Ironic. I am not one to usurp articles, so I will just have to kindly point you in the direction of Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style's well researched article "How to deal with a Coffin full of Sugar". It documents Gloria Swanson's attempts to sue Kenneth Anger over Hollywood Babylon (lucky for her his passages on her were quite brief) in the 70s and his bat shit crazy (to quote and sincerely agree with the article's author) harassment that followed, including sending her a coffin full of sugar. It would almost be clever if it wasn't so macabre (Swanson would die within 10 years of the events) and persistent (he sent her SEVERAL harassing cards, which you can view in the article, over a time period indicating fallen glory, death, and sugar.) Why sugar? Gloria was a huge promoter of macrobiotic diets and compared sugar to poison.
While I'm certain Gloria Swanson was no angel, she definitely was fascinating and the sheer amount of balls this originator of kookies had makes me sick. I know Clara Bow's sons also considered suing. I wonder if anyone else did or tried. If it happened in this day and age they would have won. Seems silent stars never had much luck in court.
I'd like to quote the article as to why anyone should give a damn, let alone Glory Swanson, "Swanson included the Anger correspondence (in her archives) with reason. And I argue that Swanson preserved the evidence — as well as detailed copies of the lawsuit — not only to show that she arduously pursued her ‘innocence,’ but also as a means of indicting Anger. The existence of these materials — and their availability to scholars such as myself — labors to exonerate Swanson of Anger’s claims, affirming and preserving Swanson’s own carefully maintained image of glamour, integrity, and sophistication.
It matters little whether Swanson, the woman, was, in fact, glamourous and sophisticated. Far more interesting are her efforts to maintain that image — and how threatened she felt by the publication of two sentences in a book already widely discredited. To my mind, Swanson’s eagerness to take legal action highlights her awareness of the power of gossip. Having lived through the silent, classic, and post-classical age, she witnessed the ways in which magazines like Confidential and The National Enquirer had, though well-crafted innuendo, severely tarnished star images.
For gossip matters not because it’s true, or because people even necessarily believe it, but because its suggestions become permanently affixed to the star image. And gossip especially sticks when it seems to complement a pre-exisiting star image. The relative genius of Anger and Hollywood Babylon, no matter how fabricated, was that it confirmed what many secretly wanted to believe about the stars: namely, that they were snotty, backstabbing, and promiscuous. That’s why people believed Anger’s claim that Clara Bow had sex with the entire USC football team — the rumor still circulates, despite its repeated refutation. It’s also why Anger’s depiction of Swanson so angered the star: it rang dangerously true. It meshed with understandings of Swanson’s opulent and excessive lifestyle, yet highlighted what seemed to be the flipside of such sophistication: an inner ‘bitch.’"
THIS is why people like Kenneth Anger and David Bret and other fame whoring monsters anger me so. There was a book just released last month that included the Clara Bow gangbang myth (the author graciously apologized when I pointed out the massive debunking that has taken). Anger's insistence that Rudolph Valentino was 'married to two lesbians' and 'gave Ramon Novarro and art deco dildo' have become so persistent any book worth its weight in research has to mention and debunk such garbage. Silent stars aren't the only ones to suffer: when David Bret released his Clark Gable book a few years ago he put out a press release (which became 'articles' as that's how it works) saying Marilyn Monroe quote "rarely bathed, bleached her pubic hair, had irritable bowel syndrome, and left dirty dishes and bits of food under her bed". It spread as far as Page Six in the New York Post. Of course Bret has admitted he makes up everything so needless to say its untrue, but the story spread anyways.
THAT'S why it matters.
Don't count me as back yet. But I will be.
