April 15, 2018 • 28 mins
The Hollywood casting couch existed long before Harvey Weinstein. In this final episode of the season, we explore some of Weinstein's antecedents in the industry, the scandals and crimes they covered up and how a new generation of Gloria Steinem-inspired women is starting to put an end to the old practices of Hollywood and other male-dominated industries.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Why Auzzy Media Productions. He sent me back a box
of chocolates with a note that said, Edith, the day
that you were willing to come out here with a
cotton tail attached to your rear end, what I'd like
to do. That is what I would like to accomplish.
(00:22):
I would like to be a good actress. Well, it's
the Neva Believe its sting. I think that you could
safely call Clark Gable a gold digger. I'm Sean Braswell
and this is the thread where we unraveled the stories
(00:43):
behind some of the most important lives and events in history.
This season, we've connected the stories of five American icons.
We saw how Hollywood legend Clark Gables star power helped
launch Las Vegas when his second wife, relaying him, divorced
him there. It was in Las Vegas that a nineteen
year old named Norma Jean Doherty later obtained her own
quickie divorce, enabling her to start her path toward becoming
(01:06):
the legendary Maryland Monroe. Then, in turn, an unknown magazine
publisher named Hugh Hefner cashed in on Monroe's fame, using
her nude image to launch his Playboy Empire. And finally,
it was in one of Heffner's famous playboy clubs that
a young reporter named Gloria Steinham first concluded that all
women are bunnies, an insight that helped launch her career
(01:28):
as a champion for women's rights. In this final episode
of the season, we complete our thread by tracing it
back to its origins in early Hollywood. The same studio
system that transformed the flawed Clark Gable into a king
also created a culture of abuse for women that lingers
to this day, and so we will also bring our
(01:48):
story full circle back to Steinham, back to me too
in the modern women's movement. In many ways, this remarkable
threat is ongoing and still impacts all of us today.
(02:08):
Clark Gable depended upon a series of wealthy, older, and
more experienced women to help get his career off the ground,
but Gable still struggled to make it as an actor.
When Clark Gable first came to Hollywood, he was in
a bunch of bit parts and was not successful at all.
That's Anne Helen Peterson, a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed.
The men who ran the major Hollywood studios at the
(02:29):
time frankly did not give a damn about Clark Gable.
Warner Brothers executive Darryl Zannik reportedly said, quote his ears
are too big and he looks like an ape. MGM
head Louis B. Mayer said Gable was quote too elephant
eared and unattractive to be a leading man. So Gable
played mostly minor villains and thugs, from an ex con
(02:51):
turned cowboy in the Painted Desert to a murderous chauffeur
and night nurse good cat without the proper authority. I
give it you. I'm Nick the Shore. The women who
encountered Clark Gable in Hollywood saw is much more than
a chauffeur, rogue, or scoundrel. This included perhaps the most
(03:14):
influential woman in Hollywood, Ida Cooverman, was Louis Bimuir secretary E. J. Fleming,
the author of several books on early Hollywood, and Ida
Cooverman was responsible for some of the biggest MGM stars.
Do you remember Ida Koverman from episode five? She was
the one who handled real Langham gables living girlfriend when
(03:35):
she came to MGM to demand Gable's hand in marriage.
The formidable Coverman nicknamed mount Ida, was Louis B. Mayer's
top administrator, gatekeeper, and protectress. She was also considered by
many to be the brains behind MGM. She made sure
that Mayor saw the best scripts, and she hand picked
many of the studio's top stars. One executive put it
(03:56):
this way, coverman quote damn near ran the studio. Mg
m's male leaders could only see Clark Gable's ears. Ida
Koverman saw a star. One of Gable's first Hollywood films
was called The Easiest Way. He played a truck driver
for a laundry business and appeared in only a few scenes.
(04:18):
His name is listed last in the credits. The Easiest
Way was screened before a local test audience. The m
g M executive who oversaw the film and the test
screening was Irving Thalberg. He was mostly interested in how
the audience would react to the film's leading lady. Instead,
Thalberg witnessed something entirely unexpected. The audience sat upright whenever
(04:38):
Gable appeared. Afterwards, women kept asking ushers who was that
handsome laundryman. Thalberg signed Gable to a contract the following day.
He made sure Gable starred in nine of mg m's
best films that year, and alongside the studio's biggest female stars.
Fortune smiled on Clark Gable, but his stardom was no accident.
(05:03):
Here's the thing, and it's something that even Irving Thalberg
didn't realize at the time. Clark Gable's breakthrough moment, like
so many breaks in his life, was orchestrated by a woman,
in this case, Ida Koverman. She packed the test audience
with female MGM employees, women who are sure to be
enthralled by the handsome laundryman. While Ida Koverman identified stars
(05:24):
like Clark Gable, many of Hollywood's top male executives auditioned
aspiring female performers on what came to be known as
the casting couch. For many women, from the lowliest contract
actress to the biggest star, the so called Golden Age
of Hollywood could be a guilted nightmare. Shirley Temple was
(05:45):
a Hollywood megastar. At age six, she became a national
treasure in a country reeling from the depression. I'm a
good tip lonely Polish Greek trip to Annie. Temple was
a child of the studio system, but even the wholesome
superstar could not avoid the wolves of Hollywood. The twelve
(06:07):
year old Temple signed her first contract with MGM in
nineteen forty and went there with her mother to meet
her new bosses. According to Temple, she and her mother
were separated when they arrived at the studio's executive suites.
