Greatest Movie Scandals

07 January 2009

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Needless to say Hollywood has a bit of a reputation of being plagued by scandal and has seen more than it's fair share of stars falling from grace after one or two too many glasses of champagne.

Over the years stars have been left red faced and embarrassed by some of their antics and other have seen their careers damaged beyond repair. So here at FemaleFirst we are taking a look at some of the greatest movie scandals.

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was a silent film comedian in the early twentieth century who went on to become a director and a screenwriter, giving the likes of Buster Keaton his first movie work in 1917. By 1921 Fatty Arbuckle was at the height of his career with a $1 million contract with movie studio Paramount when everything came crashing down.

On the evening on September 5th, 1921 Arbuckle was in San Francisco with actor Lowell Sherman and cameraman Fred Fischbach staying at the St Francis Hotel where they had a party. During the evening actress Virginia Rappe became serious ill but, after being seen by the hotel doctor, it was concluded that it was due to intoxication.

Two days later she checked into a hospital dying a day later from a ruptured bladder. Rappe's companion at the party accused Arbuckle of raping Rappe and police concluded that his body weight caused the injury that killed her.

Although he denied any wrong doing his trial was a media circus. Arbuckle was tried three times after two mistrials at the third it took the jury just six minutes to deliver a unanimous verdict of not guilty. But the stories that circulated in the press during this time of Hollywood orgies killed his career, retreating into alcoholism he would not appear on the big screen for another decade.

Shooting to fame in the sixties with movies such as Cul-de-Sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers director Roman Polanski has always seemed to be surrounded in some form of controversy.

In April 1969 his then heavily pregnancy wife Sharon Tate and four others were brutally murdered in the Polanski's rented home in Hollywood Hills by members of the Charles Manson's 'Family' while Roman was in London.

Despite being out of the country on his return home he was questioned by police but police could find no motive and eventually arrested and charged Manson and his 'family'.

In 1977 Polanski was embroiled in a sex scandal with the then thirteen year old Samantha Gailey, he was forty four at the time. He pleaded guilty to the charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

This however doesn't appear to have damaged his career nominated for Best Director at the Oscars two years later for Tess and winning in 2002 for The Pianist.

After a successful career as a footballer O.J. Simpson moved into acting working on The Towering Inferno and The Cassandra Crossing but in 1995 all of America was watching his trial.

He stood accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman police found evidence at the scene that led them to believe that Simpson was the murderer.

Simpson's defence team, led by Johnnie Cochran created, in the minds of the jury, doubt about the DNA evidence after a lengthy trial and despite strong evidence he was found not guilty, 150 million tuned in to watch the verdict.

Away from murder British actor was left red faced and with his trousers around his ankles when he was arrested by L.A Vice officers in 1995.

He was charged lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown and he pleaded no contest to the charges. Grant was about to release his first major studio film at the time and the scandal, for which he was fined £800 and placed on summary probation for two years, could have ruined his career.

But, as we all know, it didn't and he became one of Britain's most popular actors with films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mickey Blue Eyes and Bridget Jones.

Other Hollywood scandals include the revelation that actor Rock Hudson was actually gay, Errol Flynn was tried three times for statutory rape, Ingrid Bergman having a child out of wedlock with director Roberto Rossellini and more recently Winona Ryder going on an unorthodox shopping spree.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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