THE DARK SIDE OF OLD HOLLYWOOD

BEHIND THE SCENES, THE STUDIO SYSTEM SUBJECTED THESE ICONIC STARS TO EXPLOITATION, HUMILIATION AND TERRIBLE ABUSE

JEAN HARLOW In the 1930s, she became the world’s first “blonde bombshell,” yet her employer, MGM Studios, dictated her entire life. “MGM had written a clause into her contract forbidding her to marry,” says Anne Helen Petersen, author of Scandals of Classic Hollywood. That rule kept Jean from becoming actor William Powell’s wife and forced her to abort their child. She died at 26 from unrelated kidney failure with William at her side. JIMMY STEWART His success on Broadway won him a Hollywood contract, but it came with conditions. “Jimmy was so shy, [studio head] Louis B. Mayer thought he was gay and wanted to fire him,” Marc Eliot, author of Jimmy Stewart: A Biography, tells Closer. “So he told a friend of Jimmy’s, ‘Take him to the house.’ Every studio had houses…

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Closer Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 15, 2021

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