For almost a hundred years, the films of Warner Bros. have captivated audiences around the world.
Behind the scenes, however, the studio has found itself at the heart of some of
Hollywood's most devastating scandals. These are some of the very worst.
Following the runaway success of Marvel's shared cinematic universe, Warner Bros.
decided to create their own, using some of the most popular superheroes from DC Comics.
Unfortunately, the DC Extended Universe has failed to capture even a fraction of
the MCU's wild popularity — and the franchise's earliest movies were the most troubled of all.
One of the primary characters from the early run of DCEU movies was the superhero
Cyborg. First appearing in Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice and later returning for Justice League, actor Ray Fisher has
had much to say about his experience with the role — especially during filming on that second movie.
On June 29th, 2020, Fisher sparked controversy when he accused Justice League director Joss
Whedon of acting abusively towards his colleagues during filming. Fisher tweeted:
"Joss Whedon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross,
abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable."
Fisher also accused Warner Bros. executives Jon Berg and Geoff Johns of enabling the
director's problematic behavior. Warner Media quickly announced that they would investigate
the actor's claims, but the scandal only grew as the studio accused Fisher of being
uncooperative during the investigation — after which he provided evidence to the contrary.
Fisher's claims were finally vindicated in February 2021,
when a number of other actors — including Buffy the Vampire Slayer stars
Charisma Carpenter and Sarah Michelle Gellar — levied their own accusations against Whedon.
The MeToo Movement exposed a number of Hollywood actors,
producers, and directors for engaging in inappropriate and even criminal behaviour
against women in the industry. One such figure was the chairman-CEO of Warner Bros,
Kevin Tsujihara. Tsujihara, who was promoted to the head of the studio in 2013, was found
to be having an extramarital affair with actress Charlotte Kirk - and that's just the half of it.
The relationship between Kirk and Tsujihara allegedly began through a mutual colleague,
Australian businessman James Packer. Packer and Kirk met in November 2012,
when he was 45 and soon to be divorced, and she was a 20-year-old struggling actress.
The pair soon began a relationship. Packer then introduced Kirk to Tsujihara
in September of the following year, and text messages later showed that
Packer then coerced the actress into embracing Tsujihara's sexual advances.
It was subsequently revealed that, under pressure from Kirk herself,
Tsujihara had been promising the actress auditions and roles on a number of Warner Bros. projects.
The issue had first been investigated in 2017, but it wasn't until 2019 — and the rise of
MeToo — that the dam finally gave way. Tsujihara resigned from his position in March of that year.
John Barrymore was one of the first great American film stars. Sadly, despite being one of Warner
Bros' most enduring and bankable stars, the actor suffered from alcoholism all his life — an illness
that would eventually destroy the pristine image he had established in Hollywood.
Nicknamed "The Great Profile," Barrymore was a star of both stage and film. His parents,
Maurice and Georgiana, were stage actors, while his siblings, Ethel and Lionel Barrymore, both
found stardom in Hollywood. Unlike their brother, Ethel and Lionel even won Oscars
during their careers, but neither achieved quite the level of critical recognition that he did.
Barrymore found his greatest success in the silent movie era and with the "talkies" that followed in
the 1920s and '30s. He had mastered the world of theatre decades earlier, however, and it was
during that time he famously took on the lead roles in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Richard III.
"To be, or not to be… that is the question."
Throughout both of these periods, however, Barrymore's excessive drinking and outrageous
behavior gradually destroyed both his reputation and his health. Toward the end of his life,
Barrymore declared bankruptcy, and was forced to turn to radio in an attempt
to make a financial comeback. Fittingly, his final film, Playmates, had Barrymore playing
a washed-up Shakespearian actor. Then, during an appearance on a radio program on May 14th,
1942, Barrymore announced his retirement from acting. He died just two weeks later.
Long before the MeToo Movement hit the front pages in the late 2010s, sexual abuse was more
or less commonplace in Hollywood. Combine a horde of inflated celebrity egos and nearly
unlimited power with an awestruck fanbase and actors desperate for work, and a culture of
harassment is almost bound to be the result. That being said, when Warner Bros. star Errol Flynn
was put on trial for unlawful sex with a minor in 1943, the scandal quickly became front-page news.
Flynn had long been typecast as the dashing, energetic hero of adventure cinema,
but behind the scenes he was a notorious drinker and womanizer. Flynn was arrested
in 1942 after two women accused the actor of seducing them when they were just 17 years old.
In court, Flynn's team of lawyers were able to paint the two women in an unfavorable light,
besmirching their reputations by bringing up their previous affairs and abortions. The
jury took only 13 hours to acquit Flynn. Despite avoiding jail time, however, Flynn's reputation
took a permanent hit, and he never again reached the level of fame he had once enjoyed.
From the late 1930s through to the 1950s,
the House Un-American Activities Committee held a number of hearings
that became practically synonymous with the fear and paranoia of the Red Scare.
During World War II, the Warners had become outspoken critics of the Axis Powers,
and even worked with the US government to produce patriotic, anti-fascist content.
After the war ended and the Soviet-US rivalry came to the fore,
the studios and the government turned their guns against the left-wing of the political spectrum.