Studio had Louis B. Mayer escorted her mother to his
office and left Temple alone with Arthur Freed, a producer
(06:28):
on the Wizard of Oz. Freed allegedly told Temple I
have something made for just you. Temple described what happened
next in her autobiography. She wrote, with his face gaped
in a smile, he stood up abruptly and executed a
bizarre flourish of clothing. Temple wrote that the forty four
year old Freed then pulled his penis out of his pants.
(06:49):
The young Temple reacted with nervous laughter. Get out, Freed shouted,
with his pants around his ankles, go on, get out.
Shirley rejoined her mother and learned that she too had
had to rush out of the office when Louis B.
Mayer lunged at her on his couch. As Temple summed
it up, MGM head quote more than its quota of
lecturs older men. Hollywood's problem with lectris old men started
(07:18):
at the very top the studio system consolidated at the
end of the nineteen twenties, when talkies started to replace
silent films. The men at the top of a few
major studios that remained wielded unprecedented power, and they quickly
learned to abuse it. And the steady influx of aspiring
actresses that came through their doors and Helen Peterson again,
(07:40):
Oftentimes we describe these studio heads as like brilliant men
who guided these studios, and they did that, but then
they also, you know, wrecked a lot of people's lives.
The studio head set the tone for a culture of
abuse that soon became endemic to their organizations. The casting
coach culture has been a problem as long as movies
(08:00):
have been made E. J. Fleming. If girls wanted into
the movies, they had to sleep with men. It was
that simple. They didn't have an option, and they had
to sleep with the men at every level, cameraman, directors,
writers like today, everyone knew about it, and people whispered
about it. And if you didn't want to do it,
(08:20):
and you like Usually the sentiment passed along was like,
shut up and do it. If that's if you want
a career in Hollywood, this is what you have to do.
And even after you had paid the price to establish
yourself in Hollywood as an actress, the studio bosses still
had leverage over you. If the female stars rebelled in
any sort of way, whether that was refusing sexual favors
(08:42):
or anything else, they would just stick them in shoot movies.
Some of the biggest defenders or names we've already mentioned
this season. First Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM,
who was so instrumental to Clark Gables Rise and so
solicitous towards Shirley Temple's mother. Mayor had a hard one
reputation as a guard and of the public morality in Hollywood.
(09:02):
Someone who made wholesome, quality motion pictures, he was no
different than any of the other studio heads. The truth
was he was a notorious abuser from his earliest days.
The very first meaning he had with an actress, he
would tell her be nice to me, and I'll be
nice to you. Each studio had a steady supply of
what were known as six month option girls, young starletts
(09:25):
that the executives passed around like candy. In episode three,
we told the story of Harry Cone, the chief of
Columbia Pictures, who fired Marilyn Monroe when she would not
join him on his yacht. He reportedly kept a private
room next to his office for his casting sessions, and
Darryl's Annek, the head of production at Warner Brothers, who
thought Clark Gable resembled an ape. Zannick, built the casting
(09:47):
couch into his daily routine. The entire place shut down
at four o'clock and from four to four thirty no
decisions were made because every single day, at four o'clock,
one of the contract actresses was brought to a back
entrance to his office to have sex with Darrel's Anneck.
(10:09):
The only actress who ever said no was Betty Grabel.
The first time she was brought to his office, he
walked up to her and she looked at it. She
looked at him and said, that's beautiful, Darrell. You can
put that away now. Darryl's Annek, Louis By Mayer and
other studio bosses were the original wolves of Hollywood, says
fleming women had little power against them. Rarely a woman
(10:30):
fought back, and if she did, the studio fixers went
into overdrive. Case in point, the story of Patricia Douglas,
the lowly twenty year old dancer who took on Hollywood's
biggest studio at the height of its power. MGM and
Louis B. Mayer had a lot to celebrate. In ninety seven.
(10:51):
The depression said most of the studio's rivals into bankruptcy
or receivership, but MGM was rolling in profits thanks to
its stable of film star as an innovative sales team,
and so Mayor decided to throw a studio party to
end all studio parties at MGM's annual sales convention E J. Fleming.
They brought three hundred distributors, theater owners and film salesman
(11:14):
to the studio from all over the country for a
five day boondoggle at the studio and Helen Peterson again.
MGM brought in a bunch of basically big wigs within
the company who were showing the films, you know, the
exhibitors of the films, and through a huge party with
a ton of booze, and then employed a bunch of women,
(11:34):
you know, aspiring starlets as arm candy, Essentially, Patricia Douglas
was one of the young women who answered what appeared
to be a routine casting call. Patricia Douglas was a
beautiful twenty year old girl who lived in Hollywood with
her mother. Patricia went to a convent school. She was
(11:54):
very religious and like many young women, she had no
idea what she was getting into. For the promise of
seven dollars and fifty cents and a hot meal, m
Louis By Mayor greeted MGMs honored male guests when they
arrived at the train station amid much fanfare, and he
(12:16):
had dozens of beautiful women with him for the occasion.
Meyer welcomed him by saying, all these lovely girls are
here to show you how we feel about you. They'll
give you anything you want. That basically set the tone
for the week. The highlight of the week was a
Western themed party at a remote ranch outside of town.
(12:36):
Five cases of Scotch and champagne were brought in for
three hundred men. The invitations read, it will be a
stag affair out in the wild and wooly West, where
men or men. MGM outfitted Douglas and the other women
and bolero jackets, short swede skirts, black boots, and cowboy hats.
They were placed on a bus and driven out of town.
According to Douglas, many believed that they were going to
(12:58):
a film shoot. When got to the ranch, they realized
there were no lights and no cameras, just hundreds of
drunk salesmen. The women had to fend for themselves. They
were basically trapped there. There were obviously no telephones, there
were no taxis. By midnight, the party was out of control.
