In the 1950s and ‘60s there was a veil over the entire world of celebrity. Disasters, tragedies, and affairs happened under our noses and no one was the wiser. But the thing with secrets is that they always come out. Hidden stories from the Golden Age of Hollywood are a fascinating look into a world when the private lives of celebrities were protected at all costs, when one wrong move could ruin someone’s career and bring everything crashing down.
The Scandal That Shocked Hollywood
Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher were a match made in Heaven. Both young Hollywood icons, when these two got together they were the sweethearts of the press. When they married in 1955, they became the vision of the All-American family, complete with two children, Carrie and Todd. At the time, Reynolds and Fisher were the best of friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. When Todd passed away tragically, Fisher consoled Taylor and this companionship turned into a full-on romantic relationship. Reynolds was heartbroken, she divorced Fisher, and he lost everything. To add insult to injury MGM put Fisher’s actions on the front page of every magazine. In 2017, Reynolds told Vanity Fair, “MGM saw the situation, and they smelled the situation, and I was simply destroyed by it, but at the time, they were my publicity people. They owned me—I was under contract, so they put me into pictures right away. I did like four or five pictures right away, during the Eddie Fisher phase. They were taking a young talent that was nobody and she happened to fall into a scandal.”
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Fred Astaire Almost Didn’t Make It
Fred Astaire got his start in the vaudeville world working with his sister Adele. They debuted on Broadway in 1917 with a show called Over The Top and continued to appear together in movies up through 1931’s The Band Wagon. When Adele married Lord Cavendish in 1932 she left show business altogether, ending the 27-year collaboration with her brother. This left Fred Astaire in a quandary. He was famous and successful, but without his sister no one knew what to do with him. At the time executives said of Astaire, “Can’t act, can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.” Brutal.
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The Set of Lawrence of Arabia was Full of Hijinks
Lawrence of Arabia is one of those tony British dramas that remains a critical smash, and for good reason, it’s an incredible film full of magnificent performances and beautiful cinematography. Even though the film is essentially a museum piece at this point, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t full of drunken shenanigans behind the scenes. With so many hard-living English actors in one place, elbow-bending is unavoidable, especially when one of those actors is Peter O’Toole. There were a few camel-based injuries, but the worst indignity was suffered by co-star Omar Sharif. O’Toole explained that one day he and Sharif were so drunk that they hatched the idea of tying themselves to their camels, but only Sharif actually went through with it. The two of them loaded up on a cocktail of brandy and milk, then went on a camel ride to the sea. O’Toole recalled their arrival for NPR, “We made it. We got to the other end all right, right to the sea. And I stood on my camel, we stood in the water, and I looked, and to my right was Omar. And he was still tied to the camel but hanging on upside-down.”
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The One, The Only, Kim Novak
Known for films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, as well as the Sinatra films The Man with the Golden Arm and Pal Joey, Kim Novak was constantly in a battle with Columbia Pictures head honcho Harry Cohn. In one of the more gross displays of nastiness from this era, Cohn threatened to blind Sammy Davis Jr. when he sensed that Davis and Novak might be developing a romantic relationship. After a mudslide destroyed her Los Angeles home, Novak took drastic measures and left Hollywood for good in 1966. She said, “So I rented this van and took what was important to me. The mudslide was telling me: ‘Your time is up; take off while you can.'” She moved around from Big Sur to Oregon while taking the occasional project until she retired for good in 1991.
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Do You Know How Groucho Got His Mustache?
Even if you’ve never seen a Marx Brothers movie you know what Groucho Marx looks like, what with his distinctive glasses, eyebrows, and mustache. Early in his career he glued on a fake mustache before each of his performances, but one night as he was running late he quickly drew a mustache on his face with greasepaint, which he felt looked much better. Not only was the greasepaint faster to apply, it was easier to remove. His oversized, exaggerated mustache and accompanying eyebrows eventually became Groucho Marx’s signature look, but later, as the host of popular quiz show You Bet Your Life, Groucho actually grew a real mustache.
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