Top 10 Old Hollywood Rumors That Turned Out To Be True

German-born Hollywood star Marlene Dietrich was known for her crisp and raspy voice. However, the story that there was a massive insurance policy taken out on it is actually true. Before the rise of mass media, this kind of policy would have seemed ridiculous. But classic Hollywood stars’ entire livelihoods might depend on a couple of distinctive features. Their image and natural talents were suddenly major financial assets. In fact, Dietrich wasn’t the only star whose studio wanted to protect its stars’ body parts. Wartime star and famed pin-up Betty Grable’s legs were also insured – so was comic Jimmy Durante’s characteristic nose.

Orson Welles’ masterpiece about Charles Foster Kane’s road to success, wealth, and ultimately, complete moral destruction had a very real, and very scandalous, parallel in reality. Kane was modeled after uber-wealthy publisher and producer William Randolph Hearst. Rumors were sparked pre-release, but Welles was somewhat cagey about his inspiration for reasons that soon became obvious. Although he would say Hearst’s life was just one of many inspirations, the parallels were clear. Gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper threw themselves to the mat to protect Hearst, viciously going against Welles and the film. Hearst himself retaliated with a full-fledged attack campaign in his newspapers, making sure “Citizen Kane” would not be discussed.

Hollywood is full of stories where hopeful creatives came to try their luck and failed. But the story of the actress who took her life from the Hollywood sign had passed into legend for so long that it seemed like the kind of thing only a screenwriter could think up. Unfortunately, it actually happened. Peg Entwistle was a promising stage actress who made the jump to films in the early 1930s. Sadly, her role in “Thirteen Women,” her first and only movie, was all but edited out of the final cut. She ultimately climbed to the top of the sign’s “H” and took her own life in 1932. A movie about her life and death was notably a central plot of Netflix’s “Hollywood” miniseries.

Old Hollywood stars were essentially the property of their studios. Even their personal lives were constructed fantasies, designed to maintain the glamorous façade. Surprisingly, gossip columnists didn’t always exist in opposition to this. For as feared as she was, gossip queen Hedda Hopper’s career was made possible by MGM chief Louis B. Mayer. Louella Parsons, for her part, owed her career to mogul and film producer William Randolph Hearst. Columnists might print an embarrassing story about a star, but they often kept the more damning ones for a rainy day. A columnist couldn’t anger the system too much if they wanted to stay relevant. If anything, one hand fed the other, creating a myth-making hype machine that benefited everyone, save the occasional actor whose career was ruined.

Chaplin’s left-leaning politics earned the ire of conservatives in Hollywood, but it was a 1944 paternity suit, launched by Joan Barry that exposed what many had talked about for years. Chaplin lost the suit even though blood tests proved he wasn’t the father of the baby in question. However, it helped cast more light on his tendency to date people who were too young. Lita Grey, for instance, was a minor. The two had to marry in Mexico in 1924, as it would have been against the law to do so in California. However, much of the damage was compounded by the actor marrying the teenaged Oona O’Neill amid the Joan Barry paternity scandal.

Being launched to superstardom by Hollywood’s biggest studio would be a lot for any teenager. Judy Garland had more than overnight fame to worry about. The bigwigs at MGM not only controlled her food intake, but also fed her pills that contributed to substance use disorder for the rest of her life. For years it seems her struggles were chalked up to personal problems. But the truth has since become more widely known. Indeed, there’s no denying that whatever Garland may have dealt with throughout her life was made exponentially worse by the systemic psychological and physical mistreatment she withstood.

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is an organization notably dedicated to film preservation and the awarding of the coveted Oscar for achievements in filmmaking. The first awards were given out in 1929 to great fanfare. It all started because Louis B. Mayer, the intimidating head of MGM, was annoyed when union rules complicated the building of his beach house. Seeing that unions were coming to Hollywood, Mayer co-founded the Academy, and the Academy Awards, to take the place of a real union and keep the talent in line. It didn’t work, and the Academy and the Oscars have long broken free from their original purpose.

Siblings growing up to become Oscar-winning movie stars is a Hollywood melodrama in the making. Throughout the 1940s, sisters Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine were dogged by rumors about their longstanding animosity. Even when photos surfaced of one actively snubbing the other backstage at the Oscars, the two largely kept it classy for the media, without necessarily denying the estrangement either. While they went through a lot over the decades, the tension was reportedly never resolved. De Havilland was famously cagey about their feud up until the end of her life, but Fontaine spoke more freely about it once the strictures of Old Hollywood fell away.

Much of the Third Reich’s most indelible and ultimately harmful images came courtesy of propaganda filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl. Before the horrors of the Holocaust were fully known, she cemented images of German excellence through her filmmaking. When she came to Hollywood in the late 1930s, most studios refused to receive her. One man, however, did open his doors. Fresh off the success of his first animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney gave Riefenstahl a reported three-hour tour of his studio. However, myths that he screened her film there have been deemed untrue. Later, Disney reportedly denounced the visit, denying he knew who she was or her importance to Hitler’s propaganda machine.

An ill-timed pregnancy could ruin a young actress’ life. This was back in the day when studios often pressured expectant actresses to terminate pregnancies in order to keep their contracts. But Loretta Young, a strict Catholic, came up with a plan to hide her pregnancy and later claim she had adopted the child. As her daughter, Judy Lewis, grew, she began to resemble her famous father, and rumors were rampant. Young didn’t tell her daughter the truth until well into adulthood, but eventually, she confirmed that Clark Gable was Judy’s biological father. The darker truth was exposed after all three were dead. Unfortunately, the encounter with Gable that resulted in Young’s pregnancy with Lewis was not consensual.

What Old Hollywood rumor that turned out to be true surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments.