Original subtitles

[projector whirring]

[upbeat music]

narrator: 1939 was Hollywood's most important year.

- Hollywood in 1939 was when the studios ran rampant.

- They were factories.

They were just humming.

- There was "Gone with the Wind,"

"Stagecoach," "Wuthering Heights,"

and of course, "The Wizard of Oz.'

1939 was the greatest year in Hollywood history.

narrator: But beneath the glitz and glamour

was a world of secrets, from drugs--

- They were called pep pills.

- Some pills are stimulants.

- Gave you a little bit of energy, cut your appetite.

They had no idea what these would lead to.

- There's the pills to go to bed at night.

There's the pills to get up in the morning.

So there was a pill for everything.

narrator: To scandalous gossip.

- Today, they look like

the most happily-married gay couple ever.

- Bette Davis doesn't like Errol Flynn,

and she hits him--

really, really, hits him.

He says that he saw stars.

narrator: Join us as we go behind the scenes

to reveal the true story

of Hollywood's 1930s dream factory.

- In terms of health and safety,

there could hardly have been

a more appalling film than "Wizard of Oz."

There were explosions going all over the place.

narrator: We'll reveal all in the words of the stars

and those who knew them best.

- Both told me that when they saw each other,

it was just absolutely explosive.

- They were in each other's arms between every take,

making love.

Larry was absolutely exhausted by her demands.

She was a very demanding lady.

narrator: We'll uncover Hollywood's best-kept secrets.

- John Ford was very difficult.

He could be very tough on you.

Thinking back on it, I was scared shitless.

- They would be saying in Navajo,

"You know, this movie really sucks.

John Ford is an asshole."

[laughs]

- There were toilets for the white actors

and toilets for the Black actors.

So segregation lived on that set.

narrator: If you want to know the truth about Hollywood,

you need to understand 1939.

- 1939 is everything that Hollywood stood for,

both good and bad.

But it did produce gold.

The energy of it all, just breathtaking.

♪ ♪

[projector whirring]

- [inaudible] marker.

Thank you.

- The first time that I saw "The Wizard of Oz,"

we had a very, very well-intended nanny

who had told us all day long,

your mom's going to be on TV.

And my mom was in New York,

and we started to watch this film.

And I reacted to the movie like every other child.

I was terrified of the Wicked Witch.

The flying monkeys scared the daylights out of me.

[dramatic music]

I became hysterical, crying,

and I found the movie to be traumatic.

It's just really terrifying for little kids.

♪ ♪

And in the middle of all this, my mother called.

And she expected to hear three chirpy voices,

and she heard crying.

[Dorothy screaming]

Then I got on the phone with her,

and she said, what's the matter?

And I said, the monkeys took you to New York!

And I didn't understand any of it.

And she said to the nanny, she said,

they will never watch that film again

without me being there, and we didn't.

- What was it about the monkeys that you found so terrifying?

- What was it for you that you found terrifying

about the monkeys, okay?

They were terrifying!

Flying, winged monkeys?

Are you kidding me?

[upbeat music]

- 1939 was this peak, this pinnacle,

of Hollywood achievement in terms

of just sheer quality of performance.

- It was an absolutely extraordinary year

in terms of the number of classic films that

were produced in a 12-month period in Hollywood.

It was the peak of the greatest

iconic stars of the silver screen.

You've got Clark Gable. You've got Cary Grant.

You've got Bette Davis. You've got John Wayne.

You've got Judy Garland.

If you name a classic star of the studio system,

they were making these great films in 1939.

♪ ♪

narrator: By the start of 1939,

"The Wizard of Oz" was already in production.

With a budget of $2.8 million, it was MGM Studio's

most ambitious and expensive film,

and the pressure was on for it to be a huge success.

♪ ♪

- Technicolor was coming into its own,

and they were starting to see that full-color movies,

instead of black and white,

were really big at the box office.

They'd finally figured out how to do it well.

And so they suddenly started to make Technicolor extravaganzas

to bring the audiences in.

And of course, that transition

from black and white to Technicolor

is literally the story of "The Wizard of Oz."

[sweeping orchestral music]

♪ ♪

- It introduces the viewer, and Dorothy,

into the realm of the marvelous,

and everything that you see is a marvel.

This is an entirely imagined universe,

with flying monkeys and witches.

- Now fly! Fly!

[dramatic music]

- And trees that throw apples.

♪ ♪

- Ouch!

- What do you think you're doing?

- It's a sort of compendium of filmmaking skills

all in one big, sensational extravaganza.

[upbeat music]

narrator: With such high hopes for their new production,

casting the perfect actress to play Dorothy was essential.

And MGM turned to one of their up-and-coming starlets,

16-year-old Judy Garland.

♪ ♪

- Nobody at the time thought that "The Wizard of Oz"

would be as legendary a film as it has become.

They thought they were just doing another movie.

They thought that they were just telling another story.

narrator: But this wasn't just another story,

and making the movie would have

a lifelong impact on its star.

Born Frances Ethel Gumm, her name was changed

as soon as she entered the studio system.

But it wasn't just her name that needed fixing.

- Once Judy had gone into the MGM system,

they decided that she was a bit too chubby,

so she needed to lose some weight.

The hair was the wrong color, so that needed to be changed.

The cheeks weren't exactly the right shape.

- They made her nose turn up a little more.

They were like a little round disk,

and they would put them in the top of her nose,

just to make it go a little bit more

of a little bit of a curve.

- She was treated as if she was a sort of doll.

They did it to all of them, but I mean,

I suppose Judy Garland just got, perhaps,

a bit more notice afterwards

for the things that they did do to her.

Unforgivable, really.

[pensive music]

♪ ♪

When she went into the studios, they said to her,

oh, a bit fat.

No, I think you need to lose a bit of weight.

Oh, that's right, we can put some sort of corset on you.

That'll sort of straighten you up a bit.

- She loved food. She loved to eat.

And so once she started to put on a few pounds,

the studio said, you can't do that.

- There was a waitress that was put on

to serve her every day,

and Judy would enthusiastically say

exactly what she wanted, and she got a bowl of soup.

And she said, well, I didn't order soup.

And they said, well, you know, it's soup today.

And then it was soup again tomorrow,

and soup again the day after,

until eventually she got the message.

- She was so happy

to be at MGM when she first was signed

that she considered everyone there to be helping her

and not hurting her.

But it did play on her psyche.

[jaunty piano music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Just like Judy,

it was every young person's dream

to make it in Hollywood.

But behind the glamorous facade,

the movie studios were really just

huge money-making factories.

- MGM put a movie a week into theaters.

You think about the costume designers and the sets.

They did 4,700 makeups an hour.

And the amount of people that were on the payroll,

their telephone bill was the same as New York City.

It was an incredible factory.

♪ ♪

[music winds down]

But if you got sick, if you got a head cold,

if you--they didn't care.

As long as you could make money,

they would do everything in their power

for you to keep working.

- The studios owned the actors completely.

The idea of anything approximating

a free agency for an actor was considered absurd.

You signed a contract.

If you did anything to annoy the studio head,

you'd be put on suspension.

And if you tried to leave you'd be sued,

because you had a contract.

I mean, you were utterly, utterly under the control

of the great studio heads.

Narrator: Over the past 20 years,

movie moguls like the Warner Brothers,

Harry Cohn at Columbia,

and Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox,

had built Hollywood out of nothing

into one of the most profitable industries

in the United States.

♪ ♪

But one man dominated like no other.

- Louis B. Mayer was the most important

of the moguls who ran the studios.

He ran MGM, and he was everything that you despise

in a human being, in a way.

He was one of those brutal sentimental people,

you know what I mean?

He could cry at will and use that as

a sort of passive-aggressive weapon against people.

He was a liar, a fantasist.

- Louis B. Mayer ran the shop like an owner.

He was tough, feared, and fierce,

and offended a lot of people.

- I can best give a description of Louis--

Louis B. Mayer from the mouth

of someone who knew him well,

a very remarkable actress called Luise Rainer,

who worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

in the early days.

Of course, I couldn't help asking her,

what about Louis B. Mayer?

What was he like?

She said, how can I put it?

He was the fucking Antichrist. [laughs]

I thought, yes, that absolutely goes with everything

I've ever heard about Louis B. Mayer,

an absolute monster of a man.

♪ ♪

- I mean, Mayer was not interested in the subtleties.

I mean, it was business.

And that could be very frustrating to performers,

because their lives were controlled and marketed

in a way that was constrictive.

- They owned you.

Everything was looked after,

but it went way beyond the walls of the studio.

It went into your personal life.

It went into where you were seen, what you wore.

They dressed you.

They told you what to say.

They did your interviews.

- I don't think all the young starlets understood the fact

that they were going to have to get up

at 4:00 in the morning, or be at the studio's

beck and call seven days a week,

pretty much 24 hours a day.

dance, sing, stand, sit, sleep, do whatever.

- Nobody knew how to be a person.

There was never an accounting lesson.

Nobody knew how to balance a checkbook.

I mean, my mother didn't know what a kitchen was.

Everything was done for them.

But when you're a kid and you grow up like that,

and then all of a sudden you go out into the real world,

the real world isn't like that.

narrator: But in 1939, there was one star

who wasn't going to be told what to do

by the studio bosses.

- You did not mess with Bette Davis.

She was a woman with total unwillingness

to be in any way pushed around

or bullied by these big studio bosses.

- You charlatan!

- That was very real emotion that she was bringing

to these parts, and you can feel her

on the edge of a breakdown.

[soft dramatic piano music]

narrator: Judy Garland was just one

of a handful of child stars

pushed through the studio system in 1939,

but for many of them, fame came at a real cost.

- The studio owned not only my mother,

but owned my aunts and owned my grandmother.

They wanted to make sure that my mother showed up,

and that my mother was always ready to work,

and that my mother was always a star.

And that was what my grandmother would do.

♪ ♪

- Judy Garland's mother was the archetypal stage mother.

And I think that once she realized

that Judy was going to be the star,

she would have paid any price.

- My grandmother would make sure that when the studio

changed her call time from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.,

instead of saying, I think that's too early

and she's worked a 12-hour day,

she'd say, oh, she will be there.

- It didn't matter what she had to do

to keep Judy going,

awake, working, singing, dancing,

obeying orders, whatever it was.

She wanted to bask in the refracted glory

of this child, and that's what she did.

She manipulated her.

And Judy Garland had to give in,

because her life was one long series of manipulations.

- I think that takes a huge toll on a child,

especially when you have a lot of people

saying how much we love you.

But they loved the star.

I don't know how many loved the human being,

or if they cared.

narrator: It wasn't just the young starlets

who were struggling.

Over at Warner Brothers, one of the most

powerful actresses in Hollywood was

about to take on her studio.

- Bette Davis had a very oppressive contract

with the studio that she worked for,

which was Warner Brothers.

Part of the reason she couldn't cope with that

was because she was incredibly ambitious.

Bette Davis wanted to be a great actress,

and she had no intention of being

forced into terrible films.

And when Warner tried to put her through the sausage maker

and to say, well, you can make this kind of movie,

and that kind of movie, and that kind of movie,

and that kind of movie, Bette Davis had had enough.

narrator: Bette Davis had been under the control

of Warner Brothers for seven long years,

but in 1939, she was ready to fight back.

- She's battled with the Warners.

She's fought for changes to a contract and lost.

But actually, she's labeled one of the top 10

box office stars in 1939.

So she's got concrete proof that she can take

to her employers and say, give me better roles.

I want stuff to get my teeth into, here.

narrator: In 1939, Bette Davis won her second Oscar

for the lead role in "Jezebel."

- I'm very grateful to members of the Academy

and members of the Screen Actors Guild

for this award.

- You did not mess with Bette Davis.

She was a woman with absolute backbone,

total self-confidence, total unwillingness

to be in any way pushed around

or bullied by these big studio bosses.

Bette Davis's first film of 1939

is probably the best film she made that year,

called "Dark Victory," a classic tearjerker.

- Michael, I just can't die like this.

- She plays a 23-year-old woman who is dying of a brain tumor.

- I'm going to die in a few months, Michael.

- "Dark Victory" showcases Davis's willingness

to play really complex characters who aren't

necessarily always glamorous.

They're really struggling, and on the edge.

- Don't tempt me. Get going.

- The parts require her to be on the edge of hysteria.

- Hurry home!

- But you can see with this tense

and febrile presence that she brings,

there wasn't a lot of acting required.

That was very real emotion that she was bringing

to these parts, and you can feel her

on the edge of a breakdown.

- What?

- Another headache, Miss Judith?

- No, not another headache.

[dramatic music]

Yes, a big headache.

And I want a bottle of champagne for it.

- There is a very famous scene where she realizes that she's--

that the moment has come, and she just

has to walk up the staircase.

- I'm going up to lie down, now.

- And nobody else can walk up a staircase

like she's dying the way that Bette Davis could.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

She gives a really, really remarkable performance.

And to bring all of that emotion out

just through a walk up a staircase,

and it really is heartbreaking.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

narrator: Throughout 1939, hints about Bette's own

mental breakdown were being leaked

to the all-powerful gossip columnists.

- These were the figures who every day produced

these bitchy, snide little columns

in which they could make or break

the hopes and fears of an up-and-coming star,

or indeed the career of a long-established one.

They were pretty charmless

and grotesque figures, actually.

They were mean.

- There is an invisible contract between

the gossip columnists and the studios,

in very similar style

to the kind of relationship between celebrities

and newspapers nowadays.

- Get your morning paper!

- The first to make her name was Louella Parsons.

Louella Parsons ruled the roost.

The power she had is hard for us

to reconstruct in our heads.

Occasionally, if she took against someone

or thought that a new, young talent was not

sufficiently respectful of her, very often,

she would destroy them in print,

absolutely destroy them,

and find out the worst things she could say.

- You know, you're not exactly young anymore.

- Now, what do you mean by that?

- When you stand before your mirror

and see new wrinkles, wrinkles that weren't there yesterday,

don't you worry just a little bit?

- When she's your champion, she is really your champion.

She will really go to bat for you.

But when she dislikes you, she will come after you

in such an unrelenting way.

And indeed, we get the--

essentially the bullying of stars

like Judy Garland and Bette Davis.

They can do nothing right.

- Say, do you mind telling me how old you really are?

- Yes.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- Louella has this network of spies

and, you know, investigators,

people gathering information for her.

You know, makeup artists, cab drivers, runners,

people who can just pass her on little tidbits of information.

- So it was a bit like living in East Germany

under the Stasi,

or in Stalinist Russia, you know.

You make a light comment about politics

or about a piece of gossip, and for all you know,

a secretary who's eating at the next table,

or a car park attendant, is being paid

$20 a week by Louella Parsons to dish the dirt.

And so suddenly, this little remark you made at lunch

appears in the newspaper the next day.

♪ ♪

- So by the time it comes to 1939,

Louella is kind of resented within the industry.

And the time is right, really, for another columnist

to take her down a peg or two, in the form of Hedda Hopper.

narrator: Coming up, there's a new gossip queen in town.

- Hedda Hopper, who was aggressive, clever, smart.

narrator: And the dangers behind

one of Hollywood's most iconic films.

- People have asked me, did everybody have fun

making "The Wizard of Oz?"

Not really.

- In terms of health and safety,

there could hardly have been more appalling film

than "Wizard of Oz."

[upbeat musical sting]

- Hollywood, California, USA,

where 30,000 specialists

working in 272 separate arts and crafts,

sciences and trades, make the movies,

working as a team to put their ideas into pictures.

[upbeat jazzy music]

♪ ♪

- 80 million people went to the movies every week.

♪ ♪

- It was fairly cheap.

$0.25 admission was the average,

but so many people went in their millions every week

that it was just a hugely profitable industry.

narrator: In 1939, the studios made

a staggering $659 million from 510 films.

- The idea of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was

to produce 52 class movies a year,

one for each week, that would go straight

into their own cinema chain.

It was a complete monopoly.

It's as if the publishers

owned all the bookshops.

- You've got to remember, it was the '30s.

It was basically, the money people in New York

told the studios, we need this many movies

for this many theaters,

and we need them by this time.

It was always, always about the bottom line.

It was the factory.

It was always about money.

♪ ♪

narrator: By spring 1939, production was in full swing

on "The Wizard of Oz,"

and MGM had cast a big Broadway star, Bert Lahr,

in the role of the Cowardly Lion.

♪ ♪

- My father had come out to Hollywood to try and make

a career out there, and found that his humor,

his stage humor, was too large for the camera.

So it was very hard for my father to find

a footing in Hollywood.

But as an animal, and not a person,

all his largeness, all his noise,

were not only acceptable, but terrific.

- Put 'em up. Put 'em up!

Which one of you first?

- All the business, all the shtick,

all the--you know,

put 'em up, put 'em up, what do you got--

all that came from vaudeville.

- I'll fight you both again, if you want.

I'll fight you with one paw tied behind my back.

- If you notice in the songs,

the tail has a life of its own.

- ♪ If I were king of the forest ♪

- And part of the reason for that is,

way, way, way up above the set, on the walkways,

the tail was attached to a fishing rod.

And there was a guy up there whose job it was

to simply wag the tail while Dad was singing.

- ♪ If I ♪

♪ If I were king ♪

narrator: The production of "The Wizard of Oz"

was also under huge pressure.

They'd already gone through five directors

and over 10 screenwriters.

And for the cast, the shoot was becoming an ordeal.

- People have asked me, did everybody have fun

making "The Wizard of Oz"?

Not really.

It was a tough, tough shoot.

- In terms of health and safety,

there could hardly have been a more

appalling film than "Wizard of Oz."

There were explosions going all over the place.

[Wicked Witch cackles]

- Margaret Hamilton had a terrible accident

going up in the ball of flame in Munchkinland.

They were rushing before lunch.

Someone didn't pay attention,

and the trap door did not open in time,

and she went up in a ball of flame and was burned.

- Margaret Hamilton's understudy was

on this exploding broomstick.

And of course, as it exploded, it broke,

and she burned her hands very badly.

And another hazard was when they were

in the field of poppies.

All of a sudden you saw this wonderful snow

falling all over them, which was a great effect.

