How'd They Get Away with THAT?

[mansonlamps]

I tried to start this thread at the old place, but it was immediately shut down for being about "stars I hate because they got away with something." That, however, was not my intent with the thread, so I'll try again.

Looking way back to the 1950's, not only did Lucille Ball create and star in a successful sitcom in which she is in an interracial marriage, she was, and is, revered as one of America's favorite comediennes. Even now interracial marriages can still seem scandalous to a lot of mainstream Americans, but Lucille Ball was able to overcome this bias over 50 years ago! And Desi spoke with a fairly heavy accent! Amazing.

Even further back, Katharine Hepburn publically conducted an affair with a married man for 27 years. And was she maligned for this behavior? No, in fact, she is considered an icon to the American public, the epitome of class and talent.

What other celebrities have exhibited behavior that most others would be heartily shunned over?

(A Low Vera, anyone?)

[chiqui]

I recall Rita Hayworth married a Moroccan (?) playboy named Ali Khan, which could also be considered interracial, and Barbara Hutton a famous European gigolo. I don't know if Barbara Hutton fits the definition of celebrity because she was an heiress, but I suppose she could have been considered the Paris Hilton of her day.

I think Lucy got away with what she did because she was a comedienne, and so was Desi, to an extent, plus he was also a famous bandleader. And I think in those days (pre-Fidel) Americans might have considered Cubans closer to being 'Americans' (in terms of racial and social background) than, say, Mexicans or Guatemalans. Maybe because of the proximity to Florida and the dealings between the two countries.

Lucy also got away with being one of the few women to run a television studio (Desilu) in the 1960s.

[jollityfarm]

A lot of celebrity couples got together when one cheated on their spouse with the other. I think people will forgive this if they decide that the celebrity couple is sufficiently pretty and their romance sufficiently tragic or dramatic. After all, celebrities are hardly like real people and they generally exist to provide us with entertainment, right?

I think a lot of people wanted to see Julia Roberts have some kind of fairytale marriage - when women start getting to their mid-thirties, people do start asking if they're "courting", if they aren't already. Plus, this is someone whose movie career has hinged on the happy ending, and some people doubtless thought that it must be awful that her real life wasn't so shiny. The fact that her "Mr. Right" was a bit common and already married anyway was probably considered relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Similarly, I've not seen anyone comment on the fact that Jennifer Lopez's husband was married when they got together. Mind you, she was married when she got together with Ben Affleck, so they've obviously got something in common.

As for the interracial marriage thing, I don't know the details of your example, but I've heard of interracial marriages in the entertainment business long before that. I think, though I wouldn't say I know everything I'm talking about, that it partly would have depended on the precise race of the non-white partner, and partly on the class and social standing. I think that Lucille Ball's relationship might have been viewed differently if she'd married a black street-sweeper.

Of course, there is a more sinister side of things that celebrities get forgiven for. Look at Michael Jackson, R. Kelly or any of those. Plenty of people are horrified to think that any celebrities might commit dreadful crimes that, even if the celebrity is found guilty, they'll knock up some excuse. It's the stress. People with his talent don't behave like normal people. Etc. The only thing I can think of as far as this is concerned is that people don't want to think of their favourites as being Bad People. Either that or these celebrities are being accused of the sort of thing some people wish they could get away with.

[Deleted]

I didn't put this in the MultiRacial Topic because the daughter is not a star.

But many years ago, there was a silly Sitcom, F Troop, that had a well enough talented comedian actor on it, Larry Storch. F Troop might still be playing on some cable channel and definitely on radio waves in outer space. Mr. Storch was married to a failed starlet who was white (Norma someone) who in an earlier marriage had been married to a black vaudevillian, Stumpy someone. She had two daughters with the black vaudevillian before she divorced him and married white. She gave the two daughters away to be raised by black families in Atlanta.

One of the daughters tracked her TV star wife/mom down in LA and began a relationship with her although her blood relationship was never acknowledged by anyone because it might hurt Mr. Storch's career (before and after the Civil Rights movement).

The daughter, June Cross, later made a movie about it, Favorite Daughter.

You get away with it by denying your blood kin. Very interesting movie, I recommend it.

[woopdedoo]

A Low Vera...that to me was outrageous, and no one called her on it; as I seem to recall, it was a minor scandal at best. Since when does living with a married man and denigrating his wife in public not cause more of a furor. Don't understand that one. If I started up with the married guy across the street and wore nasty tee shirts about his wife, I think I would be run off the cul de sac, know what I mean? But I guess everyone wanted to see her married to her true love, so all was forgiven.

I think Desi Arnaz was from a wealthy family that lost everything, right? Maybe that added to the public perception of the romance.

I like this thread! I won't add to the hate, promise.

[shriekingeel]

Looking way back to the 1950's, not only did Lucille Ball create and star in a successful sitcom in which she is in an interracial marriage, she was, and is, revered as one of America's favorite comediennes. Even now interracial marriages can still seem scandalous to a lot of mainstream Americans, but Lucille Ball was able to overcome this bias over 50 years ago! And Desi spoke with a fairly heavy accent! Amazing.

ILL wasn't really exceptional, though. The cinema of the forties and fifties featured plenty of musicals with "Latin lovers" like Ricardo Montalban and Fernando Lamas pursuing American girls, with no one batting an eye.

From our viewpoint, in an age when people are much less racist while being, paradoxically, hyper-conscious of race, it seems odd. But back then people didn't consider Latins a "race", so there was nothing to be race-conscious about.

[Deleted]

I don't know if this counts, but I've been catching The Match Game os GSN. The 70's version, BTW. I'm always shocked at the obvious flirtation of the stars/contestants. I actually saw McLean Stevenson (Col. Henry Blake from M*A*S*H) kiss a girl contestant on the mouth, with tongue, after he flirted w/ her for the entire show. One another episode, I saw Richard Dawson invite a girl to live w/ him b/c she was looking for work, and very provocotively tell her she "doesn't have to do windows".

Yes, I know political correctness is a relatively new thing, but it just seemed so jarring to hear men being so forward on primetime television, w/ girls they'd only known (in a game show format, no kess) for 22 minutes.

[snacktastic]

Gee, I would think that this thread was about our Congress and the Shiavo case. I'm a little bitter.

In the 50s, I think that Shreakinggeel is right, Latinos were usually considered along with southern Europeans as vaguely ethnic, Latin lovers. There is a long history of upperclass European Americans marrying upper class Latin Americans, who usually had a similar etnnic background.

[MrsOldManBalls]

They didn't all get away with it. Wasn't there some sort of backlash when Sammy Davis Jr. married a white girl?

[mansonlamps]

True, that was kind of the point of this thread. Why do certain people get away with things that others in a million years wouldn't be able to? A Low Vera with Julia Roberts is a perfect current day example.

Although, considering how taboo black/white interracial marriage was in the forties, Sammy Davis didn't experience the amount of backlash that most other blacks probably would have. So he sort of belongs in this thread, too.