Random Old Hollywood Actresses Were Ruthlessly Bullied By Men On Classic Movie Sets (16 items)

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  (#1) Tippi Hedren

  • 89

  Alfred Hitchcock worked with several blonde stars during his career, including Tippi Hedren. The former model was spotted in a television commercial by the director and cast as a lead in The Birds. Although Hitchcock's directing style was arguably abusive – he famously locked Hedren in a room with live, angry birds to get a realistic performance – she claims his attitude and actions towards her were much worse.

  According to Hedren, Hitchcock made attempts to control everything about her life. Sometimes he had someone follow her, he creeped out her daughter, and he even took Hedren's handwriting to an analyst. The episode with the live birds caused her to have a mental breakdown and she had to be hospitalized. Hitchcock allegedly made sexual advances towards Hedren as well, and when she refused and asked to be let out of her contract after Marnie a year later, he effectively ended her career.
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  (#2) Debbie Reynolds

  • 86

  Gene Kelly was classically trained in ballet and Donald O'Connor had been singing, acting, and dancing in movies since the age of 12. Although Debbie Reynolds had sung a hit song in a previous film, she had absolutely no dance training when she was cast in Singin' in the Rain and had to catch up quickly to her two co-stars.

  Kelly wasn't happy about it, criticizing Reynolds's efforts and forcing the cast to perform take after take of "Good Morning." By the time they wrapped, they had been at it for 15 hours and her feet were bleeding. She had to be carried off the set and was placed on bed rest. At one point, she ran away from the set crying and had to be reassured by Fred Astaire in order to continue.

  Reynolds also claimed Kelly made unwanted sexual advances on her during filming:

  "The camera closed in. Gene took me tightly in his arms... and shoved his tongue down my throat. 'Eeew! What was that?' I screeched, breaking free of his grasp and spitting. I ran around frantic, yelling for some Coca-Cola to cleanse my mouth. It was the early 1950s, and I was an innocent kid who had never been French-kissed. It felt like an assault. I was stunned that this thirty-nine-year-old man would do this to me."
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  (#3) Judy Garland

  • Dec. at 47 (1922-1969)

  According to one of Judy Garland's husbands, Sid Luft, the munchkin actors were quite a handful both on and off The Wizard of Oz set. He claims they would sexually harass and molest Garland, sticking their hands under her dress. She accused them of being drunks, and stories about gambling, prostitution, and orgies later emerged. It wasn't only the munchkins that allegedly got grabby; Garland remembers studio executives being sexually inappropriate with her as well.

  Whether or not these stories are true, it is a fact that MGM gave Garland adrenaline shots to keep her going and were very strict with her about her weight. She was required to wear a tight corset, both to slim her down and to hide her developing body so she'd appear younger. In addition to a very strict diet, Garland was put on diet pills and required to smoke cigarettes in order to control her appetite.
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  (#4) Maria Schneider

  • Dec. at 59 (1952-2011)

  1972's Last Tango in Paris features one of film history's most infamous sex scenes, in which Marlon Brando performs a sex act on his female co-star facedown on the floor with the help of a stick of butter. The movie was seen as obscene by many and several countries even banned it.

  Schneider revealed she felt manipulated by director Bernardo Bertolucci, and his frequent mood changes affected her deeply. The famous butter scene wasn't even in the original script, and Schneider recalled that Bertolucci neglected to tell her about it until filming was about to begin:

  I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that.

  Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears.

  I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.
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  (#5) Shelley Duvall

  • 69

  Jack Nicholson may be the character who ends up insane at the end of The Shining, but behind the scenes, it was Shelly Duvall who was having a breakdown. Director Stanley Kubrick reportedly picked on her throughout production, sometimes complaining she was wasting everyone's time. Even Nicholson noticed Kubrick was a "different director" towards her.

  Kubrick frequently lost his temper and screamed at Duvall. He kept her isolated from the other actors and made her do 127 takes of the baseball bat scene on the Overlook stairs. Her shaking hands and red eyes, puffy from crying, are completely real. In fact, Duvall cried so much during filming that she became dehydrated and had to carry bottles of water around with her.

