Hollywood's golden era was as dramatic off-screen as on! Join us as we dive into the most scandalous and passionate love affairs that rocked Tinseltown, from secret romances to headline-grabbing affairs that defined an entire generation of movie stars.
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00:00Hey, would you like me to leave?
00:04Why don't you let him go, you can get another cab.
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the movie star love affairs
00:11that are as integral to classic Hollywood history as the movies they made.
00:16Mr. Kennedy has the best seat in the house at the function,
00:19and it will be starting just about now, the finale for this affair.
00:2410. Rita Hayworth and Ali Khan
00:28With her second marriage to famed director Orson Welles in the rearview mirror,
00:33the Gilda star bounced back quickly. Bombshell is a term that doesn't even begin to cover how
00:38moviegoers thought of Rita Hayworth in the late 1940s.
00:54Sure, I'm decent.
00:56Ali Khan, the son of Aga Khan, was not even divorced from his own wife yet when he set
01:01his sights on the love goddess herself. The two engaged in a passionate affair that culminated
01:06in a lavish wedding in Cannes, France in 1949.
01:10Then on to Ali's Chateau de l'Horizon, where part of the welcome consisted of the happy pair's
01:15initials and flowers floating on the perfumed swimming pool. The wedding had created world
01:19interest. Privacy was impossible. But then that's always the lot of a film star,
01:23especially if she marries a prince.
01:25Their fairytale romance and nuptials drew heaps of publicity, especially when Hayworth announced
01:31she would be ending her film career to devote herself to her marriage. The two would, however,
01:36divorce just four years later in 1953.
01:40I'm going to do exactly what I please, when I please.
01:43I was true to one man once, and look what happened.
01:479. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard
01:50For years, he was one of Hollywood's most prolific lovers.
01:54His list of partners was as star-studded as one of his movies.
01:58Then, Clark Gable fell in love with the fast-talking, quick-witted Carole Lombard.
02:03She swore like a truck driver, and it turned out that eventually that was kind of the woman that
02:08he decided he liked. He didn't know he liked that type of woman at the time.
02:11The two appeared in 1932's No Man of Her Own, but wouldn't become an item until 1936.
02:17Gable was still legally married to his wife, Maria, at the time.
02:21However, his affair with Lombard was a known secret.
02:24The gossip columnists and the papers in L.A. were all aware of exactly what was going on
02:31with Lombard and Gable. They just never wrote about it because they were under the control
02:38of the studios.
02:39Eventually, Gable was able to secure a divorce, and the two married in 1939.
02:44People who knew Gable said his years with Lombard were among his happiest.
02:49That happiness was short-lived, however,
02:51as Lombard was tragically killed in an airplane crash in 1942.
02:56He was past the draft age. He was already in his 40s, so he didn't have to go to war,
03:00and MGM did not want their highest-valued box office property marching off to death.
03:06It was a mourning, a way to expound his grief.
03:10But some, I think he was quoted as saying to close friends,
03:13like, I'm going over there, and I don't care if I come back.
03:16Number 8. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks
03:20It seems only fitting that the two biggest stars of the silent era should get together.
03:24I'll bring thee to the bridal chamber.
03:27The only problem was they were both married to other people when they met.
03:30Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks met in 1915 and were soon in a full-blown affair.
03:37They began meeting in secret as the scandal of infidelity would have
03:40damaged Pickford's good-girl-screen persona.
03:44One thing they shared above all else was their desire to protect
03:47their hard-won careers as movie stars.
03:49Mary Pickford once asked a journalist, Adler Rogers St. John's,
03:54If I divorce Owen Moore to marry Douglas Fairbanks, will my public forgive me?
04:01Adler Rogers St. John's said to her, I can't tell you for sure,
04:07but I think they will forgive you everything.
04:09Once they were divorced from their spouses, the two married in 1920 to great fanfare.
04:15Until their own separation in 1933, they held court over the industry town from Pickfair,
04:21their opulent estate that became the site of elegant dinners and galas.
04:26Amelia Earhart, Einstein, and H.G. Wells
04:30were among those who clamored for invitations to Pickfair.