Douglas claimed that she was pursued by a pudgy thirty
six year old bachelor from Chicago named David Ross. She
(13:22):
rebuffed his advances and Ross grew violent. Sometime after midnight,
he dragged her into the parking lot, threw her in
a car, beat her badly, and raped her. According to Douglas,
she started to black out from the alcohol that Ross
and a couple of friends forced down her throat. Earlier
in the evening, Ross slap Douglas and yelled cooperate. I
(13:42):
want you awake. The parking lot attendant happened to find
her about an hour later, and he grabbed one of
the Culver City police that were working the event, and
they threw her in a car and took her to
the hospital across the street. The hospital was basically MGM's
private hospital, and the head doctor was known as the
Studio Family Doctor. The doctor claimed to find no signs
(14:05):
of intercourse. Douglas was driven home in a studio car.
No crime report was ever filed. Douglas tried to tell
MGM what had happened to her, but the studio ignored her,
so did the Los Angeles district attorney, who was a
close friend of Louis B. Mayor. So Douglas got a lawyer,
then filed a lawsuit against David Ross, Eddie Mannix and others.
(14:29):
She wasn't after money, rather, as Douglas, who died in
two thousand and three, later said, quote, I just wanted
to be vindicated, to hear someone say you can't do
that to a woman. What Patricia Douglas did was completely unprecedented,
in part because it was so public. You know, some
women had tried to, you know, maybe protest internally, but
(14:51):
they never would go public with something like a rape charge.
Mayor in the studio had a squeaky clean image to uphold,
and just the news of the wild stag party. Let
alone a potential rape would be enough to send the
company stockholders into a frenzy. You know. It was just
bad news all around, and so they squashed the case.
Enter Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling, the two head fixers
(15:12):
at MGM that we learned about last episode. Mannix and
Strickling went to work right away. There were newspaper stories
about a woman who was assaulted at a party, but
m JAM was never named as the studio. The newspaper
whitewashing was just the start. MGM actually hired Pinkerton detectives
to dig up dirt on Patricia, but they had a
(15:35):
problem because they found out that she was a virgin
who never drank. When blaming the victim didn't pan out,
says Swimming. The fixers fixed other things, including the memories
of key witnesses. Only two of the one and thirty
women even admitted that the party was wild. The parking
attendant also lost his memory. The attendants family later said
(15:58):
that he was given a for life at MGM anywhere
he wanted. Patricia Douglas's lawsuit was eventually dismissed as MGM
fix her. Eddie Mannix reportedly put it quote, we had
her killed. I think one of the tragedies is that
the very story of what she did and the way
(16:19):
that she stood up to MGM is largely lost and
even today it's not part of the story that we
really talked about um, in part because MGM was so
effective in burying it and making sure that it didn't
become part of the narrative of the studio or classic Hollywood,
or how women resisted the way that they were treated
(16:41):
at the time. Douglas's ordeal was rediscovered near the end
of her life by a reporter. She agreed to share
her story with the world once again. Why this is
how Douglas put it. When I die, the truth dies
with me, and that means those bastards win. Yeah. This
(17:05):
brings us to the end of our trip back through time.
We've now pulled on a thread that connects the lives
of Gloria Steinem, Hugh Hefner, Marilyn Monroe, Las Vegas, and
Clark Gable, one that runs from the pages of Miss
magazine to the casting couches of early Hollywood. But this
thread does not exist in isolation. Up next, we bring
our story full circle. The lives and events we've heard
(17:27):
about this season are part of a much larger arc
of history, stepping stones to a far greater story, one
that we are all a part of, and thanks in
no small measure to Gloria steinem Pollywood was a man's
(17:58):
world from the start, an embow wants of power that
allowed a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination to thrive.
Of course, that is not at all how Hollywood has
perceived from the outside. And Helen Peterson again, there was
this real facade that was very carefully cultivated and maintained
that Hollywood was an incredibly moral place where only moral
(18:19):
things happened, and occasionally something would pop through that really
like spoke truth to that lie, like what happened to
Patricia Douglas, but it was quickly papered over. And you know,
this really worked until the nineteen fifties and the disintegration
of the studio and star system. But the abuse continued
even after the studio system broke down. Thousands of women
(18:40):
endured the harassment and few spoke up for decades. The
history of women in Hollywood has been a history of silence,
and Peterson says this silence made it easier for Hollywood
to lie to itself. What has interested in me most
about the revelations around Weinstein and around me too, and
(19:00):
why I think it is shaken Hollywood so profoundly is
that it really believed itself to be a progressive place
where something like this, something that belongs in the echelons
of like classic Hollywood, could never happen. And some things
have not changed so much over the years, says E. J. Fleming.
The casting couch problem never really went away. The men
(19:25):
in authority in Hollywood, the writers, the directors, the producers,
they never stopped leveraging that position, and they are still
surrounded by enablers and fixers. The similarities between what Harvey
Weinstein did and what the fixers at MGM did they're
incredibly striking. And that's instructive because it shows, like, you know,
(19:49):
we thought we were way beyond all that sort of
cover up, all that sort of vile manipulation of women,
all of the complicity of all these other people involved
that made this sort of exploitation impossible, But we're not.
Sexual harassment has of course been pervasive beyond the world
of Hollywood, but for a long time, there wasn't even
(20:11):
a word for it, Gloria Steinham. The term sexual harassment
was invented by women, young women at Cornell University who
are trying to describe what happened to them on summer jobs.
