Infamous Scandals

by Anne Williams

  The final tragedy

  The result of the first two trials in the Arbuckle case resulted in a hung jury. At the third trial the jury finally acquitted Arbuckle and issued him with a written apology for the loss to his reputation – by now Arbuckle was unable to find work as an actor and was shunned by all the Hollywood studios. But it was too late; Arbuckle’s morale had collapsed under the strain of the scandal and his life was in ruins. He divorced his first wife and married again, to Doris Deane, but after failing to find any work, became an alcoholic. His new wife soon divorced him, unable to cope with his erratic behaviour.

  But although Arbuckle’s star had fallen, his career was not over yet. Little by little, with the help of his old friend Buster Keaton, he began to find work in the movie industry once more, this time as a writer and director rather than an actor. He used the name William Goodrich (his father’s name) as a pseudonym. Things began to look up: he cut down on his drinking and married again, eventually starting to make short films under his own name once more. On 28 June 1933, having completed two short films, Warner Brothers signed him up to make a feature film. At this point, it seemed that, finally, the terrible scandal that had brought him down was behind him, and that he could now resume his glittering Hollywood career. He is said to have exclaimed, on signing the contract ‘This is the best day of my life’.

  Sadly, this happiness was not to last. That night Arbuckle suffered a massive heart attack and died. He was aged only 46. Undoubtedly, the fact that he was overweight had contributed to his health problems; but it also seemed likely that the strain of the scandal had taken its toll in the long run.

  After his death, many critics cited his influence on comedy, but few prints of his films remained and today there are few examples of his work that still survive. Indeed, for many, the name of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle name lives on solely as a reminder of the damage that an unfair scandal can inflict on an individual. It wrecked his career, his relationships, his health and his legacy, as well as bringing him to an untimely death.

  Woody Allen

  Woody Allen was one of the best-loved comedians and directors in Hollywood until a scandal erupted in his personal life that shocked not only the United States but the rest of the world. He began a relationship with his partner Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. At the time, Allen was 57 and Soon-Yi was 22. Although Soon-Yi had never been formally adopted by Allen, and he therefore was not technically her stepfather, for many years he had been the partner of her adoptive mother and had obviously taken a parental role, watching the child grow up. Thus, although in purely legal terms Allen had done nothing wrong, the relationship between him and Soon-Yi was viewed by most onlookers as inappropriate, to say the least.

  Had the matter stopped there, however, the scandal might have been forgotten; as it was, the situation took a turn for the worse when, during the ensuing custody battle, Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing the daughter they had adopted together, Dylan (now known as Malone). The charges were later dropped, but the damage had been done, and Allen’s reputation never entirely recovered from the scandal.

  Gift for comedy

  Allen was born Allen Stewart Konigsberg to Martin and Nettea Konigsberg in New York City on

  1 December 1935. His family were Jewish German immigrants, and Yiddish, as well as German, was spoken at home. In later years this Jewish background proved a constant source of inspiration and comedy for Allen. His parents were hard-working immigrants from the Lower East Side and when they married they moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn, where Allen and his sister Letty were raised.

  Allen began his education at Hebrew school, then went to public school and high school, before attending New York University and City College of New York. However, he never took his university education very seriously, and before long was asked to leave both establishments, due to the fact that he hardly ever turned up to lectures or did any work. This was because, since the age of 16, he had been busy honing his career as a comedian.

  From an early age, Allen had showed a strong gift for comedy. He wrote jokes for an agent, who sold them to newspaper columnists, and by the age of 16 he was writing for comedians such as Sid Caesar. Three years later, he was writing for TV comedy shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show and making a lot of money. In the early 1960s, Allen started a career as a stand-up comedian, making a joke out of his nervousness and playing up his image as a neurotic New York Jewish intellectual.

  From there, he moved on to writing plays and screenplays, directing movies and, by the late 1960s, he was making his own films. He became one of the most creative film makers in Hollywood, writing, directing and starring in his own pictures, which ranged from offbeat comedies such as Bananas, Sleeper and Love and Death, to romantic comedies like Annie Hall, to serious dramas such as Interiors. On the way, he often broke new ground: Annie Hall, which also starred Diane Keaton, marked a new era for romantic comedy; Manhattan, made in black and white, was a touching tribute to the city he never left; and Hannah and Her Sisters, a romantic comedy with tragic undertones, won three Academy Awards. His output was extraordinary and besides these successes, there were numerous movies that failed at the box office but drew praise from the critics.

  However, from the year 2000 onwards, most critics agreed that his movies were not up to his previous standards, until in 2005 he made Match Point, starring Scarlett Johansson, which was a box office success and won him another Academy Award. Despite his importance as a film maker, Allen chose never to attend the Academy awards ceremonies in person to collect his accolade.