Less than two months following the end of WWII, striking workers at Warner
Bros. fought non-strikers as the former group blocked the employee entrance,
resulting in a number of injuries. The day became known as "Black Friday,"
and neither Warner Bros nor the government would soon forget the event.
When Jack Warner testified at a HUAC hearing in 1947, he accused a dozen individuals of being
hardened communists. However, not only were many of the accused not communists,
but at least one — the screenwriter Howard
Koch — was only named by Warner as revenge for his involvement in the strike of '45.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is one of Hollywood's most iconic films — due
in part to the bitter rivalry between its two leads, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
The feud between the two actresses began decades prior to the making of the 1962 film.
When Davis first entered the movie industry, Crawford was already an established star — with
a glamorous Hollywood marriage to actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., to boot.
In 1933, Davis' film, Ex-Lady, was about to be announced by Warner Bros. as the first with
her name above the title. Suddenly, however, Crawford announced her divorce from Fairbanks,
stealing the headlines and crippling the film's promotion. Two years later, Crawford
married actor Franchot Tone, with whom Davis had worked and fallen in love that same year.
By the time the two paired for Baby Jane, they had spent decades trading jabs and spreading rumors.
Inevitably, the set itself became a battleground. They spent nights
complaining about each other to director Robert Aldrich, openly spoke ill of one another on set,
and even physically hurt each other while filming. Then, at the 1963 Oscars,
Crawford got the last laugh — when Davis lost the Best Actress award to Anne Bancroft. Bancroft was
absent that night… so none other than Crawford herself arranged to accept the award in her place.
"She went to all the nominees and said 'if you can't get out there, I'll accept your award.
And please do not vote for her.'"
When "New Hollywood" took shape in the counterculture and film schools of the
1960s and '70s, many of the regulations and taboos that were once placed on movies became
irrelevant. And among the most shocking,
controversial movies that followed was Stanley Kubrick's 1971 thriller A Clockwork Orange.
Though Warner Bros. had released plenty of controversial films before,
Kubrick's film remains infamous for the backlash it received upon its initial release. The movie
follows the main character Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell; a young teenage boy who,
with his gang of "droogs," inflicts violence upon random people in a future-punk England.
In an interview with The Guardian, McDowell later revealed that he had watched violent
movies and concentration camp footage for months with Kubrick in order to prepare for the role.
Upon release, British officials lobbied to have A Clockwork Orange cut from
circulation for fear teens would mimic the violence it portrayed.
Following a handful of incidents of young people committing crimes — and the film being
blamed for those incidents — Kubrick and Warner Bros. withdrew the movie from release in 1974.
A Clockwork Orange had also been banned in South Africa and Brazil,
and had to be cut down significantly to appease the censors in Argentina. In the end, the British
film authorities gave the movie the rarest and most severe classification: an X-rating.
A great number of tragedies have befallen former child stars.
Most often, this comes down to a combination of an unstable home life,
a reliance on individuals who don't have the child's best interest in heart,
and the development of a number of unhealthy addictions and beliefs. Unfortunately,
one of Hollywood's greatest actresses, Natalie Wood, experienced all this and more.
Wood's abuse began in her own home by her overbearing mother,
Maria Gurdin, who pushed the child into acting at the young age of five.
In one emotional episode, Gurdin tore the wings off a butterfly to make her daughter cry on cue.
Then, while filming The Green Promise in 1949, a ten-year-old Wood suffered a broken wrist during
a scene. Her mother forced her to hide the injury, and her wrist never healed correctly.
Wood hid the protruding bone with bracelets for the remainder of her life.
By the age of 14, Natalie had appeared in over 20 films. During her teen years,
in which she was signed with Warner Bros, Wood was coerced into relationships with much older men,
such as Frank Sinatra and Nicholas Ray, her director on Rebel Without A Cause.
According to Suzanne Finstad's book, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood,
Wood was then assaulted by an unnamed movie star at the age of 16.
Wood's death at 43 years old remains one of Hollywood's great mysteries,
as many still believe her husband, actor Robert Wagner, might have played a role in it.
Of course, "Warner Bros." isn't just a meaningless name. The Warners, Harry,
Albert, Sam, and Jack, all built and ran the company that turned their name into an American
institution. At the same time, however, there were a number of skeletons in their closets.
None of the brothers were much alike. In fact, Hollywood Stories summarizes the four brothers
as such: the womanizing Jack, the conservative Harry, the quiet Albert, and the visionary
Sam. Despite their differences, however, the four were able to get along for a period — until 1927,
when Sam Warner, whose contributions helped make the first-ever "talkie," died of a brain tumor
two days before its release. The Jazz Singer was a hit and became a game-changer in Hollywood. After
Sam's death, however, Jack and the two surviving brothers spent the rest of their days feuding.
Harry and Jack's relationship was the most strained in the family, and their clashing
personalities led to a number of conflicts. Harry was quiet and conservative, whereas
Jack was wild and flamboyant. Jack was known as a playboy, while Harry was married just the once.
Harry also refused to help the HUAC during its hearings,
while Jack was more than happy to smear his enemies as communists. Their relationship finally
came to an abrupt end when Jack tricked Albert and Harry into selling their shares of the company,
just so Jack could buy it all and become the head. After that, the brothers never spoke again.
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