Hollywood studios used abortion to cover up steamy secrets
The intricate history of the studio system’s production of stars is filled with manipulation, cover-ups, excised histories, and a gossip press willing to overlook it all as it behooves its own interests….
If and when the stars did misbehave, each studio employed “fixers” to cover up the evidence (which included bribing cops, paying off mistresses, and arranging for abortions).
~ Anne Helen Petersen, “The down and dirty history of TMZ,” Buzz Feed, July 24
[Photo is of actress Myrna Loy, who later admitted to an abortion in her autobiography, High Times, Hard Times]
Well dahhhhhh,
Like this is something new?
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When you read about all of the old time actresses the majority of them have had at least one abortion or more. I was reading that Marylin Monroe had about 13 abortions including one about 15 days before her death. Im sorry but I just dont buy murder. MM was a terribly unhappy woman born to a mentally ill mother. Her abortion history didnt help matters. There wasnt any help for abortion back then and I believe depression caused her to take her own life. I was never a fan of hers. She was just a fragile and damaged human being like anybody else. Dealing with all of those abortions probably made her feel like an abused sex object.
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I was never a fan either. That baby voice of hers irritated me. I read that she wanted children badly but could never carry them to term. I wonder why.
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Phillymiss she took a good photo but I did not think she was a good actress at all. And indeed that voice was annoying. Let Norma Jean Baker RIP. I dont get the appeal. She was used and abused in her life and I thought she looked much older than 35 when she died. Not that she looked old or unattractive…just mature.
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In fact I know a gay man who idolizes her and I have 2 pics of her in my back bedroom. Im gonna give them to him because I dont want them.
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I once read that Madonna believed herself to be MM reincarnated. lmao! I dont think so. She sure did copycat her lifestyle with the same abortion track record. And I thought there were times when Madonna looked like a truck stop hooker with platinum blonde hair jet black eyebrows and vampire red lipstick. The True Blue days. yuck! She needs to hang it up. Imho
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Hi heather,
It would have been a little hard for Madonna to be MM reincarnated since MM died 4 years after Madonna was born!
But let’s not confuse Madonna with facts.
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Mary lol. indeed there is such a thing as having too much. Madonna can sing and dance and I have enjoyed her music but now shes almost 60 parading around like shes 16. The new. gals are all trying to copy her and its getting old. miley britney and a few others are already post abortive and wild. As far as Madonnna goes consider the source. Talent doesnt make you super human. Madonna tried her hand at acting but flopped.
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I was kinda surprized that Elizabeth Taylor had an abortion. For some reason I thought she was pro life. But as Ive mentioned more actresses aborted back then than you would think.
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Once again, where’s Denise? She should be all over this thread!
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I feel for the actresses back then. Their contracts required studio consent to marry, prohibition against pregnancy, and requirements for weight and measurements. On top of that, the percentage of their pay that they actually received was miniscule, and demands were often made of them on the casting couch. It was an abusive system, and We should view the resulting abortions as coerced until we learn otherwise in each case.
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You have a point Rachel. Just like Judy Garland was pressured to abort and was quite upset. Although people said she killed herself Ive read that wasnt the case. Her death was ruled accidental. Former co stars say she was just plain worn out and exhausted from life.
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Also though Rachel MM had a choice when it came to having sex with the Kennedys and a very married JFK. I did read that her last abortion was from a Kennedy but she wasnt sure which one. It was 15 days or so before her death. She also had a love for booze and pills. I believe her OD was from a deadly mixture.
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Heather, it’s definitely safe to say that the Hollywood crowd has always had as problem with bad choices. And it wasn’t that long ago that actresses were generally assumed to be prostitutes (a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one). By the same token, shall we blame the woman whose career was on the line, who had emotional problems, self-medicated, and was accustomed to being used? Or shall we blame powerful, wealthy, influential men (and their families and handlers) who didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to keep their hands off of women in vulnerable positions?
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Idk Rachel its a tough call. MM had plenty of husbands who could have said “HoneyþI love you. I can give you a better life.” Joe DiMagio loved Marylin and probably would have taken great care of her. He was jealous of the skirt blowing scene in the white dress while married to her. He didnt like all of those men looking at his wife like a hooker. Imo she had chances to leave acting if she had wanted to.
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Myrna Loy, Judy Garland, Madonna, and Marilyn Monroe all lacked stable relationships with their fathers. Myrna’s mother took her for a time from Montana to Southern California when she was six years old without her father. They went back and forth until she was 13 when her father died, and they moved to Southern California permanently. Judy Garland’s father moved from Minnesota to California to flee allegations of sexually approaching male ushers at his theater, an he died when Judy was only 13. Madonna resented her father for remarrying their housekeeper when she was eight after her mother’s death. Marilyn had no contact with her father growing up, and her mother said her real father’s surname (Gifford) differed from the father’s surname listed on her original birth certificate (Mortensen) and corrected copy (Baker).
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Hi Eric yes ik MMs last name was Mortenson for a while. I believe she had more.
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Hi Navi, we finally had to ban Denise, I’m sorry to say, because of her persistence in writing sexually explicit comments.
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Interestingly, a recent great summer-reading book deals with this: Beautiful Ruins.
spoilers-
The story centers primarily around a young actress who we learn is pregnant and who has been sent away for an abortion by her studio. While reading the book I was struck again by the realization that had the character gotten the abortion, the story would have just ended there, no decades-spanning plot to follow, nothing else to say. She would have kept her small role in the movie and that would be the end of that story. How many real stories have been sacrificed to pave the way unobstructed for cinematic stories, over the years? Sad.
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How exactly does anybody know how many abortions any celebrity had unless they (the celebrity, not a third party) wrote it down themselves, stated it in an interview or somebody illegally released their medical records? Anything else is just gossip, which a verse in the New Testament (I can’t remember which one) talked about being sinful. Something about younger women being idle and going from house to house gossiping. I don’t know who had how many abortions but unless the actual person admitted it or somebody was in the room when it was performed it is just gossip and speculation, especially if the person is dead and can’t even confirm or deny it. I can claim a dead person married a purple chipmunk in a ceremony performed by Satan and it has no more validity than reading some crap in a gossip rag or passed on through a series of people who supposed “knew” this person.
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