Steinen was no stranger to the experience herself. She endured
all manner of sexist barbs and harassment long before she
would undercover as a playboy bunny or as ridicule in
(20:34):
Screw magazine. This is Gloria Steinen biographer Patricia Marcelo again
from episode one. That's just how it was. Sexual harassment
wasn't a thing, that was just a way of life,
and she said that herself. Um in fact, she said exactly,
sexual harassment is about power. When one is brave to
assert themselves and tell a story, then other women will
(20:57):
be too. The young dancer Patricia Douglas was brave enough
to tell her story, so was Marilyn Monroe, and starting
with her Expose a Bunny's Tale, Gloria Steinhum learned not
just to tell her own story, but also the stories
of other women, and to make sure that as many
people as possible heard those stories. Because we grow up
in this culture which is to whatever degree racist and
(21:21):
sexist and infected with class. We kind of think it's
normal because we don't know anything else. So until we
start to talk to each other and and affirm that
we are not alone in our in our experiences or objections,
it is an easy and understandable thing to remain silent,
(21:42):
to live in fear of powerful men. But as the
Me Too movement has demonstrated, it is also a powerful
thing to know you are not alone. Anne Helen Peterson,
I think that there is change coming, and I feel
much more optimistic than I did not even that long ago.
Patricia Marcello agrees, So I think that, um, you know,
(22:02):
things like that Screw magazine article or long past, we
won't ever, ever, ever see anything like that again, especially
in light of what's going on today. Because of what
has happened in recent months, in recent decades, we can
be hopeful that things are changing in Hollywood and beyond
because of all the women who were brave enough to
fight back when there was next to nothing to be
(22:23):
gained from doing so. Because of Patricia Douglas, because of
Marilyn Monroe, and perhaps most importantly, because of Gloria Steinham,
We're at a remarkable moment in history with the rise
of the Me Too movement. Like many things, this is
progressive and now it has reached a tipping point so
(22:46):
that women are being believed for the first time in
my life. Tipping points in history rarely happen by accident, though.
They need trailblazers, those who are willing to be the
first ones over the ramparts, the first ones on the
protest lines, People like Gloria stein You know, she was
just a troublemaker, um, and they really came down on
(23:06):
her so bad that she almost left the scene. But she,
being the strong woman that she is, didn't. She hung
in there and she just kept pushing until you know,
things changed. Thank God for that. Gloria Steinen was not
just a troublemaker and a trailblazer. She was an organizer,
a catalyst. Often that is what tipping points require above
(23:29):
all else, someone who can bring people together, and in
an era before social media and the information age, that
meant someone willing to hit the road, someone willing to
ride the bus and live out of a suitcase, someone
willing to listen to thousands of individual women's stories, someone
who can tell you that you are not alone, that
you're not crazy. But it wasn't until the women's movement
(23:53):
came along and people began to gather in living rooms
and school gyms and cafete areas and factories and talk
to each other as they are talking to each other
now about sexual harassment and realizing that we were not crazy,
the system was crazy, that we had a right to
(24:13):
be treated equally and paid equally, and to be physically safe.
It can be hard to quantify the impact of an
organizer and influencer like Steinhem in the abstract, but it's
there in the story of every individual whose life she
has touched. Patricia Marcello again, well, I know what it's
meant for me. Um. I came up through the ranks, um,
(24:36):
you know, starting out as a twentysomething girl out of college. Um.
And I was offered receptionist jobs and secretary jobs, and
you know, secretary teacher mother. Um, you know those nurse
Those jobs were what women did, and I didn't want
to do that. It was difficult. Then when she started this,
(24:57):
it was impossible. Um. Now things are much different, things
are different, and in some ways that makes our thread
all the more incredible. The story of Gloria Steinham stretches
back into some unusual places, from the Playboy clubs to
the casting couches of early Hollywood, places you'd never expect
to give birth to a feminist icon. Think about it,
(25:19):
Studio executives green light the career of Clark Gable, a
chronic womanizer, and one of the historical fruits of that
decision is the woman who will lead a revolution that
could bring about the end of that corrupt, de humanizing system.
Call it irony, call it fate, or perhaps even better,
call it what Gloria Steinham does. This is the upside
(25:40):
of the downside. This is an outpouring of energy and
true democracy like I have never seen in my very
long life. That's Gloria stein at last year's Women's March
in Washington, d C. That march and the Me Too
movement are part of a longer fight for women's liberation.
(26:03):
It's the same movement. I mean, it's a It's a
continuation of the consciousness that says, you know, now I
can speak my experience and be believed. It happened to
me too, me too. It happened to me too, And
it happened to me too. This is my story and
to those who would dare try and silence us. We
(26:26):
offer you two words times up. So where then does
our thread go from here? From Steinham, Well, that's up
to all of us. I've never seen in my life,
(26:46):
never ever have I seen this level of activism. So
will it be enough? We don't know, but um but
we just have to keep doing whatever we can. Every day.
I can keep why, I can't keep why? Oh one
(27:15):
moment right, I can't keep by. The Thread is produced
by Libby Coleman and me Sean Braswell. Chris Hoff engineered
(27:39):
our show special thanks to Cindy Carpi and Tracy Moran
and James Watkins. This episode features demonstrators from the Seen
Women's March performing a song by Milk called I Can't
Keep Quiet. To learn more about the Thread, visit Aussie
dot com, Slash the thread all one word, and make
sure to subscribe to the Thread on Apple Podcasts. Checks
(28:00):
out at Aussie dot com. We're on Twitter and Facebook.