04:34Number 7.
04:35Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.
04:37The gruff, no-nonsense star of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca
04:41met his match for cool on the set of 1944's To Have and Have Not.
04:46You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?
04:48You just put your lips together and blow.
05:05He was 44 and married and she was 19 debuting her film career,
05:10but they fell in love pretty quickly.
05:12They didn't make it too hard to figure it out either.
05:15I'm hard to get, Steve.
05:17All you have to do is ask me.
05:20Oh, I don't want to take you to pack.
05:21Audiences got to see their romance blossom through their on-screen counterparts.
05:26This was a new development for Bogart.
05:28Unlike some of his contemporaries,
05:30he had never made a habit of getting involved with his leading ladies.
05:34The two married once he divorced his wife and remained together until his death in 1957.
05:40Whenever I'd be at a party, I would look across the room and wherever there were people laughing
05:44and there was fun.
05:45He was there.
05:46He was there.
05:46At the center of it.
05:47Yes, because he was an original.
05:50There wasn't anybody like him.
05:51Number 6.
05:52Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra
05:55The crooner known as Old Blue Eyes has a romantic history about as long as his career,
06:00but it was his torrid love affair with Ava Gardner that grabbed headlines
06:03and captured our imagination.
06:05The nature of the two people made a lot of headlines.
06:08They were both rambunctious.
06:12Both dynamite and both highly emotional.
06:17You put two sticks of dynamite together and you get an explosion.
06:20The two began seeing each other in 1950 while Sinatra was married to his first wife,
06:25Nancy Barbato.
06:26His already stalling career was hit even harder by the ensuing moral scandal.
06:31And when they were spotted at a Houston nightclub,
06:34even MGM couldn't control the storm that followed.
06:37Thanks to Gardner's influence, however,
06:39Sinatra was able to score his major comeback in From Here to Eternity.
06:44Still, their tempestuous relationship was the talk of the town.
06:47They divorced only a few years later.
06:49Fueled by jealousy and alcohol, there were frequent and violent disputes.
06:55These night owls were probably a little too much alike.
06:58Excessive, quick-tempered, unfaithful too.
07:02Number 5.
07:03Marilyn Monroe and President John F. Kennedy
07:06They were two of the most enigmatic figures of 20th century America.
07:10And Marilyn Monroe's provocative performance at then-President Kennedy's birthday celebration
07:15at Madison Square Garden was enough to get the gossip mill running.
07:30What exactly happened between them is still a mystery.
07:34There's been suggestions that Monroe was seeing both the president and his brother,
07:38Robert Kennedy.
07:39Marilyn stayed the night here on occasion with the Laufers as their friend.
07:44But also they threw famous parties here.
07:53And at various points, the Kennedy brothers both came here.
07:56The fact that so few details of this alleged affair even exist
08:01just makes it all the more alluring.
08:03Due to the threat of a potential scandal and the tragic fates that befell both Monroe and
08:08Kennedy, their rumored relationship has taken on mythic proportions ever since.
08:26Number 4.
08:27Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn
08:29Like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers before them,
08:32Tracy and Hepburn became one of classic Hollywood's indelible screen pairs.
08:37But unlike Fred and Ginger, Tracy and Hepburn carried their on-screen romance off-screen.
08:42I was wondering about this afternoon.
08:45Sorry.
08:46Tomorrow afternoon?
08:48What's on your mind?
08:49I'd like to take you to a baseball game.
08:52Okay.
08:53The two had a 26-year-long affair, and Tracy and his estranged wife never divorced.
08:59Reportedly, Hepburn respected Tracy's marital status, and their relationship remained discreet.
09:05Did it ever bother you that you were having an affair with a married man with two small children?
09:09No.
09:11No.
09:12That was the line you could cross?
09:15No, I didn't think that way, but I certainly had no intention
09:20of breaking up his relationship with his wife.
09:23Tracy passed away mere months after he and Hepburn completed their Oscar-winning work
09:28on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
09:30Interestingly, Hepburn never publicly confirmed their relationship until the 1980s,
09:35once Tracy's widow passed away.