But unfortunately, it wasn't snow.

narrator: It was crushed gypsum,

which is extremely dangerous when inhaled.

- That set was always over 108 degrees.

Bert Lahr, bless his heart,

in that lion outfit, was miserable.

- Their day began At 4:00 in the morning,

and they would get to the studio.

It was three hours to get into the makeup.

And in Dad's case,

the costume was incredibly heavy.

He had to wear shoulder pads, you know.

So it was like suiting up for a football game or something.

- Buddy Ebsen was the original Tin Man,

and he inhaled the aluminum in the makeup and almost died.

- He ended up in hospital, I think on a respirator,

and eventually had to be replaced in the film

by Jack Haley.

They used a modified makeup on him,

but nevertheless still dangerous.

Went into his eye.

He got a terrible eye infection.

So nobody was safe.

[upbeat jazz music]

narrator: As production rolled on,

the star of the film was growing more

and more exhausted by the studio's demands.

- The studio publicity machine went into overdrive.

- Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland

gave a luncheon party to 150 of their fans.

- So you have these improbable little clips

that came out all the time of them on the newsreel.

- Sweet 16.

Screen star Judy Garland cuts her birthday cake

at a party given by film chief Louis B. Mayer,

and attended by Hollywood's younger set,

including irrepressible Mickey Rooney.

- "Wizard of Oz" was going to be one

of the biggest-budget movies that

had been made up to that time.

So they needed desperately to promote Judy Garland.

So you get parties around a pool,

or anything to promote the studio.

- Get on your mark, get set, go!

- Going to a fair and getting ice cream,

and all that sort of thing.

- Gee, Mickey.

We don't know how lucky we are and how much

we have to be thankful for, with our health

and our happiness.

- But it was constant.

So if she wasn't filming "The Wizard of Oz,"

she was out doing these improbable publicity stunts.

- And Mickey is delighted,

because little Judy Garland is winning.

narrator: But it wasn't just Judy Garland.

Every actress in Hollywood was

being controlled by the studios.

- I'm afraid that's out, Judy.

[dramatic music]

- When you signed a contract

with a classic Hollywood studio,

and you were a woman, one of the things

that the studio did to you was a makeover.

And most actors were willing to go along with it.

Bette Davis was not one of the ones

who was willing to play along with that.

- It's just a slow process of...

getting to look on the screen, what you really thought

you looked like in life, you know.

Because I thought I was fairly attractive

till I got to Hollywood, but I didn't for very long.

- She's an incredibly attractive woman.

And he's an incredibly engaging woman,

but she's not your classic beauty,

which is what Hollywood cinema is about.

- And for instance, they would say,

who wants to get her at the end of the picture?

[laughter]

And this does--

[laughs] True!

And this really does catastrophic things

to your ego.

♪ ♪

narrator: By the time Bette started

her next film, "Juarez,"

her relationship with Warner Brothers

had reached breaking point.

- By "Juarez," Davis is absolutely at the end

of her tether with the studio.

She suffered a marriage breakup.

She's having quite an emotional breakdown as well.

She ends up with pleurisy and is incredibly ill,

is told by the studio to still come in

and do her job.

- "Juarez" doesn't really stand up

to the test of time as a film,

but there is one reason still to watch it,

which is Bette Davis's performance in it.

- Answer me, sire!

- Particularly a very famous scene

at the end, where the character has a nervous breakdown.

- In the hands of your ministers!

- The sense that Bette Davis was

on the edge of a nervous breakdown in "Juarez"

was reflecting the reality, because she was.

- Answer me, sire!

- She did actually have a breakdown during filming.

She simply wasn't able to carry on.

- You charlatan!

- She's clearly very, very, poorly, very, very, unhappy.

And you can't help but think that she's channeling

that into that performance.

- You will not dare let him die.

I will denounce you in every corner of Europe

for what you will be-- a murderer!

A murderer!

- To be asked to be playing overwrought parts,

one after the other, is a great emotional demand.

And all of her roles from 1939

are of women who, in their different ways,

are kind of teetering on the edge of hysteria.

And she had to keep playing that,

over and over and over again.

narrator: In 1939, Hollywood was still

very much a man's world.

- Watch out, you two!

Boy, that was close.

narrator: While actresses were struggling,

successful stars like Cary Grant

were able to break away from the studios.

♪ ♪

- Now, why didn't we think of this before?

- Cary Grant was one of the few stars

who left the studio system,

insofar as he went independent.

Cary Grant said, no, I don't like

what Paramount's doing with my career.

I think I can do better on my own.

And everyone thought he was crazy,

because you know, it just wasn't done.

narrator: By going independent,

Cary Grant became the highest-paid Hollywood actor

in 1939.

- He chooses much better films for himself

than Paramount ever did, and these were all

critically acclaimed box-office hits.

- Some of the great screen idols

of the classic Hollywood period

appear on screen fully-formed

in their star persona.

Cary Grant took some time to evolve.

Throughout the 1930s, Cary Grant was trying on

lots of different parts.

And it's only in 1939 that

that persona starts to solidify.

- Initially, nobody knew what to do with Cary Grant.

And so they said, he's going to be a tough guy,

just like Clark Gable.

And they tried to cast him in those roles,

and it took him a while to find his feet as a character

who is not macho at all, really,

but seems to subvert machismo.

- Susan, will you come out of there

and help me find some clothes, or must I come in and get you?

- Oh, David, you wouldn't.

- Oh, yes, I would!

Oh, well, maybe I wouldn't.

- In 1939, he made "Only Angels Have Wings."

There's just so much more vulnerability

to the Cary Grant persona.

- You're crazy. - Am I?

Try to move it.

You've joined the rest of us cripples.

- Cary Grant always insisted on ad-libbing

and adding his own bits to the script

and fleshing out his characters.

- One night when I was lost in a fog,

a night something like this, radio beam was out

and I was glad to get my feet on the ground.

What do you think the welcome-home speech was?

She was hoping I'd crashed.

- When Jean Arthur is hopelessly in love with him,

he starts talking to her about his baby pictures.

That's his way of coming on to her and saying,

would you like to come upstairs and see my baby pictures?

