Judy Garland and the long history of 'Me Too' in Hollywood

Retropod

The Washington Post

History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.5 • 670 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2019

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sexual harassment has been existed in showbiz as long as there have been bright lights.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there. I'm Washington Post reporter Lillian Cunningham. Stay tuned after the show to hear about my latest podcast, Moonrise. It's the dark but true story of why we went to the moon and what we found there. The full series is available now.
0:19.7	Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with RetroPod, a show about the past, rediscovered.
0:27.6	20 years ago, while working on a biography of a cinema icon, writer Gerald Clark
0:33.6	stumbled on a previously unknown and unfinished memoir written by his subject.
0:40.4	In a brief 68 pages, the actress detailed new, unreported revelations about her life
0:47.5	in the limelight. Those included numerous acts of sexual harassment at the studios of Metro-Goldwyn-Mair, MGM.
0:59.5	The star wrote that she was first sexually harassed while starring in her first big role.
1:06.4	You mean, I'm...
1:07.4	You guessed it. You're Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.
1:10.7	I dreamed and hoped for a chance like this, but I never really thought I'd be so lucky.
1:15.7	The author and victim was Judy Garland.
1:23.3	In recent years, a deluge of sexual harassment allegations against some of the biggest names in Hollywood has destroyed careers and angered the general public.
1:34.9	One of Hollywood's biggest power brokers is out of a job. Harvey Weinstein fired from his own company on Sunday as allegations of sexual abuse pile up around him following
1:46.4	an expose in the New York Times.
1:49.4	When accusations against Harvey Weinstein surfaced in 2017, industry insiders were shocked,
1:57.4	but not surprised, noting that such predatory behavior has been going on in showbiz for as long as there have been bright lights.
2:07.1	Like in the 1930s, when Garland said she was approached for sex numerous times by MGM founder Louis B. Mare and other powerful studio executives.
2:19.2	Don't think they all didn't try, the actress wrote.
2:23.8	In his biography, Get Happy, the life of Judy Garland, Clark wrote that during the filming
2:30.3	of the Wizard of Oz, Mayor would place his hand on Garland's left breast as he complimented
2:36.4	her on singing from the heart. She was only 16 years old at the time. Having sex with the female
2:46.3	help was regarded as a perk of power, Clark wrote, and few women escaped the demands of
	...

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