139: Mary Astor's Diary (Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon Episode 13)

You Must Remember This

Karina Longworth

Tv & Film

4.7 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2018

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1936, actress Mary Astor (who had not yet made her most famous film, The Maltese Falcon) and her husband went to court to fight for custody of their four year-old daughter. The trail made international news thanks to both sides’ use of Astor’s diary, in which she had recorded details of her affair with playwright George S. Kaufman. How much did Astor truly reveal in her diary, and what role did the scandal play in her life and career? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	something
0:02.0	Welcome to another episode of You Must
0:30.0	Remember this, the podcast dedicated to exploring the secrets and or forgotten stories of Hollywood's first century.
0:42.0	I'm your host, Karina Longworth, and this is another episode of our ongoing series, Fake News, Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon.
1:00.0	This isn't news, this is totally unfounded gossip.
1:06.0	It's a long way from Hollywood, criticized for dealing too frankly with such themes as sex and nudity.
1:12.0	Hollywood Babylon.
1:16.0	In the first half of this season, we had special celebrity guests reading from the pages of Hollywood Babylon.
1:32.0	This season, we are looking to the post celebrity future in which all actors will be replaced by digital replicas, and all big name podcast guests will be generated by artificial intelligence.
1:50.0	So here, once again, is the anger bot reading an edited excerpt from Hollywood Babylon.
2:00.0	Another lady luminary with a pronounced penchant for men, Mary Astro was one of the screen's great character actresses.
2:08.0	Since girlhood, Mary's best friend had been her diary, she told did everything, and deleted in writing a sublime experience while the memory still glowed.
2:18.0	The volume for 1935 covered her extra marital trists, with Woody playwright George S. Kaufman, with whom she found exquisite rap port.
2:28.0	It is odd, she did not keep it well hidden.
2:32.0	The diary had been kept in a bedroom drawer, with Mary's undies.
2:38.0	One day, her physician husband was hunting a pair of misplaced cufflinks. When he opened Mary's diary, his glance fell on a passage of extravagant admiration.
2:51.0	Remarkable staying power. I don't see how he does it.
2:56.0	The admiration was not for Mary's husband. Mary recorded her first encounter with her paramour, in glowing terms.
3:05.0	His first initial is G. And I fell like a ton of bricks.
3:10.0	The doctor's eyes popped, as he read his wife's own record, a bisexual eye-tinerary.
3:17.0	Tuesday night we had a dinner at 21 before we saw a play, and he did kiss me.
3:23.0	And I don't think either of us remember much what the show was about. We played Nese's during the first two acts.
	...

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