- Would you, uh, like to go over to my room?

Got some letters from home,

pictures of my father and mother.

- You can't quite imagine John Wayne doing that.

- Any pictures of you when you were a baby?

- I don't remember.

Want to go and look?

- So Cary Grant just had something else

going on that blurred the boundaries of gender a bit.

narrator: But for stars like Cary Grant,

going independent came at a high price.

They no longer had a studio to protect them

from gossip columnists...

like Louella Parsons.

- By the time it comes to 1939,

Louella is growing in power to such a degree

that she actually was able to have

a premiere rescheduled because it got in the way

of her daughter's wedding.

You know, such was the level of respect

that the studios had for her.

- There was a kind of karma waiting for her,

in that Hollywood began to get annoyed with her.

And an article in "The Saturday Evening Post"

attacked Louella Parsons, absolutely went for her.

I mean, you had character assassination of a kind

that you would not put up with now.

I mean, her fatness, her sentimentality,

her alcoholism.

- It is cruel,

and it just basically takes Parsons down.

The article claimed that Louella

constantly wore a facial expression

of "blank bewilderment."

She's described as being "20 minutes late mentally."

The article claimed that she was

the most "consistently inaccurate"

journalist that ever lived.

And she was absolutely, understandably,

devastated by it.

- At the same time, of course,

someone would come to topple her

from the citadel that she occupied.

And forward came Hedda Hopper.

She was aggressive, clever, smart.

- Hedda Hopper was a failed actress.

She'd been an actress right up into the 1930s,

and in fact, she used to be an informant for Louella Parsons.

So Hedda Hopper would ring Louella Parsons from sets,

from the studio, and tell her what was going on.

But then, as Hedda Hopper's acting career failed,

she became the gossip columnist.

- There's a narrative that develops

amongst the Hollywood community

that essentially says, she had her chance,

she blew it, she wasn't very good.

Now she's bitter, and she's taking it out on us.

- Hedda was always the nastier one.

Louella tended to just gush a lot.

Hedda was homophobic, very right-wing.

She was against any kind of immigration

or communist activity.

- In 1939, Hedda Hopper appears as herself

in the George Cukor film, "The Women."

- Oh, hello, girls!

My, but you look lovely.

Got any dirt for the column?

- Oh, not a thing, sweet. Not a thing.

- No? Get me my coat, Sadie.

I might just as well shove off.

I've never seen such a clean joint.

- She plays a waspish, bitchy version

of Hedda Hopper, which is probably

the real version there was.

- Something's going to pop! - Good and dirty?

- Go out there and dig up Buck Winston.

Ask him what famous society matron is crazy about him.

- Oh, boy! Dirt!

- MGM are giving her that little tidbit

just to keep her on side.

And that really appeals to her ego.

- Hedda Hopper went for Louella.

She basically decided to push her off,

like a game of king of the castle.

[bright harp music]

narrator: Coming up, the gossip columnists

set their sights on Cary Grant.

- Gossip starts to circulate amongst the general public

that address his homosexuality.

- Today, they look like

most happily-married gay couple ever.

[soft dramatic music]

narrator: In the first six months of 1939,

Hollywood had released an astonishing 256 films.

But the biggest, most important release of the year

was nearing completion.

And at its heart was one of the most

famous songs in movie history.

- The most amazing thing about watching

my mother's performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

is the simplicity.

- ♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪

- She sang the song like

it was her first time singing it.

You didn't realize there were take after take after take.

- "Over the Rainbow" certainly wasn't an iconic moment.

It wasn't done in color.

It wasn't done in a way that you

would actually expect it to become the legend

that it did later on.

- ♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪

- Louis B. Mayer actually took it out.

He didn't think it was that great a song,

and he took it out.

- They didn't think a, quote, "MGM star"

should sing in a barnyard.

- ♪ Clouds are far behind me ♪

- They were told it slowed the movie down.

- There was a bit of an argument about it.

And reluctantly, eventually, it did go back in.

But in fact, that film might well have come out

without "Rainbow" in it,

and history might not have been what it is.

- ♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪

- It's no accident that "Wizard of Oz"

is the totemic film for gay people,

and--and we use the phrase "a friend of Dorothy"

to describe a gay person, as a euphemism.

It shows this black and white world

of misery and poverty

and unhappiness and disconnection

and loneliness in which Judy Garland lives.

And she dreams of somewhere over the rainbow.

And that's what every gay person

growing up in some grim English town thought of.

There's this world of color and light and warmth

and friendship and acceptance over the rainbow.

And every little bluebird can fly over the rainbow.

Why, oh why, can't I?

- ♪ Little bluebirds fly ♪

- Why am I trapped in my dull, dreadful life?

I want to be over the rainbow with Dorothy.

I want to follow the yellow brick road.

- ♪ Why can't I? ♪

narrator: "Over the Rainbow" may have offered gay audiences

a glimpse of hope and escape, but in 1939,

the daily reality was very different.

- There wasn't anywhere in the United States

where you could be openly gay and be safe.

It was not only illegal, but it was widely scorned

and often met with violence.

So for a star to be outed would have been an outrage, really.

It's no exaggeration to say it would have been an outrage.

- So there are a number of gay stars

in 1939, then, who are essentially

bullied into straight relationships

by their studios, in a desperate bid

to sort of keep up appearances,

and would be entered into what were sometimes

known as lavender marriages.

One example of these lavender marriages

occurred in 1939,

between two enormous stars, Robert Taylor,

who was an MGM star, and Barbara Stanwyck,

both understood to be a homosexual.

And there are stories around the studio

concocting this marriage.

- A lot of young gay people who came to Hollywood

thought they were going to be blackmailed,

or that their agent was going to fire them

because the agent had found out.

And believe me,

the people who ran the publicity machines

behind the studios,

they were not going to allow anybody

even to think of coming out.

The idea was just simply--

it just was not conceivable.

- What you see in this period is a number of gay people

in Hollywood producing films that might be

about heterosexual romance, but actually there

are these lovely little moments,

these little Easter eggs, these little treats

for gay audiences,

like the moments in "Queen Christina" where

Greta Garbo's character greets her maid

by kissing her on the mouth.

