CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? MARION McMULLEN ON SEX SCANDALS WHICH HAVE ROCKED HOLLYWOOD
WHO’S SORRY NOW?
THE latest Hollywood scandal has seen film producer Harvey Weinstein sacked from the Weinstein Company he co-founded because of alleged misconduct towards women. He said: “I came of age in the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different. That was the culture then. I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office – or out of it. To anyone.”
IS CLOWN TIME OVER?
COMEDY film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle saw his film career ruined when he attended a party in 1921 at which a woman died. He was tried for manslaughter and eventually acquitted, but the damage was done. He later said: “I don’t understand it. One minute I’m the guy everybody loves, the next I’m the guy everybody loves to hate.”
DO YOU THINK I’M SEXY?
THE notorious Mae West was fined for obscenity and sent to jail for 10 days when her outrageous New York stage show Sex caused uproar in 1926. She once said: “I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it.”
WHO HAD IT TAPED?
AMERICAN actor Rob Lowe was involved in the first celebrity sex tape scandal in 1988 when he was filmed in a threesome in Atlanta, Georgia. He was 24 at the time and it was later revealed one of the girls was 16 – underage in that state. He did 20 hours community service and later sought help for drug and alcohol problems.
WAS THAT HUGH?
FOUR Weddings And A Funeral actor Hugh Grant was arrested in Los Angeles in 1995 for lewd conduct. He was found in his parked car with sex worker Divine Brown. He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180 and sentenced to two years probation.
WHO WAS A RIGHT MADAM?
HEIDI Fleiss was arrested by police in 1993. She was known as a Hollywood madam and her sex workers charged celebrity clients $1,500 a night. She was jailed in 1997 on charges of tax evasion and money laundering and said: “I took the oldest profession on earth and I did it better than anyone on earth. Alexander the Great conquered the world at 32. I conquered it at 22.”
CAN YOU GO BACK AGAIN?
FILM director Roman Polanski has not set foot in America since 1978 following a conviction of statutory rape. His victim Samantha Geimer has since said she has forgiven him and has asked for the case to be dropped.
WHAT A CARRY ON?
SINGER Frank Sinatra was arrested and charged with “carrying on with a married woman” in 1938 in Bergen County, New Jersey. He was 23 at the time and the charges were later dismissed.
EVEN ‘AMERICA’S DAD’?
STAR of The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby has been the subject of sexual assault allegations from some 57 women. Next month he will be back in court charged with aggravated indecent assault of a woman in 2004, after the jury at his first trial earlier this year found themselves hoplessly deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.
WHAT’S THE VERDICT?
SWASHBUCKLING movie heart-throb Errol Flynn found himself accused of raping two 17-year-olds at the height of his fame in the early 1940s. The case went to trial but the star of movies like Robin Hood and Captain Blood was cleared of all charges. Married three times, he once said: “The public has always expected me to be a playboy, and a decent chap never lets his public down.”