Infamous Scandals Read online

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  Contents

  Introduction

  PART ONE: FILM STARS

  Olive Thomas

  Jean Harlow

  Ingrid Bergman

  Marilyn Monroe

  Fatty Arbuckle

  Woody Allen

  Rock Hudson

  Marlon Brando

  James Dean

  Hugh Grant

  Winona Ryder

  River Phoenix

  Robert Blake

  Rob Lowe

  Lana Turner

  Rudolph Valentino

  PART TWO: POP STARS AND CELEBRITIES

  Jerry Lee Lewis

  Chuck Berry

  Michael Jackson

  George Michael

  Gary Glitter

  R. Kelly

  Anna Nicole Smith

  Pete Doherty

  PART THREE: RADIO/TV PERSONALITIES

  Alan Freed

  Martha Stewart

  Michael Barrymore

  Heidi Fleiss

  Thérèse Humbert

  PART FOUR: POLITICIANS

  Bill Clinton

  John Major

  John Profumo

  Lord Lambton

  Mark Foley

  Jim West

  Ted Kennedy

  Cecil Parkinson

  Strom Thurmond

  Gary Condit

  PART FIVE: RELIGIOUS SCANDALS

  The Spanish Inquisition

  Mountain Meadows Massacre

  Jack Hyles

  Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker

  Scandal in the Roman Catholic Church

  PART SIX: JUDGES AND TEACHERS

  Clarence Thomas

  Judge Dallas Powers

  Debra Lafave

  Amy Gehring

  PART SEVEN: GOVERNMENT SCANDAL

  J. Edgar Hoover

  The Fall of President Nixon

  Eugene Talmadge

  PART EIGHT: ARISTOCRATIC SCANDALS

  Rasputin and the Romanovs

  The Montagu Affair

  The House of Windsor

  House of Grimaldi

  PART NINE: SPORTS PERSONALITIES

  O. J. Simpson

  David Beckham

  Mike Tyson

  George Best

  Diego Maradona

  The Black Sox Scandal

  Rosie Ruiz

  Introduction

  For the majority of people a minor indiscretion would go unnoticed, but just imagine what the repercussions would be like if you were a major public figure. Over the years pop stars, sportsmen, celebrities, politicians, members of the clergy and members of the royal family have made the headlines by being involved in a wide variety of scandals and controversial issues.

  A scandal, put simply, is an incident that becomes widely publicized because it involves allegations of a wrongdoing, a disgrace or something which causes moral outrage. Of course the country in which the incident occurs can have strong implications as to the seriousness of the said moral outrage. A prime example is when a scandal broke after Richard Gere planted a seemingly innocuous kiss on the cheek of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. The couple were appearing together at an AIDS awareness event in India, when Gere embraced Shetty, bent her back in a sort of exaggerated dance and then kissed her on the cheek. Had this happened in Europe, no one would have turned a hair, but because they were in India’s, and the country’s Hindu nationalists believed that the act went far beyond anything that is acceptable to their beliefs, it was blown out of all proportion.

  Of course a scandal is not always based on fact. Sometimes it is the product of a false allegation which becomes grossly exaggerated. Very often the attempt to cover up the said scandal creates an even greater scandal, when the cover-up fails to do its job and makes the situation even worse.

  Years ago a scandal would probably have meant the end of a very prosperous career, but in the 21st century it appears it is easier to ride the storm, but of course this is by no means always the case. A prime example was the scandal surrounding TV presenter and comedian Michael Barrymore, whose madcap personality made him one of the most popular entertainers on British television. However, when a friend was found dead floating in Barrymore’s swimming pool after a party in March 2001, it not only tarnished the presenter’s reputation, it also ruined his career.

  One of the most famous scandals in the 20th century was that of actor Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, who was accused of rape and murder in 1921. Although he was apparently innocent of the charges, the scandal still managed to break him. Arbuckle was banned from making films and, although the ban was lifted the same year, his career had already been destroyed.

  Sports personalities, who are always in the limelight, only need to stray slightly from the straight and narrow and the media jump on it. For example, in 1994 Argentina’s footballing hero, Diego Maradona, scored a magnificent goal in the World Cup final in the United States against Greece. However, the thrill of the goal was soon quashed when Maradona was sent home after testing positive for the stimulant ephedrene. Although he claimed it must have been in his sports drink, he was not allowed to play any further matches and his team was knocked out of the competition.

  Another footballer, Stan Collymore, still bears the scars of an endless string of scandals. In 2004 he once again became the subject of ridicule when he was stopped by undercover reporters for ‘dogging’ – cruising for anonymous sex – stupidly using a car that bore his own personalized number plates!

