Today's Blind Items - She Almost Quit

Before she became the A lister she is today, this mostly movie actress who is an Oscar winner/nominee started off mostly in television. She was not old enough to drive at the time she started what she calls the worst time of her life. She loved acting and wanted to take it to the next step. At that time, there was a network that had a lot of shows involving tweens and teens. I have written about some of the horrific behavior on at least one of those shows. I knew our actress guest starred on that show and asked her if she remembered being on it. I didn't expect the answer I received.

She said the network had this casting gauntlet if you were her age. A lot of men got to look at you and inspect you like meat. If you got cast, you were told to not upset any of the stars. This was especially true on the first show she appeared on. There was one of the teen stars she was supposed to go on a date with on the show. She said they rotated the dates on the show so each teen got to "date" someone for a week. In her case, she was forced to endure two or three dozen versions of slow dance scenes and kisses where she was groped and manhandled by the teen while he kept trying to get her to go back to his trailer. She didn't, but she was violated. Take after take while he got to do what he wanted to her. She was wearing clothing, but his hands were everywhere. Then, they filmed in front of a live studio audience and what had been a three minute sequence turned out to be about 30 seconds which made her realize she had just been meat.

The next season she was cast on the show I was telling you about. She said that was horrific and just as I described. Again, she was cast as a "date," and the same scenario played out again, only this time they decided she shouldn't be wearing a bra beneath her clothes because it didn't look right through the camera lens. So, she was subjected to hours of groping and kissing while they got the sequence just right.

After that she almost quit acting. She got cast in a show as a regular and thought she wouldn't be subjected to harassment, but it was even worse because there were dozens of men and teens always hitting on her. Thankfully the show got canceled and she said she has had lots of pigs and bad situations since, but nothing where the assaults were so orchestrated with the help of the producers and directors.