♪ ♪

Garbo is a really interesting example as a star.

She was rumored to be bisexual.

And it's really interesting the way in which

that sort of filters through into her roles.

Equally as well, you have Marlene Dietrich,

rumored to be bisexual,

cross-dressing, appearing in "Morocco"

in top hat and tails,

seeing one particular woman in the audience,

and gives her this kiss.

So essentially, the directors and these actors, then,

are saying, you know, to their gay audiences,

you're not alone.

We know you. We see you.

We acknowledge you. This is for you.

They were the moments where they felt that they were seen.

And they meant so much because they were so very precious.

- I suppose the biggest star about whom

there have been rumors of a gay secret life, um--

none bigger than Cary Grant.

- Where's Sergeant Cutter?

- Here.

- Take your hands off that man.

♪ ♪

- He might have been bisexual.

I doubt that he was gay, but I think what's

really interesting about him is that he brought

some element of gender fluidity into Hollywood.

- Everything's going to be all right.

Yes, everything's going to be--

what do you want?

- Who are you? - Who are you?

- In "Bringing Up Baby," he's wearing

a frilly negligee at this point,

and someone asks him why he's wearing it.

- Why are you wearing these clothes?

- Because I just went gay all of a sudden!

- Now, that got past the censors

because they didn't know what gay meant.

Gay at that point meant funny and elegant.

- Who are you?

- I don't know. I'm not quite myself today.

- Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes.

- Cary Grant knew what gay meant.

Cary Grant had been moving around

in show business circles and in gay circles

for the previous 10 years, at least.

It was a kind of telegraphing to the audience that

would recognize it, that he--

he knew the secret meaning of the word gay.

- In the 1930s, he shared a house with Randolph Scott,

who was a Western actor.

And they did some posing for photographers in which

they were wearing aprons and doing housework,

and showing that they basically lived together.

- Paramount thought this was a good way

of showing them off,

getting them in their bathing suits,

showing off a Hollywood lifestyle.

I think today they look very different.

Today, they look like they're

the most happily-married gay couple ever.

narrator: Whatever the truth behind the rumors,

Cary Grant's personal life became fair game

for the gossip columnists.

♪ ♪

- Off the back of this "Modern Screen" photo shoot,

gossip starts to circulate about his homosexuality.

- In 1939, Hedda Hopper regularly

planted little poisonous bits of gossip

about him in her columns.

♪ ♪

Hedda Hopper reported that whenever he's around

Noel Coward, Cary goes a little pixie-ish,

and he did a lot of his rehearsals

with Noel horizontally.

This is all but coming out and saying

they're having a love affair.

Now, I don't think they were having a love affair,

but I think she knew that he was

vulnerable in that respect.

narrator: Where columnists like Hedda Hopper

traded in suggestion and innuendo,

in the underground press,

rumors about Cary Grant's sexuality were

much more explicit.

- So what I've got here, then, is a really

interesting little artifact.

And it really tells us something about the gossip

around Cary Grant.

So essentially, it's a pornographic comic.

It's got a slightly homophobic tinge to it.

The story itself is called, "Who's a Fairy?"

And I'm just going to open up the first page,

which is not pornographic.

And you can see it's just a picture here of Cary Grant,

but he's being mocked here by a young woman.

And she says, "Cary is a fairy.

Cary is a dirty pansy."

Because of things like gossip columns,

certain elements of the public, at least,

were aware of this gossip, and were picking up on that,

and writing what is essentially fan fiction.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Fresh from smearing Cary Grant,

Hedda Hopper had someone else in her sights--

rival columnist Louella Parsons.

By summer 1939, Hedda Hopper had become

a force to be reckoned with.

- So this rivalry between Louella and Hedda

really evolves into something really quite spectacular.

- Hedda Hopper came in and managed to do something

which to non-newspaper people seems like a minor thing,

a scoop--in other words,

where you get a story before somebody else does.

And if you are scooped by someone else,

you're beaten by them.

And it destroys your reputation.

And there was a Hollywood producer

called Jimmy Roosevelt, who was the son of FDR,

the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

the President of the United States.

And there was a rumor that he might

be splitting up with his wife.

And one evening, Hedda Hopper doorstepped him.

She just banged on his door and brutally

asked him whether or not he was going to get divorced.

And he admitted that he was.

So she ran to the newspaper offices,

and like some terrible movie cliche shouted,

hold the presses!

And she typed up her story and got the scoop over Louella.

♪ ♪

- Read all about it. Get your paper here.

- This really cuts deep with Parsons.

She's really, really hurt by this.

And this is a real thing for Hopper

to hold over Parsons, as well,

and really sort of gloat about, quite frankly.

[upbeat jazz music]

- To us, that doesn't seem like such a big deal.

But it basically marked the end of Louella's power

and the beginning of Hedda's.

narrator: After the scoop,

the battle between Hedda and Louella

became headline news.

- These two women will never talk to one another again.

They're refusing to go near one another at parties.

The constant backbiting just becomes all-consuming.

- Louella Parsons, confidant of the motion picture colony,

arrives with Scott Brady.

Hedda Hopper tells you all about it.

- The satisfying thing about the story of Louella and Hedda

is they saved their most mean viciousness

for each other.

They loathed each other.

♪ ♪

narrator: The studio's manipulation

of one of their biggest new stars

would leave her with a lifelong dependency.

- They were called pep pills.

Gave you a little bit of energy, cut your appetite.

They had no idea what these would lead to.

- There was the pills to go to bed at night.

There's the pills to get up in the morning.

There's the pills to make you happy if you're

beginning to feel a bit down.

There was a pill for everything.

[upbeat musical sting]

[up-tempo piano music]

narrator: By the time Bette Davis moved on

to her fourth film of 1939,

she was exhausted.

She'd been working punishingly long hours without a break

for the best part of a year,

and it was beginning to show on screen.

- The next film that Davis makes

is "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,"

and it's a very fiery performance.

[glass shattering]

- So, you brazen wench, you defy me!

- The performance is really remarkable,

because she was always willing

to make herself ugly for a part.

Very uncharacteristically

for big female movie stars of the day,

she was willing to sacrifice her vanity.