  Leading ladies

  Throughout his career, Allen had a history of having relationships with his leading ladies, which began after he divorced his first wife, Harlene Rosen. The couple, aged 19 and 16, found they did not have much in common and spent many hours in bitter dispute. Harlene finally lost patience with her husband when he poked fun at her in public after she had been sexually assaulted by a stranger outside their apartment. She sued him for divorce, and after the split, Allen went on to marry actress Louise Lasser. He and Lasser co-starred in a movie called Take the Money and Run, but they divorced just three years later, although Lasser continued to star in his movies. His next leading lady was Diane Keaton, whom he cast in his Broadway show, Play it Again, Sam, and true to form, the couple became romantically involved. However, this time Allen did not marry his leading lady, although he always referred to her as ‘the love of his life’. In 1977, the movie Annie Hall, which told of their romance, became a huge hit. Not long afterwards, he and Keaton split up but, like Lasser, she continued to star in his movies.

  His next leading lady was Mia Farrow, who starred in many of the movies he made during the 1980s and early 1990s. When he met her, Farrow had six children, three biological children from her previous marriage with composer Andre Previn, and three children she had adopted with Previn, including a young girl called Soon-Yi. Soon-Yi had been found on the streets of Korea and was taken to an orphanage. It was here that she was introduced to her adoptive parents, Farrow and Previn, and taken to the United States.

  Nude photos

  Allen and Farrow never set up home together, but they had a long, close relationship lasting over a decade. During this time, they had a son, whom they named Satchel but who later changed his name to Ronan. They also adopted another son and daughter, although Allen did not formally adopt Farrow’s other children. This unconventional domestic arrangement continued until Farrow discovered some nude photographs that Allen had taken of her daughter Soon-Yi. Outraged, she sued Allen for divorce, and a huge scandal broke when the media and the public learned what was going on.

  When the couple split, Allen openly continued his relationship with Soon-Yi, despite the many negative comments from the press. Farrow, who was reported to be devastated by the situation, sued Allen for custody of their children and in the process accused Allen of molesting their adopted daughter Dylan (later known as Eliza and then Malone) when she was only se
ven years old. The charges were later dropped, but the scandal had shocked the world. In the end the judge awarded Farrow custody of the children, and commented that Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi was ‘inappropriate’. Allen and Soon-Yi went on to marry in 1997 and later adopted two daughters themselves, whom they named Bechet and Manzie after two of Allen’s favourite jazz musicians.

  Rock Hudson

  Rock Hudson was one of the iconic Hollywood stars, a man who, with his good looks and well-built physique, epitomized red-blooded American masculinity during the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, it was a tremendous shock to the nation when he became one of the first celebrities to die from AIDS, and his life as a homosexual was revealed. For some, it was as though the American Dream itself had died, and the reality of the modern world, with all its complexities and confusions, had taken its place.

  Handsome new star

  Leroy Harold Scherer Jr was born in Winnetka, Illinois. His father Roy was a car mechanic and his mother Katherine a telephone operator. During the Depression era of the 1930s, his father left home, never to return, and Katherine and her children were left to fend for themselves. When his mother remarried, Leroy took his new stepfather’s name and adapted well to school life, graduating from high school and going on to join the navy in World War II. During his time in the war, Leroy worked as an aircraft mechanic, and also served in the Philippines. On his return Leroy decided to pursue a career as an actor, but failed to get into drama school and started to earn a living by truck driving. However, in 1948 his luck changed when he met a talent scout, Henry Willson, who was impressed by his good looks and found him work in the movies. Willson also made up a new, suitably masculine, name for his rising star: Rock, taken from the Rock of Gibraltar, and Hudson, taken from the Hudson River.

  Hudson’s first screen role was in a film called Fighter Squadron, made in 1948. Legend has it that Hudson had so much trouble remembering his one line in the film that it took 38 takes to get it right. But despite this unpromising start, Hudson went on to get more roles in films, primarily because he was an extremely handsome man. Many of his roles were physically demanding ones and he had to take lessons in riding, fencing and dancing. Then, in 1954 his break came in a film called Magnificent Obsession, playing a rogue who repented the error of his ways. The film showed that as well as being a matinee idol, Hudson could also act, and he went on become one of Hollywood’s most popular stars, working with Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and many other Hollywood greats.

  Living a lie

  Unlike other Hollywood stars of the 1950s, Hudson’s popularity continued well into the 1960s, and he extended his repertoire with a series of romantic comedies in which he played light-hearted roles with Doris Day as his leading lady. However, by the 1970s his star was beginning to fall, and although he toured the country in the musical Camelot and made several TV movies and series, by the end of the decade he was no longer the major movie star that he had once been. This led to a downward spiral of heavy drinking and smoking, until in 1981 he was forced to have heart surgery. In the following years, his health continued to deteriorate and by the time he took a role in the TV drama Dynasty in 1984, it was clear that he was seriously ill.