If you love surprising, engaging stories from history, look no
further than the flashback section of Ausy dot Com. That's
oz Y dot com. Thanks for listening and stay tuned
for more interconnected stories from history with season three of
the threat coming See why no
Why Auzzy Media Productions. He sent me back a box
of chocolates with a note that said, Edith, the day
that you were willing to come out here with a
cotton tail attached to your rear end, what I'd like
to do. That is what I would like to accomplish.
(00:22):
I would like to be a good actress. Well, it's
the Neva Believe its sting. I think that you could
safely call Clark Gable a gold digger. I'm Sean Braswell
and this is the thread where we unraveled the stories
(00:43):
behind some of the most important lives and events in history.
This season, we've connected the stories of five American icons.
We saw how Hollywood legend Clark Gables star power helped
launch Las Vegas when his second wife, relaying him, divorced
him there. It was in Las Vegas that a nineteen
year old named Norma Jean Doherty later obtained her own
quickie divorce, enabling her to start her path toward becoming
(01:06):
the legendary Maryland Monroe. Then, in turn, an unknown magazine
publisher named Hugh Hefner cashed in on Monroe's fame, using
her nude image to launch his Playboy Empire. And finally,
it was in one of Heffner's famous playboy clubs that
a young reporter named Gloria Steinham first concluded that all
women are bunnies, an insight that helped launch her career
(01:28):
as a champion for women's rights. In this final episode
of the season, we complete our thread by tracing it
back to its origins in early Hollywood. The same studio
system that transformed the flawed Clark Gable into a king
also created a culture of abuse for women that lingers
to this day, and so we will also bring our
(01:48):
story full circle back to Steinham, back to me too
in the modern women's movement. In many ways, this remarkable
threat is ongoing and still impacts all of us today.
(02:08):
Clark Gable depended upon a series of wealthy, older, and
more experienced women to help get his career off the ground,
but Gable still struggled to make it as an actor.
When Clark Gable first came to Hollywood, he was in
a bunch of bit parts and was not successful at all.
That's Anne Helen Peterson, a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed.
The men who ran the major Hollywood studios at the
(02:29):
time frankly did not give a damn about Clark Gable.
Warner Brothers executive Darryl Zannik reportedly said, quote his ears
are too big and he looks like an ape. MGM
head Louis B. Mayer said Gable was quote too elephant
eared and unattractive to be a leading man. So Gable
played mostly minor villains and thugs, from an ex con
(02:51):
turned cowboy in the Painted Desert to a murderous chauffeur
and night nurse good cat without the proper authority. I
give it you. I'm Nick the Shore. The women who
encountered Clark Gable in Hollywood saw is much more than
a chauffeur, rogue, or scoundrel. This included perhaps the most
(03:14):
influential woman in Hollywood, Ida Cooverman, was Louis Bimuir secretary E. J. Fleming,
the author of several books on early Hollywood, and Ida
Cooverman was responsible for some of the biggest MGM stars.
Do you remember Ida Koverman from episode five? She was
the one who handled real Langham gables living girlfriend when
(03:35):
she came to MGM to demand Gable's hand in marriage.
The formidable Coverman nicknamed mount Ida, was Louis B. Mayer's
top administrator, gatekeeper, and protectress. She was also considered by
many to be the brains behind MGM. She made sure
that Mayor saw the best scripts, and she hand picked
many of the studio's top stars. One executive put it
(03:56):
this way, coverman quote damn near ran the studio. Mg
m's male leaders could only see Clark Gable's ears. Ida
Koverman saw a star. One of Gable's first Hollywood films
was called The Easiest Way. He played a truck driver
for a laundry business and appeared in only a few scenes.
(04:18):
His name is listed last in the credits. The Easiest
Way was screened before a local test audience. The m
g M executive who oversaw the film and the test
screening was Irving Thalberg. He was mostly interested in how
the audience would react to the film's leading lady. Instead,
Thalberg witnessed something entirely unexpected. The audience sat upright whenever
(04:38):
Gable appeared. Afterwards, women kept asking ushers who was that
handsome laundryman. Thalberg signed Gable to a contract the following day.
He made sure Gable starred in nine of mg m's
best films that year, and alongside the studio's biggest female stars.
Fortune smiled on Clark Gable, but his stardom was no accident.
(05:03):
Here's the thing, and it's something that even Irving Thalberg
didn't realize at the time. Clark Gable's breakthrough moment, like
so many breaks in his life, was orchestrated by a woman,
in this case, Ida Koverman. She packed the test audience
with female MGM employees, women who are sure to be
enthralled by the handsome laundryman. While Ida Koverman identified stars
(05:24):
like Clark Gable, many of Hollywood's top male executives auditioned
aspiring female performers on what came to be known as
the casting couch. For many women, from the lowliest contract
actress to the biggest star, the so called Golden Age
of Hollywood could be a guilted nightmare. Shirley Temple was
(05:45):
a Hollywood megastar. At age six, she became a national
treasure in a country reeling from the depression. I'm a
good tip lonely Polish Greek trip to Annie. Temple was
a child of the studio system, but even the wholesome
superstar could not avoid the wolves of Hollywood. The twelve
(06:07):
year old Temple signed her first contract with MGM in
nineteen forty and went there with her mother to meet
her new bosses. According to Temple, she and her mother
were separated when they arrived at the studio's executive suites.
Studio had Louis B. Mayer escorted her mother to his
office and left Temple alone with Arthur Freed, a producer
(06:28):
on the Wizard of Oz. Freed allegedly told Temple I
have something made for just you. Temple described what happened
next in her autobiography. She wrote, with his face gaped
in a smile, he stood up abruptly and executed a
bizarre flourish of clothing. Temple wrote that the forty four
year old Freed then pulled his penis out of his pants.