She sacrificed her very real beauty.

[dramatic music]

The behind-the-scenes wrangles that Bette Davis

got into with Jack Warner over the movie that was eventually

titled "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,"

is really typical of the kinds of battles

that she would fight.

♪ ♪

The working title for the film was "The Knight and the Lady,"

and Bette Davis was furious.

- Cecil, this is intolerable!

- Because it meant she was getting

upstaged by the knight.

She wasn't a lady, she was the queen.

She was Queen Elizabeth, and by God,

that was going to be in the title.

And she had no intention in particular of letting

her co-star, Errol Flynn, who she did not like,

get top billing over her.

And so she and Jack Warner have this series

of memos that go back and forth,

where she puts up such a fight.

And at one point in this fight to the death,

she wrote him saying, in all caps,

"I have been trying for some weeks

"to get an answer from you concerning

"the title of my next picture.

"I have found out today you are not changing it.

"I therefore feel justified in requesting first billing,

"which would automatically change the title,

"as the present title is obviously one

"to give the man first billing.

"I feel so justified in this from every standpoint

"that you force me to refuse to make the picture

unless the billing is mine."

She wore Jack Warner down,

which was very hard to do.

Jack Warner was just as stubborn as she was,

but that was one of the fights that she won.

- It's a problematic film right from the start.

There is bickering between the two lead stars,

between Davis and Errol Flynn.

narrator: Errol Flynn was the matinee idol of 1939.

The star of epic swashbuckling films

like "Captain Blood."

- Ready, Hagthorpe?

[dramatic music]

Fire!

narrator: But he had a reputation

for hard drinking and womanizing.

- Bette Davis doesn't like Errol Flynn

for a range of reasons.

She's a serious actress, and she's worked

a long time at her craft.

Flynn is new to the scene.

He's only been in Hollywood for a couple of years.

And he's a chancer.

He'd hit it big straight away with "Captain Blood,"

playing this amazing pirate role,

lots of amazing stunts as well,

which he would do his own.

But because of his success in "Captain Blood,"

it turns out he's actually being paid more than her,

which really irks her.

- Do I mean nothing to you?

♪ ♪

- Nothing.

- And this comes to a head in a particular scene.

- Lord Essex! - Where Davis has

to slap his character, essentially.

And so they go in for a take, and she hits him,

really, really hits him.

And by all accounts, he says that he saw stars.

He was worried she was going to have broken his jaw.

Because she's got loads of heavy costume jewelry

on her hand, and she really, really slaps him.

Just to make matters worse, then,

in terms of Flynn clearly not understanding

who Davis was and how she might react,

Flynn is asked by the director,

Michael Curtiz, to do something spontaneous

to demonstrate his affection for Davis's character.

Being the ultimate gentleman that he is,

Errol Flynn essentially pats Bette Davis's bum.

This really shocked Bette Davis.

This is not the way that you treat a dame of the cinema,

and she never spoke to him again.

She avoided him at parties.

She was really, really angry with him.

It really soured the atmosphere.

[up-tempo piano music]

narrator: While Hollywood was making

a fortune in 1939,

the people who were paying to see their films

were still recovering from the Great Depression

and the Dust Bowl.

But the movies offered them a way to escape the turmoil

of their daily lives.

- Hollywood offers escape, freedom

away from something grim and ghastly,

which is your own ordinary life.

So there was a sense that Hollywood always offered

a portal out of the everyday and the dreadful,

and showed the shining possibilities.

And there were all kinds of genres

for all kinds of people.

There were Westerns, there were children's movies,

there were musicals, reaching their apex

with "The Wizard of Oz".

- It's a twister! It's a twister!

- In "The Wizard of Oz", part of the thrill of the film

is for the audience to see effects that

had never been seen before.

- Dorothy!

- How do you create the illusion of a tornado?

- Dorothy!

- To think that was all done with a muslin stocking

and chicken wire

and a crane to spin it is amazing.

They do conjure the illusion of real imminent chaos.

- The tornado at the beginning in Kansas

must have reminded everybody

of what had gone on with those awful black dust clouds

that had smothered the Midwest.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- In the mid-1930s,

America suffered an immense drought

in the middle of the country that actually spread across

most of the center of the United States,

and it became known as the Dust Bowl.

♪ ♪

There was black snow of dust that

blew across the United States.

Children died in them.

They smothered animals.

The drought was intense, and of course,

the economic consequences of that

were absolutely catastrophic.

- Dorothy!

- The particular look and feel of the cyclone

that they created for "The Wizard of Oz"

strongly evokes the Dust Bowl.

The way that it's got all of this detritus

swimming around in it.

[dramatic music]

- It goes from the black and white of a tornado

and the imminence of total destruction...

into Technicolor.

You go into a dream.

The very color itself is a wonder.

- I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

- And so fear and courage, that's what "Wizard of Oz"

is acting out, is how do you find courage?

How do you go on?

- We must be over the rainbow.

♪ ♪

- It's a film that asks how you survive crisis.

How do you survive depression?

How do you survive famine?

And the answer is go to a Technicolor movie.

[pensive music]

narrator: Whilst the film was set

to lift the mood of millions,

production on "The Wizard of Oz"

was taking a huge toll on its star.

- My mother had a responsibility

in keeping the jobs of a lot of people.

And when you're a kid, that's hard.

She was exhausted. She was tired.

She always wanted to know what a vacation was like,

and she never got one.

The makeup artist, Charlie Schram, said,

did you ever know how we got around

the child labor laws?

And I said, no,

but you're going to tell us.

And he said, we would go to your grandmother's house

At 4:30 in the morning,

and your grandmother would wake her up,

and we would do all of her makeup,

and we would put her in the car At 5:30,

and we would drive through the gates of MGM

so she was camera-ready at 6:00 a.m.

♪ ♪

If you're woken up every single solitary day of your life

At 4:30 in the morning, it becomes your normal.

That's all she knew.

[applause]

Whenever there was a weekend and the studio was closed,

she was learning new songs.

She was learning new things for the next movie coming up.

They never got a break.

- It gets to the point where it's a treadmill.

So you can't wake up in the morning.

You can't go to sleep at night.

So they say, well, that's all right.

