Old Hollywood scandals that everyone has forgotten

If you thought Hollywood was already pretty bizarre these days: think again. There are really bizarre things happening now and I think it's even weirder but we haven't even experienced half of it in the media. Those media are of course getting bigger and more up to date, thanks to TikTok, Instagram and that sort of thing.

That was different in the past. But that doesn't mean there weren't scandals back then like Jordyn Woods/Khloé Kardashian/Tristan Thompson was. On the contrary: it was at least just as juicy back then. Just check out these scandals. If those were happening in 2021, there would have been quite a stir...

1. Multiple female celebrities were forced to have abortions
The studios were the absolute boss back then, even if you were a megastar like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford or Judy Garland. These are just three ladies who were forced to undergo abortions by the studio. The studios believed that ‘bombshells’ like these women should not get married, let alone become pregnant. Well, then you're no longer desirable of course... So if they got pregnant, they were forced to have an abortion and it was stated in the media that they ‘needed to take some rest’. Bi-zar. Vanity Fair wrote an extensive article about it.

2. Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin
Eh, WHUT? I don't know if I need to explain this further, but okay: on December 12, 1957, this musician married his cousin Myra Gale Brown. She was thirteen at the time and still believed in Santa Claus. Enough said, I think.

3. Walt Disney invited a German Nazi for a tour of his studio
The link between Walt Disney and antisemitism has been discussed for decades and often Walt Disney doesn't come off very well. This is also quite logical, considering he invited Nazi Leni Riefenstahl to his Walt Disney Studios in 1938, shortly after Kristallnacht. A striking move, to put it mildly.

4. An actress jumped off the Hollywood sign
The name Peg Entwistle probably doesn't mean much to you: she was an American actress who just couldn't make it in Hollywood. Unfortunately, she saw no other way out and after her failed acting career and marital problems, she committed suicide by jumping off the H of the famous Hollywood sign in 1932.

5. Joan Crawford starred in a pornographic film
Yes, that was of course scandalous in the 1930s when this came out. Crawford was just starting to make it in Hollywood and then the MGM studio received a letter demanding $100,000, otherwise the film would be made public. The studio paid that and the copy was destroyed.

6. The death of Natalie Wood remains a mystery
Actress Natalie Wood, then 43 years old, went on a boat trip with her husband Robert Wagner (also an actor) and co-star Christopher Walken. A telling detail: rumors circulated that Wood and Walken were having an affair. This was in 1981 and no one has seen her alive since. According to the two men, she fell off the boat, but not everyone believed that. Not even the police, who reopened the case. According to the police department, they are still working on this case.

7. Charlie Chaplin married multiple (!) underage girls
To say that Mr. Chaplin had a preference for young girls is quite an understatement. His first marriage was at 29, when his wife was 16. Quite a significant age difference, and that marriage didn't last. Then he tried again at 35, again with a sixteen-year-old girl. What the...? That marriage also didn't last and then he picked an older person (he married a twenty-year-old), but when that didn't work out, he went back to his old ways: he married an eighteen-year-old. He was 53 at the time.

Source: Ranker.com