Society’s obsession with celebrities isn’t anything new. While we’ve managed to send men to the moon, cure once thought impossible to stop diseases. And reach the bottom of the ocean floor, humankind still loves spreading celebrity gossip just about as much as they enjoy coming up with new technological advancements. What a great use of our ingenuity, don’t you think?
Not only are we obsessed with the latest Hollywood hearsay. But we never stop craving to learn every last intimate and trivial detail about the sex lives of stars. Again though, this is hardly anything new. We’ve been eating this kind of stuff up for decades now. In fact, if you take a look back at the tabloid rags from many years ago; you’ll find that they are jam-packed full of juicy details about old Hollywood stars who hooked up with each other during the filming of some of the most influential films of their era.
While you might think that modern film sets are probably a lot more raunchy than they used to be. Hollywood sets back during the Golden Age of cinema were just as depraved as they are today. Arguably, they might just even have been a bit more so – as it seems like practically everyone who was anyone back then was getting it on.
Join FactsVerse as we discuss which Hollywood film stars from yesteryear were hooking up with each other when the cameras weren’t rolling. While none of what we’re about to tell you will likely be very shocking to learn. At least you’ll have a bit more useless trivia to impress your friends with next time you’re at a party.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
While filming Cleopatra, Taylor and Burton would get involved in what would become one of the most infamous affairs in Hollywood’s history.
Taylor married to Eddie Fisher when she selected to play the Egyptian monarch Cleopatra. Burton likewise married to Sybil Williams when he cast as Cleopatatra’s Roman love interest Marc Anthony.
The two met while shooting publicity shots before the film began production. While the photographers were capturing photos of Taylor. Burton reportedly asked if anyone had ever told her how pretty of a girl she was.
At first, Burton and Taylor’s working relationship started off fairly rocky. Taylor found the alcoholic Welsh actor to be ‘brutish and boorish’; while Burton called Taylor a somewhat crass nickname that we’ll tastefully decline to mention.
After filming their first kiss scene and director Joseph Mankiewicz called cut. He had to yell out “cut” again and again because the two stars simply wouldn’t stop making out. Rumors about their on-set romance quickly spread like wildfire. And a global publicity disaster ensued that would even earn it’s own nickname ‘Le Scandale’. The Vatican would even feel compelled to comment on the matter, referring to the affair as “erotic vagrancy”.
Taylor and Burton subsequently divorced their respective partners and tied the knot with each other. Eventually, they too got divorced, only to remarry and once again get divorced.
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Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
While working on the film To Have and Have Not together, Bogart, who was 44 and married at the time and Bacall who 19 and appearing in her film, Ended up striking up a romance that led to them becoming one of the most iconic Hollywood couples in history.
The duo started off their relationship relatively slow; flirtatiously fooling around with each other on set while enjoying the chemistry that they shared. Once they had appeared together in the film’s most famous scene in which Becall asked Bogart if he knew how to whistle. The film’s cast and crew already had a pretty good idea that they had something going on behind the scenes.
Bogart started calling Bacall ‘baby’ as they walked around the set holding each other’s hands. And while most Hollywood romances end up eventually fizzling out; the two went on to stay together until Bogart’s death thirteen years later.
Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
These two introduced to each other over lunch while discussing their respective roles in their upcoming film Woman of the Year. Although she would later deny ever saying it; rumor has it Hepburn told Tracy that she was too tall for him. This remark reportedly inspired director George Stevens to say that she shouldn’t worry because Tracy would ‘cut her down to size’.
Whether that exchange ever actually happened or not. It perfectly exemplifies Hepburn and Tracy’s flirty, cheeky. And at times even antagonistic relationship that would go on to become one of the most famous Hollywood love affairs in history.
Tracy married at the time and remained so until his death. And he apparently lived in constant fear that his wife would find out about his and Hepburns on-again-off-again relationship. The couple would go on secretive lunch dates together and would spend loads of time in each other’s dressing rooms ‘rehearsing’. They would continue to do this even during their MGM days when they were no longer working on films together.
The couple would appear in eight more films together after Woman of the Year. And although they often said to be dating other people, they never stopped seeing each other whenever possible.
