I’m pretty sure 95 percent of the tabloid-y magazines this week (and last week, and the week before, and next week) are all about Britney Spears. Does she have mental health issues? Did she get a restraining order against her paparazzo boyfriend? When was the last time she saw her kids? How many Rite Aids has she visited this week?
And although Lindsay has been lying low (for Lindsay), there’s still talk of whether or not she’s really sober and who she’s dating now and how bad her last movie was. Then there’s dear Paris. Making out with Jared Leto at Sundance. Sigh. There goes the very last bit of my teenage crush on Jordan Catalano.
These girls are far from the first to be scandalized in the tabloids, though. Let’s take a look back at nine Hollywood scandals before Paris was a glimmer in her daddy’s eye. In fact, before her dad Rick Hilton was a glimmer in HIS daddy’s eye… and some stories before Barron Hilton was a glimmer in Conrad Hilton’s eye. OK, I’ll stop.
1. 1901 – Evelyn Nesbit
At the turn of the century, Evelyn Nesbit was one of the most sought-after models in New York and became one of the famous Gibson Girls. Her modeling career turned to acting when she starred as one of the Floradora chorus girls at the age of 16. That’s where 47-year-old married architect Stanford White started wooing her. It’s said that he is the one who, uh, deflowered her. He then moved on to younger, more virginal girls while Evelyn got pregnant – twice – by John Barrymore (Drew’s grandpa). Although Stanford White wasn’t romantically involved with Evelyn at the time, they were still quite emotionally attached and he paid for her to go away and be treated for “appendicitis”. It’s disputed as to whether she actually had the baby or had an abortion.
She married a jealous, terribly abusive man, Harry K. Thaw, at the age of 20. In 1906, the couple ran into Evelyn’s old lover, Stanford, at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden where Thaw shot Stanford point-blank in the face three times, yelling either “You will never see this woman again!” or “You ruined my life!” or “You ruined my wife!” There seems to be controversy over his actual words. Evelyn was presented with a deal: if she testified that Thaw was only avenging her virtue because White had raped her, Evelyn would receive a divorce settlement of $1 million. She did, but was denied the money. She tried to commit suicide several times over the course of the rest of her life, but ended up dying in a nursing home at the age of 82 in Santa Monica.
2. 1924 - Thomas Ince and William Randolph Hearst
Obviously Mr. Hearst is not without his share of scandal. But murder? Maybe. Actor, director, producer and screenwriter Ince was celebrating his 42nd birthday on Hearst’s yacht when he died. The official reason is that he ate too much and drank too much and simply had a heart attack. The rumor, though, is that Hearst shot him because either Ince was making a movie on Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies, or Charlie Chaplin was and Hearst confused Ince for Chaplin on the dark boat. I guess only a couple of people really know for sure. His granddaughter Patty Hearst wrote her vision of how it happened in the novel Murder at San Simeon, but makes sure to let the reader know that she has no idea what really happened.
3. 1926 – Rudolph Valentino
4. 1927 – Marion Parker /Edward Hickman
5. 1932 - Peg Entwistle
6. 1934 – Mary Astor
By 1933, she was pretty broke and had to get the Motion Picture Relief Fund to pay her bills. Her parents didn’t have much sympathy – they sued her in 1934 for more financial support. She testified that all of her money had gone directly to their bank accounts even after her first marriage. It wasn’t until Hawks died that Mary decided she needed to look out for herself. She did, however, give them the home that they had purchased with her earnings. She also gave them $1,000 per month. When she hit hard times in ‘33, she told her parents she couldn’t afford to support them unless they moved to a smaller house – the house they lived in was bigger and more expensive than the one Mary lived in with her family. She also offered them $100 a month, plus food and utilities, but they refused to leave the mansion.
Mary said in her memoirs that in 1947 she sat with her delirious mother on her deathbed in the hospital. Because of dementia, her mother spent hours complaining to Mary about her selfish, horrible daughter Lucile (Mary’s real name). Mary read her mother’s diaries after she died and said she was surprised to know how much her own mother hated her.
7. 1935 – Loretta Young
8. 1943 – Frances Farmer
The following year, Frances was arrested at the Knickerbocker Hotel when her hairdresser said that Frances had dislocated her jaw in a fit of rage on set. At her trial, she shoved a policeman down, hit another and threw an inkwell at the judge. She was transferred to the psychiatric ward at L.A. General Hospital where she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She was given shock therapy but escaped the hospital within nine months. Eventually Frances was handed over to her mother’s custody, but that didn’t work out so well - she assaulted her mother, who had her committed to Western State Hospital in Washington. It was there that she received electro-convulsive shock treatment. A few months later, in 1944, it was announced that she was totally cured. The talk of the town was that the “cure” was a lobotomy, but that has been denied by multiple sources. Apparently the cure wasn’t permanent, because she was found wandering around Antioch, Calif., Anne Heche-style, and was recommitted to Western State Hospital for another five years. She did return to showbiz for several years but by 1964 she was having extreme mood swings again. She died in 1970 of esophageal cancer.
9. 1953 – Gene Tierney
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