More predators in show biz unmasked

Marilyn Monroe

Joan Crawford

After producer Harvey Weinstein was recently exposed as a sexual predator by more than 50 of his stellar victims, other show biz “leaders” who have similarly used their power and clout to erotic advantage have been unmasked, spanning different permutations of gender and sexual preferences:

Unknown to many, the action film director James Toback had his own “cottage industry” of sexual exploitation going behind the scenes, with even more victims than Weinstein coming forward to accuse and retroactively shame him in public.

Long before Weinstein and Toback did their worst, producer Darryl Zanuck was infamous in Hollywood for his “casting couch” antics and afternoon trysts with a long string of lovely hopefuls who wanted to go from starlet to star—in fast-tracked fashion.

Alas, most of his palpitating pledges of fame and fortune were mere ploys to get them “bedded but not wedded.”

His and other predator-producers’ wiles and sleazy schemes prompted Marilyn Monroe to pithily share, “Listening to their lies and schemes, you saw Hollywood through their eyes—an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses!”

Joan Crawford was even more shockingly candid about how she sometimes had to sleep her way to the top. And even young stars like Judy Garland and Shirley Temple had their own tales of attempts by producers and male costars to “induce or seduce” them, as the case may be.

It turns out that, in the ’50s, there were attempts to make erring film industry power players clean up their act, but reformists’ efforts fizzled out because the predators remained nameless.

Current attempts to clean up Hollywood have a better chance of succeeding because stellar victims have taken the necessary step of naming and shaming their violators.

The latest luminary to be exposed, excoriated and felled by the escalating industry-wide scandal, Kevin Spacey, is particularly controversial because his artistic achievement has been immense, and yet his warped, predatory behavior in private has rendered it all for naught.

In less than two weeks, he’s gone from hero to zero in people’s eyes, due to the flurry of retroactive charges hurled by his generally male victims, some of whom were minors when he seduced or assaulted them.

More predators in show biz continue to be exposed and excoriated by their victims, but the $64,000 question is, will all of this furor lead to actual and long-lasting reforms that will dissuade powerful predators in the biz from adding more victims to their already kilometric list?

Genuine industry leaders should decisively make that happen—or else they will be similarly taken to task for their “enabling” lack of affirmative action.

An unexpected result of the escalating exposés in show biz is the expansion of the antipredator reforms to include nonentertainment spheres, which have their own power-tripping “inducers and seducers” to expose and defang.

A total of 4 million of their victims have collectively stepped out of the dark to be counted
—a shocking number that stunningly proves how pervasive the predatory practice has been all these years. All the more reason for everyone to act now and collectively “name and shame” it to long-delayed extinction!