(06:49):
The young Temple reacted with nervous laughter. Get out, Freed shouted,
with his pants around his ankles, go on, get out.
Shirley rejoined her mother and learned that she too had
had to rush out of the office when Louis B.
Mayer lunged at her on his couch. As Temple summed
it up, MGM head quote more than its quota of
lecturs older men. Hollywood's problem with lectris old men started
(07:18):
at the very top the studio system consolidated at the
end of the nineteen twenties, when talkies started to replace
silent films. The men at the top of a few
major studios that remained wielded unprecedented power, and they quickly
learned to abuse it. And the steady influx of aspiring
actresses that came through their doors and Helen Peterson again,
(07:40):
Oftentimes we describe these studio heads as like brilliant men
who guided these studios, and they did that, but then
they also, you know, wrecked a lot of people's lives.
The studio head set the tone for a culture of
abuse that soon became endemic to their organizations. The casting
coach culture has been a problem as long as movies
(08:00):
have been made E. J. Fleming. If girls wanted into
the movies, they had to sleep with men. It was
that simple. They didn't have an option, and they had
to sleep with the men at every level, cameraman, directors,
writers like today, everyone knew about it, and people whispered
about it. And if you didn't want to do it,
(08:20):
and you like Usually the sentiment passed along was like,
shut up and do it. If that's if you want
a career in Hollywood, this is what you have to do.
And even after you had paid the price to establish
yourself in Hollywood as an actress, the studio bosses still
had leverage over you. If the female stars rebelled in
any sort of way, whether that was refusing sexual favors
(08:42):
or anything else, they would just stick them in shoot movies.
Some of the biggest defenders or names we've already mentioned
this season. First Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM,
who was so instrumental to Clark Gables Rise and so
solicitous towards Shirley Temple's mother. Mayor had a hard one
reputation as a guard and of the public morality in Hollywood.
(09:02):
Someone who made wholesome, quality motion pictures, he was no
different than any of the other studio heads. The truth
was he was a notorious abuser from his earliest days.
The very first meaning he had with an actress, he
would tell her be nice to me, and I'll be
nice to you. Each studio had a steady supply of
what were known as six month option girls, young starletts
(09:25):
that the executives passed around like candy. In episode three,
we told the story of Harry Cone, the chief of
Columbia Pictures, who fired Marilyn Monroe when she would not
join him on his yacht. He reportedly kept a private
room next to his office for his casting sessions, and
Darryl's Annek, the head of production at Warner Brothers, who
thought Clark Gable resembled an ape. Zannick, built the casting
(09:47):
couch into his daily routine. The entire place shut down
at four o'clock and from four to four thirty no
decisions were made because every single day, at four o'clock,
one of the contract actresses was brought to a back
entrance to his office to have sex with Darrel's Anneck.
(10:09):
The only actress who ever said no was Betty Grabel.
The first time she was brought to his office, he
walked up to her and she looked at it. She
looked at him and said, that's beautiful, Darrell. You can
put that away now. Darryl's Annek, Louis By Mayer and
other studio bosses were the original wolves of Hollywood, says
fleming women had little power against them. Rarely a woman
(10:30):
fought back, and if she did, the studio fixers went
into overdrive. Case in point, the story of Patricia Douglas,
the lowly twenty year old dancer who took on Hollywood's
biggest studio at the height of its power. MGM and
Louis B. Mayer had a lot to celebrate. In ninety seven.
(10:51):
The depression said most of the studio's rivals into bankruptcy
or receivership, but MGM was rolling in profits thanks to
its stable of film star as an innovative sales team,
and so Mayor decided to throw a studio party to
end all studio parties at MGM's annual sales convention E J. Fleming.
They brought three hundred distributors, theater owners and film salesman
(11:14):
to the studio from all over the country for a
five day boondoggle at the studio and Helen Peterson again.
MGM brought in a bunch of basically big wigs within
the company who were showing the films, you know, the
exhibitors of the films, and through a huge party with
a ton of booze, and then employed a bunch of women,
(11:34):
you know, aspiring starlets as arm candy, Essentially, Patricia Douglas
was one of the young women who answered what appeared
to be a routine casting call. Patricia Douglas was a
beautiful twenty year old girl who lived in Hollywood with
her mother. Patricia went to a convent school. She was
(11:54):
very religious and like many young women, she had no
idea what she was getting into. For the promise of
seven dollars and fifty cents and a hot meal, m
Louis By Mayor greeted MGMs honored male guests when they
arrived at the train station amid much fanfare, and he
(12:16):
had dozens of beautiful women with him for the occasion.
Meyer welcomed him by saying, all these lovely girls are
here to show you how we feel about you. They'll
give you anything you want. That basically set the tone
for the week. The highlight of the week was a
Western themed party at a remote ranch outside of town.
(12:36):
Five cases of Scotch and champagne were brought in for
three hundred men. The invitations read, it will be a
stag affair out in the wild and wooly West, where
men or men. MGM outfitted Douglas and the other women
and bolero jackets, short swede skirts, black boots, and cowboy hats.
They were placed on a bus and driven out of town.
According to Douglas, many believed that they were going to
(12:58):
a film shoot. When got to the ranch, they realized
there were no lights and no cameras, just hundreds of
drunk salesmen. The women had to fend for themselves. They
were basically trapped there. There were obviously no telephones, there
were no taxis. By midnight, the party was out of control.
