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david
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Top 10 Hollywood scandals
« on: Dec 8th, 2003, 2:06pm »		 Quote Quote Modify Modify Remove Remove
Taken from MSN website
 
Top 10 Hollywood Scandals
We count down the lurid, the sordid and the sad  
 
by Kat Giantis
MSN Entertainment
 
Hollywood has always served up sordid stories filled with unsavory characters and plenty of sex and violence. And we're not talking about the movies. As long as there have been celebrities, there have been scandals. It seems there's nothing we love more than gorging on a star's public humiliation and pain. And, as Paris Hilton's much-downloaded boudoir romp proves, we're not terribly discriminating as to whose fall from grace we witness.
 
What's our obsession with watching the rich and famous crash and burn? Maybe we like seeing the curtain ripped back from a celebrity's carefully crafted public image. Or maybe it's just plain old schadenfreude: When a star suffers, it makes us feel better about our own less-than-fabulous lives.
 
With the media's current crush of coverage for Hilton and Michael Jackson, it seems like a good time to examine the biggest Hollywood scandals ever (sorry O.J. and Monica -- these are celebrity scandals). Below are 10 big names whose troubles grabbed headlines, changed the pop-culture landscape, and brought out the voyeur in us all...
 
 
10. Rob Lowe Makes a Home Movie
Long before Paris Hilton burned up computer monitors and Pam and Tommy got busy on their boat (and car, and just about everywhere else), there was Rob Lowe. Back in 1988 at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, the then 25-year-old pretty boy Brat Packer was feeling frisky, so he invited two girls (one only 16) back to his hotel room. After committing their carnal acts to video, Lowe disappeared into the bathroom, and the two women disappeared with the tape and some money. A portion of the graphic video was leaked to the press (it wasn't Rob's finest performance), sparking a tabloid feeding frenzy that kept him under constant media surveillance. The actor eventually settled with the teen and he escaped charges of sexual misconduct with a minor by performing 20 hours of community service. His career rebounded, and the politically minded former pinup landed roles on both "The West Wing" and Governor Schwarzenegger's staff. Now a married father of two, Lowe and his notorious videotaped exploits received new publicity when police found a copy during a raid on the home of Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens.  
 
9. Hugh Grant Is Caught in Flagrante Delicto  
Before his fateful encounter with hooker Divine Brown in June 1995, Hugh Grant was best known as the stammering, floppy-haired charmer from "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and the devoted beau of cleavage-baring starlet Elizabeth Hurley. That image disappeared the night he drove to a seedy part of Sunset Boulevard and picked up Brown. Within minutes, the pair was arrested for engaging in a lewd act (said act cost Grant $60). When police told Brown who her client was (he had called himself "Lewis"), she responded, "Who the hell is Hugh Grant?" Before long, everyone knew who the hell he was. The publicity was immediate and intense, especially in the actor's native Britain (blasted London's Sun tabloid, "You've Blown It, Hugh!"). Grant, upper lip stiff, decided to go forward with planned interviews to promote "Nine Months." First up was "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, who opened with, "What the hell were you thinking?" Grant's disarming response: "I did a bad thing, and there you have it." His witty and charming talk-show mea culpas provided public absolution, and he walked away with two years' probation, a $1,180 fine, Hurley's forgiveness, and a surging career.
 
8. Winona Ryder Picks Up Some Bargains at Saks
Even when committing a felony, fashion plate Winona Ryder had impeccable taste. On Dec. 12, 2001, the two-time Oscar nominee was nabbed trying to pilfer nearly $6,000 worth of designer goods -- including a Gucci dress, a Dolce & Gabbana purse, and a Marc Jacobs sweater -- from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. In addition to the purloined property, the sticky-fingered cutie pie was also carrying several powerful painkillers and a syringe (she had reportedly obtained prescriptions from different docs using various aliases). At her media-packed trial, Ryder wore her emotions on her sleeve (and the rest of her petite frame), appearing in a succession of modest outfits -- complete with prim matching headbands -- that painted a picture of innocence. It didn't work. She was sentenced to three years of supervised probation, 480 hours of community service, counseling, and was ordered to cough up $10,000 in fines and restitution. While Ryder's movie career has slowed since her arrest, she did find work with Marc Jacobs, who hired her to hawk his designs in an ad campaign that parodied her arrest.
 
