Hollywood Conspiracy Theories From Its Golden Age
Conspiracy theories are rampant in modern Hollywood, with internet weirdos claiming that Avril Lavigne died and was replaced with a lookalike, Beyonce runs the Illuminati, Logan Paul is a talented performer, etc. But viewers back in the day didn’t need the internet to be weird. Conspiracy theories were just as prevalent in Old Hollywood, there just weren't any subreddits to share them on.
James Dean Faked His Death
Rumors of faked death have plagued everyone from Elvis to Tupac, but they go back at least as far as James Dean, whose fans immediately refused to believe he really perished in a 1955 car crash. The car, which was put on display by its new owner, wasn’t damaged enough to have withstood a deadly crash, they insisted, so he must have been either disfigured to the point of being hidden by the studio or used the accident as an excuse to escape Hollywood while the studio used his “death” to drum up publicity for his “posthumous” movies. In reality, Dean’s car was totaled and the display model was probably fake, but we can still hope he lived out his days in blissful obscurity.
Lana Turner, Not Her Daughter, Stabbed Her Boyfriend
In 1958, movie star Lana Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, confessed to stabbing and killing her mother’s abusive gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stomponato, in defense of her mother during an argument. Thanks to Crane’s apparent lack of emotion about the whole thing and Turner’s dramatic testimony, some suspected that it was actually Turner who had killed her boyfriend, convincing Crane to take the fall because she risked less punishment as a minor. Crane did get off scot-free after the death was ruled justifiable homicide, but there’s not much evidence either way beyond Crane’s insistence that no mother would do that, and hey, that’s fair.
William Randolph Hearst Mistook a Studio Head for Charlie Chaplin and Shot Him
In 1924, Thomas Ince, known as the “Father of the Western,” celebrated his 42nd birthday on media mogul William Randolph Hearst’s yacht, suffering a fatal heart attack due to a little too much partying. That’s the official story, anyway. An employee of another guest, Charlie Chaplin, claimed to have seen Ince bleeding from a gunshot wound to the forehead after being shot by Hearst, who mistook him for Chaplin, believing that Chaplin was having an affair with his mistress, actress Marion Davies. Nevermind that nobody at Ince’s open casket funeral noted a forehead wound; the shooting was allegedly witnessed by gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who kept quiet in exchange for a job from Hearst, even long after Hearst himself was dead. She could never.
The Mafia Got Frank Sinatra His Role in ‘From Here to Eternity’
After Sinatra turned in an Oscar-winning performance in the 1953 film, it was rumored that he only got the part because of his Mafia connections, specifically that his made buddies threatened a producer with a horse head in the bed, inspiring The Godfather author Mario Puzo. In reality, his wife at the time, movie star Ava Gardner, persuaded the studio head’s wife to convince her husband to give him the role. In other words, he got it the old-fashioned way: sex and nepotism.
Shirley Temple Was Just a Very Small Adult
At the height of her popularity, a handful of more imaginative viewers decided that Temple was simply too good at being a child to actually be a child, suggesting that she was, in reality, a middle-aged woman with dwarfism. The fact that she never seemed to lose any teeth only proved it, in their minds, which housed no information about dental flippers, since Toddlers & Tiaras was still a century away. The Vatican even sent a priest to investigate the rumor, apparently not having enough to do in Europe in the ‘30s. When Temple soon grew into a visible teenager, something middle-aged women aren’t known to do, it became clear that she had not, in fact, pulled an Orphan on us.