That's fine. We've got some pills for that.

So there's the pills to go to bed at night.

There's the pills to get up in the morning.

There's the pills to keep you going

in the middle of the day.

There's the pills to make you happy

if you're beginning to feel a bit down.

So there was a pill for everything.

- Some pills, called amphetamines,

are stimulants,

because they make the brain work faster.

- They were called pep pills, okay?

Gave you a little bit of energy,

cut your appetite.

Nobody saw any harm in it.

Airline pilots were taking them.

Everybody around America was taking "pep pills."

They had no idea about addiction.

They had no idea what these would lead to.

- They should be used only in special medical situations.

♪ ♪

- Long-term, they didn't care.

Long-term didn't come into their thinking.

The only thing that came into their thinking

was what you were going to do in the film

that you were doing now.

They didn't care what Judy Garland was going

to be like when she was 30.

They only cared what she was going to be like at the end

of that particular film.

narrator: The treatment Judy experienced

was evident in interviews she gave in later life.

- Are you beginning to question the reason

for all this foofaraw after all these--

- You mean show biz?

- Show biz, yeah.

- The biz? - The biz.

- I think it's hideous.

[laughter]

[applause]

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- I've never blamed the studio

for what eventually happened to my mother,

because every single solitary person at MGM

was doing the same thing.

♪ ♪

You would never do that to a child today,

but this was the 1930s, and doctors were doing it.

And they didn't see the harm.

They did it out of ignorance.

They did it out of financial gain.

- In later life, when I met her...

you were witnessing the product of a lifetime of the type

of treatment that she'd had.

She'd lost her sparkle.

The life had gone out of her.

When you stood and looked at her

in an unguarded moment,

it was a kind of shell that you were looking at.

There wasn't the same enthusiasm.

There wasn't the same zest for life that there had been.

And that, I thought, was incredibly sad.

♪ ♪

- We have learned throughout the years

about the world of addiction.

None of that was available to my mother,

and I think to myself,

what would it have been like

if she was born a little bit later?

And then I think, you can't live in the land of what if.

You have to live in the land of what happened.

♪ ♪

narrator: Coming up...

- Bette Davis had had enough,

and she told Jack Warner in no uncertain terms,

you can fire me.

I'm still walking away.

[dramatic music]

narrator: For the seven years

Bette Davis was under contract,

Warner Brothers had exploited and exhausted her.

After finishing her final film of 1939,

she'd had enough.

- Bette Davis's ongoing battle with Warner Brothers

came to a head at the beginning of September 1939.

Ironically enough, she actually declared war

on Warner Brothers the day that World War II broke out.

Bette Davis had had enough,

and she told Jack Warner in no uncertain terms.

She sent him an ultimatum, in fact.

I've actually got a copy of Bette Davis's letter,

and she said, "Dear JL,

"For the first time in my life,

"I don't care whether I ever make another picture or not.

"I am that overworked.

My contract is ridiculous."

She had just made four films in a 12-month period,

and she said, "I simply can't make any more.

I'm exhausted and I can't do any more.

And "I am even willing to stand the gaff of unemployment.

"Would appreciate your not communicating with me.

"It upsets me very much.

"Also, arguing with me is no use,

nor do I want to come back until it is settled."

She basically said, you can fire me.

I'm still walking away.

It's really kind of an extraordinary letter,

because it does pull together this almost

four-year battle that she had been fighting with Warner.

And it shifted the balance of power between them.

It meant that Warner finally was beginning to actually

respect Bette Davis,

and she knew that she had won a battle

of wills with him, a very important one,

and then they were on more equal footing going forward.

narrator: When Bette Davis looks back

at her experience with Warner Brothers,

you can see how important that battle had been to her.

- I haven't any idea how I had the guts

to do that whole thing.

I have no idea.

But when you're young, and wanting to get somewhere,

that's a terrific incentive.

- Bette Davis was one of a handful

of stars who took on

the Hollywood studio system and won.

Only a very few of them were able to do that.

Bette Davis was one, Cary Grant was another.

Judy Garland, of course, was destroyed

by the same studio system.

narrator: After 10 months in production,

"The Wizard of Oz" was finally released

on the 25th of August, 1939,

and Judy Garland was catapulted into stardom.

- The astonishing thing about "The Wizard of Oz"

is that in amongst all this Technicolor

and wonderful effects and shots

and all of that sort of thing--

- It's beautiful, isn't it?

- The one thing that shines through everything

is the talent of Judy Garland.

- There's no place like home.

- The honesty of that moment at the end of the film,

where she says, "There's no place like home."

- There's no place like home.

- Everyone can identify with that line.

And it's Dorothy understanding that all she wanted to do,

in the whole film, was come home.

- But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody

was, I want to go home.

And they sent me home.

- Maybe it was a reflection of how she genuinely felt.

Maybe that was part of the real Judy coming through,

where all you want is the simple things.

You want to go home.

You want to see your family.

And it may not have all the glitter

that you've just had,

but it is the life that you want.

The happiness that you seek, the true life that you want.

- ♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪

- I mean, anyone who has lost a parent,

they know that it is incredibly difficult.

But she's with me every day.

But when you are reminded every single solitary day

that everyone else has got her as a part of their family,

and their history,

and what certain films mean to them,

you become at peace with it.

And you realize that she meant the world to so many people.

- ♪ Why, oh why ♪

♪ Can't I? ♪

♪ ♪

[applause]

[upbeat music]

narrator: In the next episode, we reveal

an illicit love affair between two

of Hollywood's greatest stars.

- Larry and Vivien had to keep their affair a secret,

because if it had got out,

it would have been an absolute scandal.

narrator: An uncomfortable truth

about the Golden Age's most successful film.

- "Gone with the Wind" is a race problem.

It's bullshit.

- There were toilets for the white actors,

and toilets for the Black actors.

So segregation lived on that set.

narrator: And the inside scoop on one

of Tinseltown's toughest characters.

- John Ford was very difficult.

He could be very tough on you.

Thinking back on it, I was scared shitless.

- Many of the men in my family are cantankerous.

Many of the men in my family have short fuses.

Many of the men in my family are assholes.

♪ ♪