Douglas claimed that she was pursued by a pudgy thirty
six year old bachelor from Chicago named David Ross. She
(13:22):
rebuffed his advances and Ross grew violent. Sometime after midnight,
he dragged her into the parking lot, threw her in
a car, beat her badly, and raped her. According to Douglas,
she started to black out from the alcohol that Ross
and a couple of friends forced down her throat. Earlier
in the evening, Ross slap Douglas and yelled cooperate. I
(13:42):
want you awake. The parking lot attendant happened to find
her about an hour later, and he grabbed one of
the Culver City police that were working the event, and
they threw her in a car and took her to
the hospital across the street. The hospital was basically MGM's
private hospital, and the head doctor was known as the
Studio Family Doctor. The doctor claimed to find no signs
(14:05):
of intercourse. Douglas was driven home in a studio car.
No crime report was ever filed. Douglas tried to tell
MGM what had happened to her, but the studio ignored her,
so did the Los Angeles district attorney, who was a
close friend of Louis B. Mayor. So Douglas got a lawyer,
then filed a lawsuit against David Ross, Eddie Mannix and others.
(14:29):
She wasn't after money, rather, as Douglas, who died in
two thousand and three, later said, quote, I just wanted
to be vindicated, to hear someone say you can't do
that to a woman. What Patricia Douglas did was completely unprecedented,
in part because it was so public. You know, some
women had tried to, you know, maybe protest internally, but
(14:51):
they never would go public with something like a rape charge.
Mayor in the studio had a squeaky clean image to uphold,
and just the news of the wild stag party. Let
alone a potential rape would be enough to send the
company stockholders into a frenzy. You know. It was just
bad news all around, and so they squashed the case.
Enter Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling, the two head fixers
(15:12):
at MGM that we learned about last episode. Mannix and
Strickling went to work right away. There were newspaper stories
about a woman who was assaulted at a party, but
m JAM was never named as the studio. The newspaper
whitewashing was just the start. MGM actually hired Pinkerton detectives
to dig up dirt on Patricia, but they had a
(15:35):
problem because they found out that she was a virgin
who never drank. When blaming the victim didn't pan out,
says Swimming. The fixers fixed other things, including the memories
of key witnesses. Only two of the one and thirty
women even admitted that the party was wild. The parking
attendant also lost his memory. The attendants family later said
(15:58):
that he was given a for life at MGM anywhere
he wanted. Patricia Douglas's lawsuit was eventually dismissed as MGM
fix her. Eddie Mannix reportedly put it quote, we had
her killed. I think one of the tragedies is that
the very story of what she did and the way
(16:19):
that she stood up to MGM is largely lost and
even today it's not part of the story that we
really talked about um, in part because MGM was so
effective in burying it and making sure that it didn't
become part of the narrative of the studio or classic Hollywood,
or how women resisted the way that they were treated
(16:41):
at the time. Douglas's ordeal was rediscovered near the end
of her life by a reporter. She agreed to share
her story with the world once again. Why this is
how Douglas put it. When I die, the truth dies
with me, and that means those bastards win. Yeah. This
(17:05):
brings us to the end of our trip back through time.
We've now pulled on a thread that connects the lives
of Gloria Steinem, Hugh Hefner, Marilyn Monroe, Las Vegas, and
Clark Gable, one that runs from the pages of Miss
magazine to the casting couches of early Hollywood. But this
thread does not exist in isolation. Up next, we bring
our story full circle. The lives and events we've heard
(17:27):
about this season are part of a much larger arc
of history, stepping stones to a far greater story, one
that we are all a part of, and thanks in
no small measure to Gloria steinem Pollywood was a man's
(17:58):
world from the start, an embow wants of power that
allowed a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination to thrive.
Of course, that is not at all how Hollywood has
perceived from the outside. And Helen Peterson again, there was
this real facade that was very carefully cultivated and maintained
that Hollywood was an incredibly moral place where only moral
(18:19):
things happened, and occasionally something would pop through that really
like spoke truth to that lie, like what happened to
Patricia Douglas, but it was quickly papered over. And you know,
this really worked until the nineteen fifties and the disintegration
of the studio and star system. But the abuse continued
even after the studio system broke down. Thousands of women
(18:40):
endured the harassment and few spoke up for decades. The
history of women in Hollywood has been a history of silence,
and Peterson says this silence made it easier for Hollywood
to lie to itself. What has interested in me most
about the revelations around Weinstein and around me too, and
(19:00):
why I think it is shaken Hollywood so profoundly is
that it really believed itself to be a progressive place
where something like this, something that belongs in the echelons
of like classic Hollywood, could never happen. And some things
have not changed so much over the years, says E. J. Fleming.
The casting couch problem never really went away. The men
(19:25):
in authority in Hollywood, the writers, the directors, the producers,
they never stopped leveraging that position, and they are still
surrounded by enablers and fixers. The similarities between what Harvey
Weinstein did and what the fixers at MGM did they're
incredibly striking. And that's instructive because it shows, like, you know,
(19:49):
we thought we were way beyond all that sort of
cover up, all that sort of vile manipulation of women,
all of the complicity of all these other people involved
that made this sort of exploitation impossible, But we're not.
Sexual harassment has of course been pervasive beyond the world
of Hollywood, but for a long time, there wasn't even
(20:11):
a word for it, Gloria Steinham. The term sexual harassment
was invented by women, young women at Cornell University who
are trying to describe what happened to them on summer jobs.
