If you think that today’s Hollywood is wild, it was just as crazy back during it’s so-called Golden Age in the 40s,50s, and 60s. While many of our viewers likely remember the free love movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Old Hollywood was just as promiscuous as all of those long-haired flower children were. It was an era of cougars and seductresses. Female film stars did whatever they wanted with whoever they wanted, and the men in show business followed suit. It almost like everyone going at it back then. And if you’re not invited to at least a few raucous Tinseltown orgies back then, then you obviously a nobody.
And it didn’t even matter if stars married or not. Infidelity ran rampant, and marriage was essentially just a formality. That’s not to say that cheating is a very classy move. Some of the most iconic stars of the day such as Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh received quite a bit of negative publicity for cheating on their respective spouses. Taylor’s infamous affair with Richard Burton even inspired the Vatican of all people to issue a formal statement condemning the illicit union.
Stars were getting it on so frequently and with so many different partners that it was hard for them to keep track of all of their intimate liaisons. In this video, we’ll be taking a look at some classic Hollywood stars who slept with too many people to count. So buckle up, and get ready for one wild ride because after watching this video, you’ll likely never look at the stars of the silver screen the same way again.
Ava Gardner
Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra sang songs about this star, but he wasn’t the only man to get all caught up in Ava’s allure. She married for a brief period to actor Mickey Rooney in the early 40s. And while he at one point boasted about how good their love life was in his eyes, Gardner burst his bubble by saying that while he may have enjoyed the sex, she sure didn’t.
Gardner famously also involved with the eccentric multi-millionaire Howard Hughes and the Jazz musician Artie Shaw before marrying Sinatra in 1951. Gardner later had an affair with Ernest Hemingway while vacationing in Cuba. To get an exact count on the number of men that Gardner seduced would be downright impossible because even the partners that we just listed off are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of her sexual conquests.
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Elizabeth Taylor
This legendary actress was famed for both her acting chops and her distinct beauty. Taylor also known for being one of the most scandalous seductresses in show business back in her day. Perhaps her most controversial moment happened when she slept with singer Eddie Fisher while he married to her best friend, Debbie Reynolds.
Taylor and Fisher eventually married after he broke things off with Reynolds, although the two would ultimately divorce. Taylor later felt terrible for what she had done to her so-called bestie and offered Reynolds a heartfelt apology. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t permanent, and the two reconciled things and continued on as best buds.
Throughout her life, Taylor married seven times, although she married Richard Burton, the man she considered the love of her life, twice. After divorced for the last time in 1996 when she parted ways with construction worker Larry Fortensky, she decided that enough was enough and remained single until 2011 when she passed away.
Vivien Leigh
Best known for portraying Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche DuBois in the films Gone with the Wind and A Street Car Named Desire, Leigh also known for being stunningly beautiful and irresistible to the leading men she accompanied onscreen. But for her, success didn’t come easy. And her notorious marriage to Sir Laurence Olivier was tumultuous as the classic hollywood stars, to say the least.
When she first laid eyes on Olivier while attending a play he’s performing in she told her friend she’s with at the time that he’s the man that she’s destined to marry someday. Despite the fact that she’s already married to her first husband Herbert Leigh Holman. But to her, people were disposable. She’s willing to do anything and everything to achieve what she wanted regardless of who got hurt in the process.
Olivier likewise married when he caught Leigh’s attention, but that too didn’t stop her from following him and his wife when they vacationed in Capri. Leigh and Olivier ended up sleeping together even though his wife, Jill Esmond, was pregnant with his child. Olivier then kicked Esmond to the curb and married Leigh shortly thereafter.
After she divorced Olivier in 1960, Leigh dated John Merivale for seven years before passing away in 1967 from tuberculosis.
Other partners that Leigh linked to included Marlon Brandon, Elia Kazan, Orson Wells, Justin Mitchell, Alexander Korda, Stewart Granger, Ona Munson, and Peter O’Toole among others.
Tallulah Bankhead
She was drop-dead gorgeous, witty, rebellious, and not afraid in the least bit to speak her mind regardless of how her words alienated people in her orbit. Bankhead was one of the most prominent sex symbols of her day. Writer and actor Emlyn Williams once even described her sultry voice as being as steeped in sex as the human voice could possibly go without drowning. She notoriously got around; and her sexual appetite said to be bottomless.