John Gilbert and Greta Garbo
While Gilbert, the silent film star, dubbed the ‘Great Lover of the Silver Screen’ for his uncanny ability to gaze longingly into the eyes of gorgeous women, Greta Garbo was famous for being one of the most iconic old Hollywood actresses of her time.
In 1926 MGM pictures cast Gilbert and Garbo in their romantic feature Flesh and the Devil. And the two stars on-screen chemistry was unmistakable and pretty intense.
Director Clarence Brown said that by the time they filmed the first love scene, it was like no one else was on the set. Gilbert and Garbo were in a world of their own. He further revealed that he even felt like it was a bit of an intrusion to yell ‘cut’. Rather, he would merely motion to the crew to move to another part of the set so that the two love-birds could finish up having their steamy moment.
At the time that they got together, Gilbert was in the middle of a nasty divorce with Leatrice Joy, but that didn’t stop him from asking Garbo to marry him. While Garbo said yes to his proposal, apparently, she never showed up on their wedding day. Full of heartache but still not yet defeated, Gilbert would propose to Garbo twice more – each time getting turned down.
Gilbert and Garbo would appear in three more films together, Queen Christine, A Woman of Affairs, and Love. Gilbert passed away at the age of 38 in 1936 after suffering a heart attack at his Bel Air home, and Garbo would never remarry.
Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini
These two Hollywood lovers began dating while working on the film Stromboli together. Both Bergman and Rossellini already married, and their affair tarnished their wholesome images and resulted in Bergman losing many of her fans. While seeing each other in secret, Bergman got pregnant with the first of their children.
The resulting scandal is so big that Bergman told that she should remain in Europe. US Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado harshly condemned Bergman calling the publicity surrounding her affair with Rossellini a ‘powerful influence for evil’.
In 1950, the couple got married after divorcing their respective spouses. Bergman would later appear in the 1956 film Anastasia which earned her a second Academy Award.
Clara Bow And Just About Everyone She Ever Starred Alongside
Seemingly every week, the tabloids would pair Clara Bow with another Hollywood stars. Bow was one of Hollywood’s first sex symbols, and being the ‘it girl’ of her era, the gossip rags of the time had a field day covering her many liaisons. It’s rumored that she hosted orgies with the USC football team, slept with both dogs and women alike, and got it on with just about every male star that she came across.
Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland
Flynn well known for his love of women, booze, and drugs. He’s a Playboy hotshot who made headlines after he accused of statutory rape. Peggy Satterlee and Betty Hansen both under the age of consent when Flynn slept with them, bet after they brought their case to court, Flynn acquitted.
Despite dodging a legal bullet, the headlines covering the scandal haunted him much longer. Around this time, the tabloids documented his relationships with Hollywood actresses such as Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and Lupe Velez.
Flynn’s affair with his 15-year-old Cuban Rebel Girls co-star, Beverly Aadland didn’t result in a great deal of negative publicity for the star until after his death when Aadland’s mother published a tell-all book detailing the relationship.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott
When these two actors met on the set of Hot Saturday, they stuck up an immediate friendship that according to some accounts developed into something a bit more than that. The two would regularly go on dates with young Hollywood starlets with each other. They would get a few publicity shots taken with the ladies before taking them home and then they would head out partying with each other at the Brown Derby or Trocadero before returning to the bachelor pad that they shared.
The two eventually moved into an enormous mansion that they called Bachelor Hall. A great deal of speculation about the nature of their relationship arose after several publicity photos were taken them of them depicting them living a pretty intimate life together.
While both actors later married several different women, they remained exceptionally close for the remainder of their lives. While it’s unclear whether or not the two stars were actually lovers, Grant’s daughter insists that Cary wasn’t gay or bisexual. It’s also worth mentioning that the rumors of Grant and Randolph being lovers didn’t start circulating until the 80s.
While we could go on and on listing off the famous Hollywood stars who supposedly hooked up with each other, we’re just about out of time for this particular video. Can you think of any other actors or actresses that got together with their co-stars back in the day? If so, let us know in the comments section down below.
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