  Throughout his career, Hudson had been living a lie. He was a homosexual, yet he was seen as a pin-up idol that women swooned over. Because of his status as a matinee idol, he felt, for obvious reasons, that he could not let his true sexuality be known. In the 1950s homosexuality was taboo in most social circles and it would undoubtedly have harmed his career if his sexual orientation had been revealed.

  Gays in Hollywood

  In 1955 Hudson married his agent’s secretary, a woman named Phyllis Gates, in an effort to persuade his public, and perhaps himself, that he was heterosexual. The real reason for the marriage, which only lasted three years, is still a matter of speculation. In Gates’s autobiography she claimed that she and Hudson fell in love and lived together before they married. However, after she died in 2006, some suggested that Gates was a lesbian, and that the pair had made a pact between them. It is thought that as a ploy to restore his reputation, Gates would become his wife, but then they would divorce, and in return, she would receive large sums of money from him for the rest of her life. And indeed, when this happened, her alimony amounted to over $200 a week for a decade. Today, the truth about the marriage

  remains unknown.

  In later biographies of Hudson, there were claims that he had gay relationships with some of the most famous stars in Hollywood, including Marlon Brando and Burt Lancaster. There were other relationships with men such as the novelist Armistead Maupin and the publicist Tom Clark. Later, his co-star and friend Doris Day said she knew nothing of these liaisons, and that as far as she was concerned, her friend Rock Hudson was not gay, nor had she ever had cause to doubt his heterosexuality.

  Struck down by AIDS

  Whatever the truth of the matter, on 5 June 1984 Hudson was diagnosed with HIV, but chose to keep it a secret. Later, when he became visibly ill, his staff told reporters that he was suffering from liver cancer. That same year, he made an appearance on a TV show called Doris Day’s Best Friends and the public were shocked by just how sick he was. He could hardly speak and he had become quite emaciated. Such was the public concern that on 25 July 1985, he finally issued a statement to the press saying that he was suffering from AIDS. Even then, he did not refer to his homosexuality, saying that it might be the case that he had contracted the disease during his heart bypass operation in the early 1980s.

  Hudson became progressively weaker, until in October of that year, he died at his home in Beverly Hills, aged 59. He was one of the first, and most visible, gay men to die of AIDS and it came as a great shock to the public that this iconic symbol of American manhood should die in so tragic a fashion. After his death, another scandal broke when his former partner Marc Christian sued Hudson’s estate, saying that Hudson had continued to have sex with him after he knew he was HIV positive, thus jeopardising his health. This, however, was later disputed.

  Today, Rock Hudson is remembered with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As one of the most handsome Hollywood stars of his day, he tragically became one of the first famous victim of AIDS; but today, it is his youth, health, fitness and vitality that will forever be captured on screen.

  Marlon Brando

  Marlon Brando was one of the most celebrated actors of the 20th century, introducing a new style of acting on to the screen, and becoming an icon to a rising generation. However, despite his massive success and international stardom, his life was a troubled one. Throughout his career he attracted notoriety: for example, in one instance he sent a Native American woman to pick up his Oscar award and deliver a long speech about America’s oppression of the Native American tribes; in another, he was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in an interview. His behaviour was also erratic to the point of showing mental instability, and his ludicrous demands earned him a reputation for being a spoiled, rich film star – both on and off set – and for this he became legendary. However, all this was nothing compared to the final scandal that seemed to break his spirit when in May 1990, his son Christian shot and killed his half-sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend. Not long afterwards, to add to the tragedy, Cheyenne, who was suffering from depression, killed herself. At this point, Brando publicly announced in the courtroom that he had failed his children and went on to spend his declining years in semi-retirement, seldom appearing in films and demanding vast sums when he did. In addition, he grew ever more obese, which limited the number of roles he could take on. His behaviour grew increasingly bizarre and scandals continued to surround his personal life, until his death at the age of 80 in 2004, when it was revealed that he had been suffering from a form of dementia exacerbated by other illnesses.

  Turbulent childhood

  Brando was born on 3 April 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Marlon Brando Sr and Dorothy Brando. He had two younger sisters, Jocelyn and Frances. His parents separ
ated when he was a child, only to reconcile once more when he was 13, and together the family moved to an area north-west of Chicago. There was little security for him and his sisters as they were growing up, since their mother was an alcoholic who often spent long periods away from home, causing their parents’ relationship to be somewhat turbulent. However, Brando later recalled his mother with affection as a talented and kind person, who supported him and his sisters in their artistic ambitions.

  After dropping out of military school, where he had repeatedly got into trouble for disobedience, Brando’s father got him a job digging ditches, but, not surprisingly, he soon tired of this occupation and moved to New York, where his sisters had gone to pursue their careers. His sister Jocelyn was training as an actress and introduced him to the theatrical world in the city. He soon impressed those he met with his personal charisma and began to study under Stella Adler. At her school, he learned method acting, which involved the actor submerging him or herself in the part, recreating the conditions under which the character lived, and drawing on parallel emotions in his or her own life.