  The royal family are not immune from scandal – in fact far from it – and if we look back in the annals of time we will see plenty of evidence of ‘naughty’ behaviour. When kings and queens, princes and princesses play around, everyone wants to know about it and whispers of their indiscretions reverberate around the world. In 1891 the Duke of Clarence, who was son of the future Edward VII, offered two prostitutes money if they would return two letters he had written to them. Details of this indiscretion did not come to light until the year 2002, when the incriminating letters were auctioned for the sum of £8,220.

  In October 2007 two men were charged with attempted blackmail when they demanded £50,000 from an unnamed member of the royal family in exchange for an explicit ‘sex tape’.

  However, probably the most intriguing scandal to come out about the royal family is that surrounding the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. When Andrew Morton released his book Her True Story, the spell surrounding the fairytale marriage was broken. In the book Morton quotes Diana as saying, ‘My wedding day, I think that was the worst day of my life’ and she frequently refers to the Prince’s ‘other woman’. The ‘woman’ of course was Camilla Parker-Bowles, who has since become the Prince’s consort. The scandal surrounding the death o
f Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash in August 1997 in Paris is still ongoing and various theories continue to emerge regarding the cause of the accident.

  Politicians have seen their fair share of scandals whether they have been involved in illegal, corrupt or unethical practices, or once again the subject of an immoral sexual practice as in the case of John Profumo. At the height of the cold war in the early part of the 1960s, Profumo allegedly had a sordid affair which involved a showgirl named Christine Keeler and a Soviet naval attache.

  In September 2006 a respected congressman from Florida – Mark Foley – rocked the Capitol when he resigned over allegations that he sent sexually explicit emails to underage boys working as congressional pages. Further repercussions echoed around Congress when it was believed that several of his fellow House leaders had been aware of his indiscretions for quite some time.

  A major political sex scandal broke in 1998 when US president Bill Clinton was accused of having an extramarital affair with a 22-year-old White House intern called Monica Lewinsky. The story made headlines for several days despite denials by Clinton, but the White House were not happy and demanded some answers.

  Religious leaders should set a shining example for society on moral issues, or so one would think. However, for decades the sexual misbehaviour of Catholic priests has been shrouded in secrecy.

  Jimmy Swaggart, one of the United States’ leading television evangelists was forced to resign from his ministry after it was revealed that he had been consorting with a prostitute. In a tearful confession in front of a large congregation he said ‘I have sinned against you and I beg your forgiveness’. Ironically, his confession was all the more scandalous because he had already openly criticized a rival TV evangelist Rev Jim Bakker for committing adultery!

  If these snippets have whetted your appetite, then you will enjoy reading about these and many more scandals in greater detail. Of course no one is perfect, but whatever your views about the people concerned it is hard to feel sorry for them when they know the world is watching. We are a sensation-hungry population who revel in the endless supply of headlines that appear in the daily tabloids. After all, scandals sell newspapers, keep journalists and lawyers employed and give us all something to talk about when we get into the office. Access to the internet spreads the gossip faster and further afield, leaving those people at the centre of the scandal to try and pick up the remnants of their shattered reputations.

  PART ONE: Film Stars

  Olive Thomas

  If Olive Thomas had a motto, it would certainly have been ‘live fast, die young’. As a small town girl from humble stock with beauty and ambition in abundance, it seems that this is exactly what she set out to do. Olive’s short life began in ordinaryville USA and ended far too early (just like another notorious beauty and drama queen from across The Pond) after a night of abandon at the Paris Ritz.

  Oliva R. Duffy was born into an Irish immigrant family on 20 October 1894 in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Her father died when she was very young, and she was forced to leave school early in order to help support her mother and two brothers.

  At 16 years old, Olive was married to another small-town kid, Bernard Krugh Thomas. The marriage was not destined to last and within two years Olive, who was now working as a store clerk at Kaughman’s department store in Pittsburgh, began divorce proceedings. The promise of juicy opportunities in the Big Apple beckoned to the young divorcee. Olive went to stay with a relative in the city where she quickly found employment at a Harlem department store. By this time Olive must have realised that she held at least some appeal for the opposite sex, because when she came across a newspaper contest to find New York’s most beautiful girl, she entered and won. The accolade saw her modelling for commercial artists such as Howard Christy and Harrison Fisher and she eventually graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Olive Thomas had arrived!

  The Ziegfeld Follies of Broadway were inspired by the Parisian Follies Bergeres. They were a series of elaborate vaudeville variety shows conceived and put together by show-biz guru Florenz Ziegfeld at the suggestion of his then wife, the entertainer Anna Held. The show’s producers were theatrical legends Klaw and Erlanger. The Ziegfeld Follies were most famous for their beautiful and glamorous chorus girls. In 1915, at the recommendation of Harrison Fisher, Olive was invited to join the Ziegfeld girls as part of the line-up. Thomas went on to claim that she’d actually approached Florenz and brazenly asked him for a job, but this version of events was never corroborated. It has also been alleged that Ziegfeld and Thomas were lovers, again there is little evidence to support this theory.