Bankhead struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism and reportedly smoked as many as 120 cigarettes a day but wasn’t shy about candidly discussing her many vices. She’s also openly bisexual at a time when that sexual orientation wasn’t widely accepted in society.
In an interview with Motion Picture magazine in 1932. Bankhead bragged that she hadn’t had an affair in six months; complaining that that was six months too long. After the release of the Kinsey reports Tallulah was quoted as saying that she didn’t find anything shocking about Alfred Kinsey’s conclusions. She went on to explain that she had numerous momentary love affairs and impromptu romances that she went into impulsively.
In 1933, Bankhead almost died after having a five-hour emergency hysterectomy procedure due to venereal disease. When she left the hospital; she told the doctor that he shouldn’t assume that she had learned a lesson from the ordeal.
The New Yorker reported that Bankhead claimed that she had slept with roughly 500 people throughout her life. In addition to her many affairs with male stars; Tallulah also linked romantically with female celebs like Greta Garbo, Hattie McDaniel, Beatrice Lillie, and Marlene Dietrich.
Jayne Mansfield
This actress, aside from Mae West, was probably the most racy and sexually promiscuous actress in Hollywood’s history. The blonde bombshell, who’s famously photographed giving Sopia Loren an eye full of cleavage, had countless lovers throughout her life. She’s even rumor to have once John F. Kennedy’s mistress for a spell – but really, who wasn’t?
Her most infamous romp however was with Church of Satan founder Anton LeVey, although Anton would only publicly claim that he had an affair with her after the actress had passed away following a horrific automobile accident in 1967.
Mae West
Another blonde bombshell that deserves mention in this video is this Brooklynite actress who took Hollywood by storm in the early 1939s with her deliberately loose image and one of the Classic Hollywood Stars.
She was someone that was ahead of her time. West supported gay rights, slept with African American lovers, and openly ridiculed the traditional institution of marriage.
When West was 17, she married vaudeville actor Frank Szatkus who performed under the stage name Frank Wallace. She attempted to keep that marriage a secret, but it’s revealed to the public when a filing clerk discovered the marriage certificate and promptly alerted the press. West divorced Wallace in 1942.
While Wallace the only person West ever married, she’s well known for sleeping around. One of her most famous lovers was Paul Novak, who she claimed was the love of her life.
Lupe Velez
Known by some as the “Mexican Spitfire”, Velez rumored to have died with her head in a toilet after committing suicide in response to her lover leaving her and their unborn child. According to her secretary, however, Velez actually found deceased in her bed.
Velez tied to actor Gary Cooper whom she dated for many years and referred to as the love of her life. She was reportedly viciously jealous of Cooper and repeatedly accused him of having affairs with actor Anderson Lawler among others.
Lupe was notorious for her flagrant exhibitionism. It’s rumored that she slept with hundreds of lovers throughout her life. Velez would also routinely lift her skirt over her head to reveal that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Classy.
Clara Bow
This actress was THE Hollywood ‘it girl’ of the silent film era and was one of the film industry’s first starlets. By the time she retired from acting at the age of 28 in 1931, her life already steeped in scandal. It’s rumored that she slept with the entire USC football team. And she routinely treated her boyfriends as ‘engagements’ which only created controversy when she would promptly move on to the next one.
Louise Brooks
This actress had an incredibly brief yet prolific film career. After leaving her first husband, director Eddie Sutherland, she fell for George Preston Marshall, who was the owner of the Washington Redskins at the time. She eventually left him to marry someone else; whom she likewise left after only married for a little under six months. She had many lovers, including Greta Garbo, and not opposed to posing in the nude – something that she would frequently do.
That about wraps up this video, but before we sign off it’s worth mentioning that our intent here wasn’t to shame any of these actresses for their sexuality. Rather, it’s merely fascinating to look back at some of the biggest stars of yesteryear to discover that they weren’t that much different than the stars of today.
Can you think of any other Classic Hollywood Stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood that were notoriously promiscuous? If so, let us know in the comments section down below.
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