16. The male-dominated studios forced numerous female stars to have abortions for reasons of image
The Hollywood studio system, besides being dominated by men, placed a premium on the images of their female stars (and most male stars as well, as lavender marriages indicated). The studio heads were well aware of the many extramarital affairs conducted in the film community, at a time when divorce was still considered scandalous by most of middle America, the primary source of Hollywood’s profits. Divorce was scandalous enough, but divorce as a result of extramarital indiscretion was worse, and pregnancy outside of marriage was most scandalous of all. Married film stars who impregnated female stars were protected, whether the woman was married to another star or not, by the pregnancies being kept hidden from the public. Abortions, which were illegal in most jurisdictions and considered immoral in nearly as many, were often ordered by male studio heads, though just as often they were arranged at the request of the pregnant (but not by her husband) actresses and stars.
Talullah Bankhead is often cited by gossipmongers or others with an agenda as having been forced to have abortions by distressed studio heads, but biographer Lee Israel (who was later convicted of forgery in an unrelated case) wrote that Bankhead had several abortions. Israel compared their frequency to trips to a hairdresser. Ava Gardner later told an interviewer that the studio would penalize her financially for having a baby, and that when an abortion was arranged, by the studio and to take place overseas in London, a representative from her employer accompanied her to ensure that it remained hidden from the press. The list of actresses from Hollywood’s Golden Age who had abortions reads like a who’s who of the great film stars of the age, and while many abortions were the choice of the film star, many others were demanded by the studio, with the star’s career threatened if they did not comply.