Steinen was no stranger to the experience herself. She endured
all manner of sexist barbs and harassment long before she
would undercover as a playboy bunny or as ridicule in
(20:34):
Screw magazine. This is Gloria Steinen biographer Patricia Marcelo again
from episode one. That's just how it was. Sexual harassment
wasn't a thing, that was just a way of life,
and she said that herself. Um in fact, she said exactly,
sexual harassment is about power. When one is brave to
assert themselves and tell a story, then other women will
(20:57):
be too. The young dancer Patricia Douglas was brave enough
to tell her story, so was Marilyn Monroe, and starting
with her Expose a Bunny's Tale, Gloria Steinhum learned not
just to tell her own story, but also the stories
of other women, and to make sure that as many
people as possible heard those stories. Because we grow up
in this culture which is to whatever degree racist and
(21:21):
sexist and infected with class. We kind of think it's
normal because we don't know anything else. So until we
start to talk to each other and and affirm that
we are not alone in our in our experiences or objections,
it is an easy and understandable thing to remain silent,
(21:42):
to live in fear of powerful men. But as the
Me Too movement has demonstrated, it is also a powerful
thing to know you are not alone. Anne Helen Peterson,
I think that there is change coming, and I feel
much more optimistic than I did not even that long ago.
Patricia Marcello agrees, So I think that, um, you know,
(22:02):
things like that Screw magazine article or long past, we
won't ever, ever, ever see anything like that again, especially
in light of what's going on today. Because of what
has happened in recent months, in recent decades, we can
be hopeful that things are changing in Hollywood and beyond
because of all the women who were brave enough to
fight back when there was next to nothing to be
(22:23):
gained from doing so. Because of Patricia Douglas, because of
Marilyn Monroe, and perhaps most importantly, because of Gloria Steinham,
We're at a remarkable moment in history with the rise
of the Me Too movement. Like many things, this is
progressive and now it has reached a tipping point so
(22:46):
that women are being believed for the first time in
my life. Tipping points in history rarely happen by accident, though.
They need trailblazers, those who are willing to be the
first ones over the ramparts, the first ones on the
protest lines, People like Gloria stein You know, she was
just a troublemaker, um, and they really came down on
(23:06):
her so bad that she almost left the scene. But she,
being the strong woman that she is, didn't. She hung
in there and she just kept pushing until you know,
things changed. Thank God for that. Gloria Steinen was not
just a troublemaker and a trailblazer. She was an organizer,
a catalyst. Often that is what tipping points require above
(23:29):
all else, someone who can bring people together, and in
an era before social media and the information age, that
meant someone willing to hit the road, someone willing to
ride the bus and live out of a suitcase, someone
willing to listen to thousands of individual women's stories, someone
who can tell you that you are not alone, that
you're not crazy. But it wasn't until the women's movement
(23:53):
came along and people began to gather in living rooms
and school gyms and cafete areas and factories and talk
to each other as they are talking to each other
now about sexual harassment and realizing that we were not crazy,
the system was crazy, that we had a right to
(24:13):
be treated equally and paid equally, and to be physically safe.
It can be hard to quantify the impact of an
organizer and influencer like Steinhem in the abstract, but it's
there in the story of every individual whose life she
has touched. Patricia Marcello again, well, I know what it's
meant for me. Um. I came up through the ranks, um,
(24:36):
you know, starting out as a twentysomething girl out of college. Um.
And I was offered receptionist jobs and secretary jobs, and
you know, secretary teacher mother. Um, you know those nurse
Those jobs were what women did, and I didn't want
to do that. It was difficult. Then when she started this,
(24:57):
it was impossible. Um. Now things are much different, things
are different, and in some ways that makes our thread
all the more incredible. The story of Gloria Steinham stretches
back into some unusual places, from the Playboy clubs to
the casting couches of early Hollywood, places you'd never expect
to give birth to a feminist icon. Think about it,
(25:19):
Studio executives green light the career of Clark Gable, a
chronic womanizer, and one of the historical fruits of that
decision is the woman who will lead a revolution that
could bring about the end of that corrupt, de humanizing system.
Call it irony, call it fate, or perhaps even better,
call it what Gloria Steinham does. This is the upside
(25:40):
of the downside. This is an outpouring of energy and
true democracy like I have never seen in my very
long life. That's Gloria stein at last year's Women's March
in Washington, d C. That march and the Me Too
movement are part of a longer fight for women's liberation.
(26:03):
It's the same movement. I mean, it's a It's a
continuation of the consciousness that says, you know, now I
can speak my experience and be believed. It happened to
me too, me too. It happened to me too, And
it happened to me too. This is my story and
to those who would dare try and silence us. We
(26:26):
offer you two words times up. So where then does
our thread go from here? From Steinham, Well, that's up
to all of us. I've never seen in my life,
(26:46):
never ever have I seen this level of activism. So
will it be enough? We don't know, but um but
we just have to keep doing whatever we can. Every day.
I can keep why, I can't keep why? Oh one
(27:15):
moment right, I can't keep by. The Thread is produced
by Libby Coleman and me Sean Braswell. Chris Hoff engineered
(27:39):
our show special thanks to Cindy Carpi and Tracy Moran
and James Watkins. This episode features demonstrators from the Seen
Women's March performing a song by Milk called I Can't
Keep Quiet. To learn more about the Thread, visit Aussie
dot com, Slash the thread all one word, and make
sure to subscribe to the Thread on Apple Podcasts. Checks
(28:00):
out at Aussie dot com. We're on Twitter and Facebook.
If you love surprising, engaging stories from history, look no
further than the flashback section of Ausy dot Com. That's
oz Y dot com. Thanks for listening and stay tuned
for more interconnected stories from history with season three of
the threat coming See why no
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