  Although Kubrick's methods drew out the performance he wanted, The Shining put Duvall off making movies and possibly lead to later mental health problems.
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  (#6) Faye Dunaway

  • 78

  While many movie fans remember Chinatown as one of Jack Nicholson's best performances, Faye Dunaway had an entirely different experience behind the scenes. The actress had a reputation for being difficult going into the film, but her clashes with director Roman Polanski have become legendary. And he wasn't gentle about it. When she had a hair out of place, he stopped filming and physically pulled it out of her head.

  Dunaway recalled how Polanski even meddled with her makeup:

  Instead of explaining what he wanted, he started striding around saying, 'No, no, no! I want it like this!' And he grabbed the powder and began covering my face with it. The effect was awful, but his methods were worse. I came away from the encounter thinking he was a bully. I think what he did to me throughout the film bordered on sexual harassment.

  It was also rumored that after Polanski would not allow her a bathroom break, she urinated in a cup and threw it into his face. But when asked about it later in her career, Dunaway angrily denied it.
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  (#7) Lauren Bacall

  • Dec. at 90 (1924-2014)

  Howard Hawks once told Humphrey Bogart, "You are about the most insolent man on the screen and I'm going to make the girl a little more insolent than you are." He was referring to Lauren Bacall, whom the director discovered modeling in a magazine and cast alongside Bogart in To Have and Have Not. Bacall suffered from nerves on set, but thanks to Hawks's patience in shooting many takes, his new find became a star.

  But when Bacall and Bogart's chemistry grew off screen as well, Hawks felt betrayed and angry. He called Bacall ungrateful and threatened to sell her contract to another film production company. Years later, while filming The Big Sleep, Hawks even set Bacall up on a dinner date with Clark Gable to distract her from Bogart.

  Bacall remembered:

  [Hawks] had quite a crush on me, but of course he was tangling with the wrong people because there was no way he was going to get anywhere, with Bogie and me involved. He wanted to be my Svengali. He finally forgave me, but he couldn't handle it.
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  (#8) Meryl Streep

  • 69

  Just before receiving the part of a soon-to-be-divorced wife in Kramer vs. Kramer, the man Meryl Streep was in love with passed away suddenly from lung cancer. Perhaps it was the still-raw emotion that got her the part, but co-star Dustin Hoffman noticed her pain and took advantage of it.

  In order to get her riled up for a scene where their characters are arguing, Hoffman slapped Streep across the face without warning, just before the cameras began rolling. He later teased her using personal information about the death of her lover, and threw a wine glass against a wall so close to her head that glass landed in her hair. Hoffman even told her, "Meryl, why don’t you stop carrying the flag for feminism and just act the scene," when she tried to use her own experience as a woman to make suggestions about her character.
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  (#9) Shirley Temple

  • Dec. at 86 (1928-2014)

  From 1935 to 1939, Shirley Temple was the most famous actress in America. But before she became more popular than Clark Gable, Temple starred in a series of short films called "Baby Burlesks." The young girl starred with a group of other toddlers in the films, all of which centered around the supposed humor of putting kids in sexually charged adult situations. In addition to being rather pervy, the films were often sexist and racist. Director Charles Lamont was also cruel towards his child actors, forcing them to sit in a soundproof box with a block of ice if they weren't performing well.

  Unfortunately, these shorts were not Temple's only brushes with sexist weirdness in Hollywood. She later claimed an MGM producer exposed himself to her (she laughed in response) and a film critic was sued for suggesting Temple had a "well-shaped and desirable little body" in his review for her film, Wee Willie Winkie.
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  (#10) Greta Garbo

  • Dec. at 85 (1905-1990)

  Greta Garbo is often listed among the most beautiful women in the world. But her life wasn't always easy. The Swedish-born Garbo's father died when she was only 14, forcing her to go to work to raise money for the family. Garbo's beauty proved a blessing, though, and she was offered a part in a short film which led to a theater academy scholarship.

  But when Garbo tried to get a role in the Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling, director Mauritz Stiller told her she was too fat. After losing 20 pounds, she got the part. Stiller became a manager of sorts for Garbo and eventually caught the eye of producers in America. Louis B. Mayer of MGM offered him a contract, but Stiller would only accept if Garbo could join him. Mayer reluctantly agreed, saying, "In America, men don't like fat women.'' 
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  (#11) Sean Young

  • 59

  Sean Young has been known to act a little crazy when she really wants a certain part in a movie, and Charlie Sheen has demonstrated he's not the world's most mature guy. So when they met on the set of Wall Street, naturally a feud began. Young was after the part that eventually went to Darryl Hannah, but was given a smaller role as Michael Douglas's wife.