7. Pee-Wee Herman Catches the Late Show  
When Paul Reubens was busted outside a Sarasota, Fla., porno theater for allegedly bad-touching himself -- twice -- during a showing of the skin flick "Catalina Tiger Shark" in July 1991, the media and the public had a resounding answer to his nerdy alter ego's well-known catchphrase, "I know you are but what am I?" Suddenly, the man behind the rosy-cheeked, tight-suited perma-adolescent Pee-Wee Herman was branded a pervert. Faster than you could say "I'm rubber, you're glue," CBS had pulled reruns of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," and Pee-Wee merchandise was yanked from store shelves. Though Reubens insisted he was innocent (he admitted he was in the theater but "never exposed himself or engaged in any other improper activities"), his career as he knew it was over. At least Reubens was able to find the funny in his shame: Two months after his arrest, he donned his Pee-Wee guise to open the MTV Video Music Awards, asking the cheering crowd, "Heard any good jokes lately?" He later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure and coughed up a $50 fine. He bounced back with supporting roles in "Batman Returns" and "Murphy Brown" before being hit with another scandal in 2001 -- this one involving a misdemeanor charge of child porn possession. Reubens maintains his innocence.
 
6. Woody Allen Woos Soon-Yi  
It's always been a fine line between the lovably neurotic nebbish Woody Allen plays on screen and the man himself, which is probably why no one was laughing at the funnyman's antics in 1992. Allen, then 57, had fallen in love with 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his longtime lover and frequent co-star Mia Farrow, who discovered their affair after spying salacious Polaroids the filmmaker had snapped of Soon-Yi. "I didn't feel that just because she was Mia's daughter, there was any great moral dilemma," Allen explained defensively to Time. "The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to those things." Allen and Farrow, once the most reclusive couple in Hollywood, laid their lives bare during their vicious 1993 custody battle: Allen claimed Farrow hit Soon-Yi; Farrow, calling Allen "a moral tumbleweed," accused him of molesting their adopted daughter Dylan (the allegations were denied and never proven). In the end, Woody's heart got what it wanted: He married Soon-Yi in 1997, and they quietly adopted two children of their own. Domestically, Allen is doing fine, but professionally he's never really been the same. His last few films have tanked, with one critic calling his latest, "Anything Else," the "sourest of romantic comedies."  
 
5. Ingrid Bergman Is Condemned by the Senate
Ingrid Bergman's impeccable image as an Oscar-winning actress (for "Gaslight") and devoted wife and mother (she and surgeon Petter Lindstrom had a 10-year-old daughter, Pia) was destroyed in 1949 when she began an affair with married Italian director Roberto Rossellini on the set of "Stromboli" and became pregnant with his child. Public condemnation -- fueled by sensationalistic stories from Hollywood gossip columnists -- was swift, with religious groups calling for Bergman's films to be banned and Sen. Edwin C. Johnson denouncing the Swedish-born actress on the Senate floor as "a powerful influence for evil" and suggesting she be barred from the country for "moral turpitude" (The Senate officially apologized to Bergman in 1972). The couple wed soon after Bergman gave birth to Rossellini's son (she lost custody of Pia in the divorce) and they produced five more films and twin daughters -- Isabella and Ingrid -- before separating in 1956. The following year, Hollywood welcomed Bergman back from exile with a Best Actress Oscar win for "Anastasia."
 
4. Lana Turner's Daughter Tries to Protect Her Mom
Lana Turner was as well-known for her ability to fill out a snug sweater as for her lousy taste in men. On Good Friday in 1958, the 37-year-old blonde bombshell and four-time divorcee began violently arguing with her abusive, mob-linked boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, 32, at her Beverly Hills home. As the fight escalated, Stompanato allegedly threatened to cut Turner's famous face, prompting her 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, to grab an 8-inch butcher knife from the kitchen. As Stompanato stormed out of Turner's bedroom, Cheryl stabbed him in the abdomen. He died a few minutes later. "Everything happened so quickly ... I thought she had hit him in the stomach with her fist," Lana tearfully testified a week later at a nationally televised coroner's inquest. "They came together and then they parted. I never saw the blade." Turner's titillating testimony was persuasive: The stabbing was ruled a justifiable homicide, though rumors persisted that Lana had actually wielded the knife (mother and daughter denied this). After the ruling, Cheryl went to live with her grandmother, and Turner's previously tepid career was revived with the 1959 smash "Imitation of Life."  
 