  In addition to her role as a Ziegfeld girl, Thomas also performed a much cheekier act afterhours on the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre. The show was called the Midnight Frolic, and it did pretty much as its name suggests. The girls had to perform in skimpy costumes, sometimes wearing nothing but colourful balloons which the male patrons took delight in bursting with the lit ends of their cigars. The show was mainly geared towards rich and famous male patrons who had plenty of money to bestow on pretty, nubile young creatures such as Olive. She welcomed the attention.

  Before very long Thomas attracted a throng of male admirers from within the New York in-crowd associated with Vogue magazine mogul Conde-Naste. They showered her with expensive gifts, one German ambassador apparently bought her a string of pearls worth $10,000. In 1920, she posed nude for the Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas, who painted a titillating portrait of her as a wanton.

  Having conquered New York city, Olive negotiated a contract with the International Film Company in Hollywood as the leading lady opposite Harry Fox, the founding father of the foxtrot. She went on to make over 20 Hollywood movies, the first being A Girl Like That, which she made straight after her secret wedding to Jack Pickford.

  Olive and Jack

  Jack Pickford was a Canadian born American actor, and son of the famous Pickford acting dynasty. When Olive and Jack met, Olive was 22 years old and Jack was only 20. There was an instant chemistry between them, and they were married in secret in 1916. Olive later claimed that the reason for their secrecy lay in the fact that she didn’t want to trade on the family name – preferring to make it on her own. A highly moral standpoint from a young woman who had for years traded purely on her youth and the sheer beauty of her body!

  The famous Pickford family did not approve of the match to begin with, believing that Jack was too young for marriage. They also felt that Olive, whose background was in ‘musical comedy’ (a euphemistic phrase for burlesque theatre) came from an alien world. In fact this could not have been further from the truth. Both families came from very ordinary, working-class stock. Olive and Jack had both experienced abandonment and poverty as children and both had discovered theatre as a way to escape this life – so in many ways the couple had plenty in common. The Pickfords though, did not want to be reminded of their humble roots – and disliked Olive’s coarse and brassy manner.

  In Mary Pickford’s autobiography Sunshine and Shadows, she describes their relationship thus:

  The girl had the loveliest violet-blue eyes I had ever seen. They were fringed with long, dark lashes that seemed darker because of the delicate translucent pallor of her skin. I could understand why Florenz Ziegfeld never forgave Jack for taking her away from the Follies. She and Jack were madly in love with one another, but I always thought of them as a couple of children playing together’

  (Mary Pickford, 1955)

  The main reason why the Pickford’s did not like Olive, was down to her role in the Midnight Frolics. Despite the fact that Olive had graduated from Broadway and was now playing similar roles to her sisters-in-law, they regarded her as little more than a courtesan and not a respectable girl with whom their brother should settle down. Olive was renowned not only for her sexual appeal but also for her potty-mouth. Her language was apparently awful, but she never intended to offend. Jack and Olive didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought. They were too b
esotted with one another.

  Olive later commented that ‘Jack was a beautiful dancer, he danced his way into my heart. We knew each other for eight months before our marriage and most of that time we gave to dancing. We got along so well on the dance floor that we just naturally decided that we would be able to get along together for the rest of our lives.’

  Meanwhile, her Hollywood studio had reinvented Olive as a simple, virginal Irish girl who was devoted to her pet dog and her brothers. This version of Olive may have been closer to the ‘real her’ for all we know, but it was certainly a different person from the erotically charged sex goddess that Vargas had painted.

  America became wrapped up in World War I, and Jack faced a dilemma: join the US military or be draughted into the Canadian army. He opted for the US Navy, and spent the majority of his time in the forces finding young Hollywood hopefuls who would sleep with his Naval superiors in order to keep him out of the firing line. The authorities eventually found about about this little arrangement and Jack was given a dishonourable discharge. The Pickford sisters, ever concerned about the family’s reputation, later used their money and influence to have the word ‘dishonourable’ removed.

  While Jack was busy dodging the front-line, Olive drank champagne cocktails and attended celebrity parties in chauffeur driven cars. She had become one of the Hollywood elite. These days we tend to take it for granted that young, beautiful and talented starlets will inevitably brush up against a darker side of Hollywood – a world where class A drugs and alcohol rule the show. Hardly a day passes when the tabloids are not filled with such goings-on. It may give the likes of Winehouse, Hilton and Spears some comfort to know that things were just the same for Olive Thomas, but ultimately Olive’s tale is a cautionary one because it was here, at the height of her fame, that tragedy was waiting in the wings.