  Young continued to complain after filming commenced, and her attitude got under the skin of her co-workers, especially Sheen. He became so upset that he hand-wrote a sign reading, "I am the biggest c*nt in the world," and stuck it to her back. Douglas ripped it off and had words with Sheen, but apparently director Oliver Stone wasn't Young's biggest fan either. Even after he gave her a smaller part, he cut lines for her character and sent the actress to the bus station when he couldn't deal with her anymore.
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  (#12) Loretta Young

  • Dec. at 87 (1913-2000)

  From 1930 to the late '60s, Hollywood largely abided by the Hays Code, which set moral regulations for what could appear on film. Although studios often invented romances between co-stars for publicity, the actors were still bound by what was considered decent. There were often affairs between stars, but they were usually covered up for fear of what they could do to an actor's career. So it makes sense that Loretta Young hid her affair with Clark Gable while filming Call of the Wild, and kept the fact that she bore his child a secret. The truth came out in her memoirs, which were released posthumously.

  However, in a 2015 interview with BuzzFeed, the daughter-in-law of the child that came from their relationship claimed Young was actually raped by Gable. There's no way to know if this story is true or not, but the lifelong lie she was forced into clearly marks Young as a victim of studio system abuse.
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  (#13) A Group Of Female Extras On Cleopatra Went On Strike To Avoid Harassment

  1963's Cleopatra caused plenty of scandal for kickstarting the affair between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, but the female extras who played servants and slave girls in the film had their own troubles to deal with.

  As with many of the era's sweeping epics, the actresses' costumes were slightly revealing, and because so many extras were needed, many locals were hired to stand around in crowds. While filming in Italy, the women became the subject of unwanted advances and harassment from handsy locals. The situation became so bad that the actresses eventually went on strike until the studio would give them some sort of protection. A special guard was hired just to protect the actresses, and filming continued.
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  (#14) Sarah Miles

  • 77

  The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing is a 1973 American film staring Burt Reynolds and English actress Sarah Miles. It hasn't really had staying power, partially because it wasn't very good, but also because the movie was overshadowed by a scandal. Miles was having a secret affair with Reynolds, and the relationship was discovered by her business manager, David Whiting. Whiting was secretly obsessed with the actress and allegedly confronted her about her relationship with Reynolds, physically attacking Miles in her hotel room.

  The next day, Whiting was found dead in his own hotel room. His death was labeled a suicide, but suspicion lingered around Miles for years. Whatever really happened, the scandal ruined any success the movie might have had.
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  (#15) Virginia Cherrill

  • Dec. at 88 (1908-1996)

  In the early 1930s, Charlie Chaplin cast an unknown 20-year-old named Virginia Cherrill in City Lights. Cherrill's innocent appeal caught his eye, and he gave her the part of a blind flower girl with whom his Little Tramp falls in love. But off screen, Chaplin did not like Cherrill at all. His animosity towards her could be due to the fact she turned down his sexual advances – reportedly the only actress in any of his films to do so.

  Chaplin's treatment of Cherrill turned overtly abusive when he made her do 342 takes of the scene where their characters first meet. He was known as a perfectionist when it came to his films, but this was a bit much. Chaplin even fired Cherrill at one point since he was so frustrated with her. However, he couldn't find a suitable replacement and had to hire her back. But the biggest blow against Cherrill may have been that Chaplin made millions off City Lights, while the actress was given a mere $5,000 for appearing in the film.
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  (#16) Mabel Normand

  • Dec. at 38 (1892-1930)

  Mabel Normand was one of the major female players in the the silent age of Hollywood cinema. She starred in at least 167 shorts and 23 feature films, and worked with silent movie greats like Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin. She became a star player for Keystone, especially for her ability to perform slapstick, but what she really wanted to do was direct. Supposedly Normand did direct at least one film, Mabel at the Wheel, but her credit mysteriously vanished.

  Keystone films were often re-edited and reprinted, and her credits may have been lost and instead given to her co-workers like Chaplin or Fatty Arbuckle. Records list her as the director of Mabel at the Wheel, but other sources say it was a collaborative effort. Chaplin allegedly questioned her competence and claimed to have directed all his films himself. However, Sennett contradicted this, saying he believed Chaplin learned everything he knew about directing movies from Normand.

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