Consensus is that two things are true: this generation is the one to end Western Civilization as we know it, and celebrities are even worse than the rest of us. Impending apocalypse? Not so, Amy Davis argues. Celebrities in the past were just as scandalous. "Kids these days" may not be so crazy after all.
Celebrities are nuts. No really, they are. You have to be in order to subject your entire life to the scrutiny of the American public, which includes teenyboppers who think glitter is not only a fashion statement, but a way of life, and old men with sour milk breath and foot fetishes.
We seem to think that "New Hollywood" and "The Modern Celebrity" are even crazier than their predecessors. Not only that Jamie Lynn is more of a mess than her sister (by the way, did you hear Britney went into Rite Aid to buy a home pregnancy test? Can it be she's jealous of her mini-me's recent spate of attention?), but that today's pop tarts are so much more scandalous than yesterday's rat pack. Actually, this couldn't be farther from the truth.
Errol Flynn, the original heartthrob, had some issues keeping his paws off the underage. In 1942 the dark and mysterious star of "Captain Blood" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" faced charges of statutory rape for his relations with Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, two teenage girls and adoring fans. Flynn was eventually cleared of the charges, but the phrase "in like Flynn" was coined and forever linked with the actor's sexual exploits.
Flynn was also difficult to get along with. Fellow actress Bette Davis, who played opposite him on multiple occasions, disliked him so much that in a particularly convincing scene in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex," she slaps him hard instead of faking the insult as it was scripted.
Errol Flynn wasn't the only hot shot who had a taste for young ones. Director Roman Polanski apparently drugged and had sex with a thirteen-year-old girl after a photo shoot in Los Angeles in 1977. He fled the States to avoid a sentence, and hasn't been back since. Evidently fugitives stick together, since Harrison Ford accepted an Oscar for Polanski when "The Pianist" won Best Picture in 2002.
Everyone's favorite silent screen star Charlie Chaplin was famous for evading his taxes, and even fled to Switzerland to avoid punishment. He was also well known for his sexual exploits like Polanski and Flynn. One biographer has even posited that Nabakov's Lolita was based on Chaplin's relationship with a young girl named Lita Grey.
Hollywood hunk Rock Hudson was so worried that his homosexuality would be leaked in a magazine article that he entered into a cover-up marriage with Phyllis Gates, a young woman who worked on the set of MGM Studios. Hudson wasn't the only one to do so, however, and the practice of a two people marrying to hide either or both of the partners' homosexuality was even named a "lavender marriage." Though the term is no longer used, the practice of marriage of convenience certainly is. Unless of course, like your beliefs in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and a good-tasting sugar substitute, your faith in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' union of love remains strong.
Elizabeth Taylor started out a doe-eyed child star much like Lindsay Lohan or Drew Barrymore. And just like Lohan and Barrymore, Taylor gathered scandal momentum as she matured. Though the volume of her marriages alone is legendary -- she has been married five times to four men -- the stories behind them are salacious as well.
After her third husband, Mike Todd, died, Taylor set her aims on Todd's best friend, Eddie Fisher, who was married at the time to Debbie Reynolds, the dimpled girl from "Singing in the Rain" and mother of Princess Leia. Fisher divorced Reynolds and married Taylor on the same day. Three years later, Fisher and Taylor's marriage ended when Taylor starred in "Cleopatra" with Richard Burton. The two married, then divorced, and married once more. Sure enough, they split once again as well.
But it may be Lana Turner who trumps all. She was married eight times and famously said, "I liked the boys, and the boys liked me" when asked about her love life and many affairs. Nothing, however, compares with the scandalous murder case surrounding her in 1958. Turner's trouble started when she learned her then-paramour, Johnny Stompanato, had connections to the mob. Then Stompanato jealously showed up on the set of "Another Time, Another Place," fearing his lady love was involved with co-star Sean Connery. Stompanato waved a gun around, but Connery decked him, and removed the gun. The tension mounted, and several months later Turner's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, attacked Stompanato with a kitchen knife while Turner and Stompanato were having a lover's quarrel. The coroner's inquest was filmed and shown on television, and Turner's dramatic testimony at the stand is often remembered as her finest performance.
Suddenly the antics of Britney, Vanessa and Paris are looking pretty tame. I almost feel like they're holding out on us, actually. Perhaps it's even part of a celebrity's job description to lead a life of scandal. Or maybe every life is secretly epic, and the only way to handle your own drama is to say "at least I didn't do that." So go ahead Brit, surprise us.
Amy is a staff writer for the Mirror. She says her favorite movie is "Sabrina" but we all know it's really "Bring It On."
