Hollywood's Shocking First Sex Symbols

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, History, Education, Sex, Scandal

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nearly 100 years ago, films in Hollywood were so much sexier and shocking than you might think they were.

One of the most shocking things was how empowered and sexual women were in those films.

Who were these women? And what are the scandalous reasons behind the censorship that came in?

Joining Kate to tell her about these incredible women is journalist and author Mick LaSalle.

This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here.

All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history?
0:03.2	Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods?
0:06.8	Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era?
0:10.8	We'll sign up to History Hit,
0:12.5	where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history,
0:15.3	as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:18.7	plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric
0:22.8	Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore
0:29.2	the past. Just visit history hit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:35.3	Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are back once again listening to Betwit the Sheeds. Come in, come in, find some more comfortable to plonk yourself. But I do have to tell you, and I have to keep telling you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults, bad, adulty things, an adulty way, for original subjects, news to be an adult too, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I to keep telling you that, because if anyone happens to get offended, we need to be able to go, well, tough tits and fair do's, we did tell you.
0:59.5	Right on with the show.
1:04.4	Hello, but Twixters, you've joined me on a cavernous MGM soundstage in 1931.
1:10.2	Huge overhead lights are burning, powder dust floats in the air and
1:13.6	the cameras are beginning to whir for a scene. But this is Hollywood pre-code, pre-hays code, pre-censorship,
1:23.2	and it's a very different world than the one you might be thinking of. And given that this is nearly a hundred years before our present day,
1:30.3	you might be surprised at the brazen sexuality on offer.
1:35.2	You can't see me, but can you hear me clutching my pearls?
1:39.0	And as you'll find out in today's episode,
1:41.9	the women who lit up early Hollywood were pioneers in bringing sexuality to the big screen.
1:48.5	But who were they? And why did the censors come crashing down on them in the way that they did?
1:54.3	We'll stick around and we will find out.
2:21.6	Music Hello and welcome back to Betwixt Aitza Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal and Society with me, Kate Lister.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.