed at him for disturbing her, HH said, "get dressed, we're getting married." Taylor laughed in his face, threw all the jewelry she could manage to grab into the pool, and walked out.
ReplyDeleteYup, HH. Paul Bern murdered.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of common knowledge
ReplyDeleteNo one could get to him.. he was so deeply protected
ReplyDeleteNo movies about him
ReplyDeleteNo movie about him
ReplyDeleteNo movies were made about Him
ReplyDeleteNo movies made about him
ReplyDeleteAgain-
ReplyDeleteNo movies made about him
As stated in the blind
Nope
ReplyDeleteShe was sick of Mickey Rooney cheating on her so she left
She and Sinatra were going to kill each other after 6 yrs married so they divorce
Great story - thank you for sharing! Makes me love Liz even more!
ReplyDeleteHow do you explain the multiple abortions each time she got pregnant?
ReplyDeleteAnne - since you seem to be so in the know, why don't you fill in the blanks when it comes to the women in the blind?
ReplyDeleteThe gossip was that he and Davis had a fight two weeks earlier and that she had hit him with an object. Consequently she is a popular guess in the blinds about the movie actress who got away with murder.
ReplyDeleteThat's what we were told for reasons...how does anyone know what really went on?
ReplyDeleteKudos to Liz.
ReplyDeleteRita Hayworth had a terrible life. Horrific relationship with her father, sold off, then her last years with Alzheimer's. :,-(
ReplyDelete"Caught" (1949) is a film by Max Ophuls about a naive young model who marries a dynamic millionaire who soon shows himself to be controlling and sadistic. Even at the time there was talk that Ophuls had based him on Hughes, whom he'd worked for. The Hughes avatar is a given now, and Robert Ryan is brilliant in the part.
ReplyDeleteHarry Cohn.
ReplyDeleteAsshat.