@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.social
Source-backed investigations into the stories, scandals and myths Old Hollywood never fully buried.
hollywoodcasefile.com
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.social"You're nothing to me but a dollar sign." The line everyone quotes about the Martin and Lewis breakup is earliest found in Jerry Lewis's 1982 memoir, 26 years after the split. In 1956 Dean Martin gave his own reasons, on the record. We followed both: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7tV...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialHow a failed $30,000 play deal ended with Joan Crawford's Letty Lynton barred from exhibition: three scenes, in sequence. Full case: youtu.be/dPmvgFHAEvs
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialThe Sydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe cousin chart runs through Charles Stanley Gifford. Her birth record names someone else. The DNA test behind Gifford was made for a TV documentary, and we found no published paper. youtube.com/shorts/H5XnC...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialSydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe, ninth cousins? We checked the MyHeritage chart. One box just says "+ 7 generations". Possible, not proven, and not rare. youtube.com/shorts/FCwj6...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialWarner Bros. couldn't make Olivia de Havilland act. California law gave it another tool: a negative injunction that could close the doors to competing studios. Full case: youtu.be/NswLkOkIwG0
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialWho said the famous 1949 lobotomy photo shows Frances Farmer? The earliest claim we found came from Walter Freeman's son in 1982. He later told Freeman's biographer he had heard it secondhand. We are not showing the photo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O8S...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialThe pink you remember may not be the pink in the room: the Costume Designers Guild says Marilyn's "Diamonds" gown was pastel in ordinary light. Full case: youtu.be/Vvifj2Ccpd8
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialDid Frances Farmer have a lobotomy? Debunking sites point to a 1983 court ruling. We read it: no admission, a "factual basis" finding about copyright, and "portions" fabricated, unnamed. Neither says whether the operation happened. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O8S...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialThirty-five counts, one conviction: the 1931 trial of Clara Bow's secretary, Daisy DeVoe, and why the judge wondered aloud "who is on trial." In the coverage we could search, football never comes up. Full case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm8x...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialTwo answers online: Frances Farmer was lobotomized, or the author who told it "admitted" making it up. We read the 1983 ruling. It records no admission, and it does not say the operation happened. What it does say is in our new case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O8S...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialJohn Wayne is not in the 1965 paperback of Hollywood Babylon we examined. He appears in the 1975 edition, as Marion Morrison. USC's own records put Morrison on the 1926 squad, not 1927. Full case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm8x...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialHow a 1927 newspaper item about Clara Bow and the USC team turned into Hollywood's most repeated rumor. The earliest explicitly sexual version we found is from 1965, in a book that called it "unsupported." Full case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm8x...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialWhere did the Clara Bow football rumor come from? We followed it through print: a 1927 tea party, magazine jokes, a 1931 theft trial, and a 1965 paperback that is the earliest explicitly sexual version we found. It called its own story "unsupported." www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm8x...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialSweat stains, strained seams, reworked layers: the Academy Museum’s curator, describing her examination to Vogue, on the inside of Marilyn Monroe’s pink gown. The work behind the glamour. Full case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvif...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialA $12 sale reported by Vogue. A $310,000 winning bid reported in 2010, before the buyer’s fee. Marilyn Monroe’s pink gown, and how much of its history rests on reporting rather than documents. Full case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvif...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialWhat happened to Marilyn Monroe’s pink gown after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? A $12 purchase reported by Vogue, a 2010 auction, and an unresolved question about a separate top. The new Hollywood Case File follows the sources: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvif...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialMGM bought the novel behind *Letty Lynton*, but not the play whose protected expression appeared in three connected scenes. The result was an injunction against exhibition.
Read the source-backed case: hollywoodcasefile.com/cases/joan-c...
@hollywoodcasefile.bsky.socialSeven calendar years, or seven years of actual service? Warner Bros. and Olivia de Havilland disagreed. The court refused to add three words to the law.
Read the case and watch the film: hollywoodcasefile.com/cases/olivia...
