The Biggest ‘Open Secrets’ in Hollywood
The “open secret” is to Hollywood as apple pie is to America. From the early days of silent films to the era of IMAX, Hollywood producers, directors, actors and execs have kept secrets that threaten to mar the industry. In exchange for a pleasurable movie experience, we turn a blind eye to these “secrets” for as long as we can.
We don’t want to know that cute chinchilla was killed in our favorite movie. We don’t want to know our favorite director sexually assaulted our favorite actress. And we don’t want to know how many stunt doubles died to pull off our favorite action scene.
But if you do want to know, here are 10 of the biggest “open secrets” in Hollywood.
Animals ARE Harmed During the Filming of Some Movies
In the 1939 Western, Jesse James, a horse was forced to run off a cliff. In today’s CGI era, we hope filmmakers would use digital magic to create a scene like that, but in 1939, it was real.
The horse fell into a lake, panicked, and drowned. People protested the film’s release, and the American Humane Association began monitoring animal abuse on Hollywood sets. But that “No Animals Were Harmed” badge may not mean much.
In 2013 The Hollywood Reporter conducted an investigation into animal abuse on film sets and the findings were startling. In the 2011 film, Life of Pi, the star of the movie was a real Bengal tiger. The Hollywood Reporter got its hands on an email between American Humane Association colleagues monitoring the set.
It read:
“This one take with him just went really bad and he got lost trying to swim to the side. …Damn near drowned. … I think this goes without saying but DON’T MENTION IT TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY THE OFFICE! I have downplayed the f — out of it.”
The expose goes on to highlight 27 animal deaths on the set of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; dozens of dead marine life during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl; four horse deaths during the production of HBO’s Luck; and many other incidents.
The American Humane Association turning a blind eye to animal cruelty is such an open secret that they widely circulate a pamphlet titled: Protecting Your Ass From Harm. To their credit, “Ass” is supposed to mean “donkey,” but the double entendre is clear.
There’s a Huge Discrimination Problem
There’s only been one woman to win an Academy Award for Directing in the history of the Academy Awards: Kathryn Bigelow for the 2008 movie The Hurt Locker. There’s only been one African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in the history of the Academy: Jordan Peele in 2018 for Get Out. Those categories have only seen five women nominees and five African-American nominees in history, respectively. Needless to say, Hollywood has a diversity problem.
A 2016 Washington Post investigation reported that 96% of Hollywood’s decision makers were white, and 87% of them were male.
A study from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism analyzed the top 100 movies of 2016. Among the findings: 70.8% of speaking roles in the year’s top 100 films were white, 13.6% were black, 5.7% were Asian, 3.1 % were Hispanic, and 7% were other. Just 31.4% of speaking characters were female.
When we look behind the scenes, the numbers just get worse. It’s clear to see that we still have a long way to go.
Many Celebrities Have Fake Bodies
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, about 1 in 50 people suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). BDD is a body-image disorder where people are obsessed with an imagined or slight defect in their appearance. It affects men and women equally, and one of the leading causes is people trying to attain the false bodies portrayed by Hollywood elites.
To be fair, Hollywood execs aren’t aggressively trying to destroy the self-esteem of the average person, but most celebrities aren’t exactly forthcoming when discussing their body augmentations. Some even boast about healthy diet and exercise when their looks are a result of Botox and butt implants. It’s not a healthy trend, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.
Film Sets are Breeding Grounds for Extramarital Affairs
Science says it only takes a fraction of a second to fall in love. Hollywood says it takes several months to film a movie. That’s a lot of extra takes, a lot of time spent with your co-star, a lot of time away from your significant other, and a lot of late nights. If love scenes are involved, the set only gets steamier.
Other people’s relationships are none of our business, but a Gallup Poll found extramarital affairs to be the biggest taboo in America. More people found it morally wrong than issues like suicide, the death penalty, and human cloning.
There are too many examples to name, but there’s a solid chance one of your favorite actors cheated on their spouse during the filming of a movie.
Your Favorite Celebrity Uses a Fake Name
Helen Mirren’s real name is Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov. Martin Sheen’s real name is Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez. Audrey Hepburn’s name was Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston. Kirk Douglass is really Issur Danielovitch Demsky. Ben Kinglsey is Krishna Pandit Bhanji. Jaime Foxx is Eric Marlon Bishop. And the list goes on and on. And on.
There’s a ton of reasons why actors use stage names. Sometimes they want to forget about their past, Like Norma Jeane Mortenson (Marylin Monroe).
Sometimes they don’t want anyone to think they got an unfair advantage, like Nicholas Coppola (Nicholas Cage), whose uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, cast him in his big break, Peggy Sue Got Married.
Sometimes they want to avoid being confused with another famous person, like Albert Brooks (real name: Albert Einstein).
Sometimes it’s because of racism, like when Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD star Chloe Bennet (real name: Chloe Wang) said, “Hollywood is racist and wouldn’t cast me with a last name that made them uncomfortable.”
Sometimes they just want an awesome sounding name, so don’t let those super-cool names of the super famous cause any self-esteem issues. If it sounds too cool to be true, that’s probably because it is.
Award Shows Are Corrupt
It’s well-known in Hollywood that if you want to win at the big award shows, you’re going to have to campaign for it. This usually means hobnobbing and cozying up to the voters (see: ass kissing), but sometimes it goes beyond that.