09:37What do you do?
09:38You can't be definite about everything in life.
09:42You did not go to Spencer Tracy's funeral?
09:45No, I was not his wife.
09:47Number 3.
09:48Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
09:50Even though they wed twice, the lovers and frequent co-stars were so volatile and passionate
09:56that their romance often seemed more like an epic affair than a marriage.
10:00Am I not wise?
10:02Enough to keep you warm.
10:05Mary, so I mean to warm thee in thy bed.
10:10And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
10:14Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor fell for each other on the big-budget historical drama
10:19Cleopatra while they were both still married.
10:22Taylor to her fourth husband, Eddie Fisher, and Burton to his first wife, Sybil Williams.
10:27Moviegoers got to vicariously experience their love through a series of dramatic films that
10:32saw the two acting out the tension and histrionics that seemingly dogged their real-life marriage.
10:37I said I warn you.
10:38I'm impressed.
10:39I warned you not to go too far.
10:41I'm just beginning.
10:43Fittingly, news of their affair was broken by the paparazzi.
10:47This began a long fascination with the couple that continued until
10:50even after their first divorce, remarriage, and second divorce.
10:54I must say we enjoy fighting.
10:56I think that fighting with somebody you love, and are really sure of,
11:01and if you're really sure of yourself in your love, I think having a fight,
11:06an out-and-out, outrageous, ridiculous fight, is one of the greatest exercises.
11:13Number 2.
11:14Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini.
11:17When she left America to go make a film with the maestro of Italian neorealism,
11:21Casablanca star Ingrid Bergman was as close to an angel as Hollywood had ever seen.
11:26But all of that changed when news broke that she and director
11:30Roberto Rossellini were having an affair on the set of Stromboli.
11:34In my days, in those days, it was a shock to leave a husband and a child
11:40and fall in love with a man and openly show the world
11:44that she had fallen in love and not deny the baby to be born.
11:49Both were married at the time, and the public backlash was swift and harsh,
11:53with Bergman bearing the brunt of the criticism.
11:56She was essentially exiled from Hollywood and her home country of Sweden for several years.
12:01I thought that you should look upon an actress as an actress.
12:05What she does on the screen, on the stage, that's what you pay for, and that's what you get.
12:09If you don't like the performance, you can walk out.
12:11But to criticize people's private life, I thought was wrong.
12:15The two divorced in 1957, and Bergman was finally able to resume her Hollywood career.
12:21Their daughter Isabella would later become a renowned actress as well.
12:25Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible,
12:28God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears.
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12:47Number 1. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher
12:50Hollywood was a tight-knit community back in the studio days.
12:53Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds had taken classes together,
12:57and been put through the ringer at MGM. They became friends.
13:00When she married Mike, I was her matron of honor.
13:04Down in Acapulco, I washed her hair, I set her hair, and got her all dressed for her wedding.
13:10Little did I know what the future was going to be.
13:12Their relationship changed forever, however, when news broke that Reynolds' husband,
13:16singer and actor Eddie Fisher, was seeing the recently widowed Elizabeth Taylor.
13:22Naturally, my father flew to Elizabeth's side, gradually making his way slowly to her front.
13:32The two married not long after, and the news shattered the illusion behind one of the era's
13:37most squeaky-clean marriages, tarnishing Taylor's reputation in the process.
13:42Reynolds and Fisher's daughter, Carrie Fisher,
13:44even likened the ensuing media blitz as a precursor to Brangelina.
13:49Within a few years of marriage, Taylor and Fisher had split, and in a happy turn of events,
13:54the two ex-friends managed to put their animosity behind them.
13:58I was with Freddy because I was in a blackout.
14:05What's your excuse?
14:07He gave me a red convertible, and my mother told me to.
14:11She thought he was Italian.
14:13Which classic Hollywood affair did we leave out? Let us know in the comments.
14:17Let's get back to supposing, supposing I was the guy you were dumb enough to fall for.
14:22Then what?
14:24Here's what.
14:28Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo,
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