3. Roman Polanski Flees the Country
Like the aforementioned Woody Allen, Roman Polanski's troubles began with some pictures. In 1977, the "Chinatown" auteur, then 44 and no stranger to scandal (his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969), took a 13-year-old girl to Jack Nicholson's L.A. mansion (Jack wasn't home) for a photo shoot. While snapping pics, he plied the teen with Champagne and part of a Quaalude before having sex with her (she repeatedly said "no"). Two weeks later, the girl relayed the events to a grand jury, and Polanski eventually pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor in exchange for time served (he had spent 42 days in a psychiatric facility). But when he heard the judge might renege on the agreement and that he could face 50 years behind bars, he bolted for France. Just before the 2003 Oscars, Polanski's victim, now a mother of three, defended his Best Director nomination for "The Pianist," writing in the L.A. Times, "There can be no question that he did something awful... But I believe that Mr. Polanski and his film should be honored according to the quality of the work." The Academy agreed with her, awarding the fugitive filmmaker the prize. Still barred from entering the United States, he was not on hand to receive it.
 
2. Fatty Arbuckle Is Accused of Killing Virginia Rappe
On Labor Day weekend in 1921, corpulent, baby-faced funnyman Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, beloved around the world by kids and adults for his silent-movie slapstick, celebrated his newly inked, record-setting $3 million contract with Paramount by throwing a wild party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Witnesses claim that during the revelries, Arbuckle disappeared into a private suite with starlet Virginia Rappe. No one knows what happened next, but within days Rappe was dead, allegedly from acute peritonitis caused by "an extreme amount of external force." Arbuckle, suspected of sexual assault, was arrested and charged with manslaughter. After three headline-grabbing trials (the first two ended in hung juries), he was cleared. "Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle," the jury said in a statement. "A grave injustice has been done." But the comedian's career was ruined -- his contract canceled and his films banned. After spending a dozen years as a Tinseltown pariah, Arbuckle was finally on the comeback trail (he'd just completed a series of shorts for Warner Bros.) when he died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of 46.  
 
1. Michael Jackson: The Past Decade
Young 'uns who discovered Michael Jackson in the post-"Thriller" era might not realize that he once deserved his King of Pop title, churning out hit after hit as a moonwalking, sequined-glove-wearing superstar (albeit an eccentric one). But 10 years of scandals -- from molestation allegations to disfiguring plastic surgery -- has erased that Jackson, literally and figuratively. Every move Jackson has made in the past decade has been documented by an insatiable press for an obsessed public: The 45-year-old singer paid $15 million-plus to settle a 1993 child molestation lawsuit brought by a 13-year-old boy (Jackson maintains his innocence) and today battles a 12-year-old boy's headline-grabbing accusations that could land him in prison (he calls them a "big lie"). Smaller scandals have included Michael's marriages and subsequent divorces from Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe, with the latter producing two children (he says she bore them "as a present" to him) who don't look much like dad, though it's difficult to tell given their constantly veiled heads; his admission to British journalist Martin Bashir that he has "slept in a bed with many children ... It's very right. It's very loving "; and the infamous, November 2002 dangling of his then 11-month-old son (mother unknown) from a hotel balcony.
 
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MzWings
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Re: Top 10 Hollywood scandals
« Reply #1 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 6:21pm »		 Quote Quote Modify Modify
Cool info David.  And the scary thing is - I remember most of that - with the exception of the Fatty Arbuckle dealie.   Roll Eyes
 
And what about the Kennedy's and the Clinton's?  On and on...
 
http://www.canoe.ca/Jam1999/century_gossip_sun.html
« Last Edit: Dec 10th, 2003, 6:30pm by MzWings » IP Logged
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david
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Re: Top 10 Hollywood scandals
« Reply #2 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 7:32pm »		 Quote Quote Modify Modify Remove Remove
If I recall correctly Fatty was a case similar to OJ trial where a clearly guilty person got away with murder
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