A 1968 Federal Communications Commission report investigating the Golden Globes concluded that NBC had “misled the public as to how the winners were selected.” It found that awards weren’t determined by a poll of correspondents but based on internal politicking among board members. Voting procedures were later amended and everything was taken care of. Just kidding.
In 1981 actress Pia Zadora (Who?) won the Best Newcomer award for her role in the movie Butterfly (What?). It was a shock for everybody. That’s when a report uncovered that Zadora’s husband paid off members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to secure her award. Then things finally got better. Just kidding, again.
In 2011 publicist Michael Russell sued the HFPA for firing him. He claimed he was sacked for trying to expose corrupt practices among the group, which included HFPA members accepting money, holidays, and gifts in exchange for nominations and wins.
The two parties eventually settled, but award show corruption still goes on. When your favorite actor gets snubbed, it’s not because she wasn’t good, it may just be because she didn’t want to get involved in the corruption.
Sexual Abuse Is Rampant
Newsflash: Harvey Weinstein wasn’t the first and only power player in Hollywood to sexually abuse an aspiring actor. It’s been a rampant problem since the first actors stepped on a movie set back in the early 1900s.
In 1921, a scandal of epic proportions rocked Hollywood.
Silent-film actress Virgina Rappe attended a Labor Day party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, hosted by fellow actor Roscoe Arbuckle. As with most Labor Day parties, drinking was involved, and Rappe’s acquaintance, Maude Delmont, accused Arbuckle of taking advantage of Rappe’s condition to assault and rape her.
The exact details of the incident are fuzzy, but Rappe suffered a trauma and died from a ruptured bladder, leading sensationalist newspapers to say that Arbuckle raped her with a bottle.
Rappe was victim shamed and blamed and Arbuckle was ultimately acquitted of rape and manslaughter after three trials. His movies got banned and he was publicly ostracized, but that didn’t stop sexual assault from taking place thereafter in Hollywood.
Pedophilia Is Rampant
In 1977, film director Roman Polanski (real name: Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański) was arrested and charged for raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer.
He eventually pleaded guilty to statutory rape and fled to France before sentencing, where he holds citizenship. France does not have to extradite its citizens and extradition requests from the United States were denied.
In 1992, acclaimed writer, director, and actor Woody Allen (real name: Allan Stewart Konigsberg) was accused by his seven-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, of molestation. Her brother, Ronan Farrow, recently helped uncover the Harvey Weinstein crimes.
Farrow’s babysitter, Alison Stickland, testified to seeing Allen acting inappropriately with Farrow at Mia Farrow”s (Allen’s then-wife) country home. Allen denied all allegations and was never charged.
He divorced his wife and got married to another one of her adopted daughters, Soon Yi-Previn. Yi-Previn was 19 years old and Allen was 57 when the two got married. He’s since went on to create dozens of films, win countless awards, and is considered one of the elite of Hollywood’s elite.
More recently, actor Corey Feldman said there was an intricate pedophilia ring in Hollywood, but nobody really listened. His 1993 sexual assault report was swept under the rug until it was recently dug up. No one has been charged in relation to a pedophile ring, but it could just be a matter of time before charges come falling down.
Stuntmen Often Get Injured or Die During Filming
The highest-paid stunt doubles pull in about $250,000 a year while the highest paid actors pull in about $20 million a movie. Yes, big-name stars are the ones who sell the tickets, but they’re not the ones who put their lives on the line.
It’s an open secret that stunt doubles often get seriously injured or even die during filming.
During the filming of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, for example, Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double, David Holmes, got hit by a staged explosion. He was taken to the hospital where he was told he suffered an irreversible neck break. Both of his arms and both of his legs are now fully paralyzed.
Just last year a stunt double died after being in a car crash on the set of “Deadpool 2.”
In the history of Hollywood, there have been too many on-set deaths and injuries to count, and to pour salt in the wound, stunt doubles barely get recognition for their death-defying work.
Your Favorite Film Was Probably Fueled by Drugs
We don’t know what industry has the most amount of drug abusers, but it’s an open secret that drug use and abuse runs rampant in Hollywood.
According to a 1982 New York Times article, drug use in Hollywood was so common that companies that insured movies began amending clauses to cut losses from drug-related incidents. Several on-set deaths and injuries have been alleged to be the result of illicit drug use, but investigators can rarely confirm.
In her 2013 memoir, Debbie Reynolds (real name: Mary Frances Reynolds), the female lead for the 1952 musical, Singing in the Rain, recalled that when her grueling schedule started to take a toll on her health, the MGM studio chief instructed her to get “vitamin shots” from his doctor.
Wizard of Oz actress Judy Garland (real name: Frances Ethel Gumm) told her biographer how her mother gave her “pep pills” to ensure she’d give an energetic performance on screen.
She went on to say,
“…They’d take us to the studio hospital and knock us out with sleeping pills…then after four hours they’d wake us up and give us the pep pills again so we could work 72 hours in a row.”
Judy Garland died of a drug overdose at the age of 47.
From Marilyn Monroe to Heath Ledger (real name: Heathcliff Andrew Ledger), many actors have turned to drugs under Hollywood pressure.
It’s well-known that many stars resort to drugs for everything from maintaining weight to maintaining energy. It seems like every year another Hollywood star dies from a drug-related death, and unrealistic expectations from Hollywood are partly to blame.
