Hollywood's Women Who Loved Too Much

Big-time Casanovas like Errol Flynn and Gary Cooper aren't the only stars who were legendary for their many love affairs. A number of gorgeous actresses competed in the boudoir Olympics with as much style and ferocity as their male counterparts.

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Picture a lush tropical island blissfully free from the strictures of conventional society. Now imagine that this paradise is overrun with beautiful, ambitious, sexed-up young things who grab for experience with both hands. That's Hollywood. Stripped to the nitty-gritty level, this town has been one big blue lagoon of rampant id and throbbing ego since film cameras first started rolling here early in the last century. The amorous hijinks of male movie stars from Charlie Chaplin straight to Charlie Sheen, fascinating as they are to hear about, don't really surprise anyone. Less expected are the tales of carnal adventure pursued by some of the screen's most glamorous ladies. It's high time we recognized the pioneers who fought for equality with men in Hollywood's amped-up game of desire and sexual conquest. So here is an appreciation of the standout seducers of the silver screen.

GRACE KELLY

In such '50s landmarks as Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window and High Society, Grace Kelly was the essence of cool, sophisticated, upper-crust elegance. In keeping with this image, she abandoned Hollywood at the height of her popularity in the mid-'50s to become Her Most Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco. It was well-known in Hollywood, though not to the wider world, that a fire had raged under all that exquisite frost before it was transported to a distant seaside palace. Director Don Richardson, one of Kelly's early lovers, said, "She screwed everybody whom she came into contact with who was able to do anything good for her at all--she screwed agents, producers, directors and there was really no need for it. She was already on her way." No wonder Alfred Hitchcock, her three-time director, called her "a snow-covered volcano." Since Kelly's early tragic death in 1982, several of her biographers have had a field day cracking the lacquered surface to find the far more fascinating, complex human being underneath Kelly's companions are believed to have included Jean-Pierre Aumont, Oleg Cassini, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Robert Evans, Cary Grant, William Holden, Prince Aly Khan, Ray Milland, David Niven, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart and Spencer Tracy.

NATALIE WOOD

Even today, Natalie Wood's looks seem so contemporary and her vibe so vivid on-screen that she remains the center of an avid cult. She began making movies as a child in the '40s and ripened into a stunningly beautiful, touching screen presence in such '60s movies as West Side Story, Inside Daisy Clover, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Gypsy. She and Robert Wagner made, twice during I their lives, an impossibly gorgeous married couple, I and in between those marriages, Wood wed producer/agent Richard Gregson. But Wood was a tempestuous, restless spirit whose searching reportedly led her to explore relationships with a series of partners that included actor Nick Adams (who once claimed that Wood's mother asked him to seduce her), James Dean, Warren Beatty (with whom she made Splendor in the Grass and with whom she had a tumultuous relationship), Raymond Burr, Tom Courtenay, Robert Evans, hotel chain heir Nicky Hilton, Dennis Hopper, Tab Hunter, Steve McQueen, director Nicholas Ray, Frank Sinatra, Robert Vaughn and Stuart Whitman.

LUPE VELEX

Legend ranks Lupe Velez as one of Hollywood's busiest play-girls of the '30s and early '40s. Carnal and lovable and electric on-screen, especially in her popular series of "Mexican Spitfire" movies, she was all that and more when the cameras weren't rolling. Famed for her carefree dancing at parties sans underwear, Velez was called by actor Leon Ames the twistiest, most sensuous-looking thing I've ever seen." Velez herself once observed, "I am a woman who tells of her love for a man to the whole world." The tragic Velez, who committed suicide in 1944, was married once to screen Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller, but her other loves are said to have included Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper, boxing champ Jack Dempsey, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., director Victor Fleming, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, John Gilbert, cowboy star Tom Mix, novelist Erich Maria Remarque, Edward G. Robinson, Gilbert Roland and Henry Wilcoxon.

JOAN CRAWFORD

Joan Crawford became an extraordinary star and fashion icon in the '20s and held on tenaciously to her movie-star status for more than 40 years. Today, it's all too easy to dismiss her--thanks to the book and movie Mommie Dearest--as a harridan who beat her adopted children, defined "over the top" in too many overheated movies, and starred in cheesy horror Hicks at the end or her career. Imagining her as someone with the allure of a genuine mantrap seems a stretch. In truth, though, Crawford was possessed of a singular beauty early on. As she battled to become one of MGM's undisputed box-office queens, Crawford's headlight eyes, rapacious lips and expressive personality cut an awesome swath through the population of Hollywood's most desirable players. Bette Davis is famously quoted as saying of her rival, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie." Crawford married four times, which did not hamper her from becoming legendary for bedding her costars and directors. She said of her 1947 Daisy Kenyon costar Henry Fonda: "I was very attracted to him and thought he'd get the hint when I gave him a jockstrap with rhinestones, gold sequins and red beads. He opened the box on the movie set, held up the jockstrap and didn't know what it was." She's believed to have more successfully scorched her way through Johnny Weissmuller, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Jackie Cooper, Tyrone Power, Kirk Douglas, John Garfield and Steve Cochran, making time for a side trip with Martha Raye as well as several other famous Hollywood women.

LORETTA YOUNG

She epitomized good-girl, ladylike glamour for more than 30 years in films and as the fashion-plate host of her own hit TV series. She was famous both as a ravishing beauty and a truly devout, convent-raised Catholic. But Loretta Young was, in fact, married three times, and purportedly engaged in a number of serious Hollywood romances. Her long-rumored, staunchly-denied affair with Clark Gable, her costar in The Call of the Wild in 1935, was acknowledged only decades later when her "adopted" daughter admitted that her mother had revealed to her that she was indeed a true daughter of Young and Gable. The film's director, William Wellman, said, with a sly reference to Gable's famously protruding ears, "All I know is that Loretta Young disappeared when the film was finished and showed up with a baby who had big ears." Marlene Dietrich, who couldn't stomach Young and didn't hide it, said, "Every time she 'sins,' she builds a church. That's why there are so many Catholic churches in Hollywood." Depending on which Hollywood chroniclers one reads and believes, Young's beaus and lovers may have included George Brent, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., screenwriter/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, David Niven, Tyrone Power, screenwriter Robert Riskin, Gilbert Roland, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck.

RITA HAYWORTH

As casually carnal a knockout and screen icon as we've ever known, Rita Hayworth became an erotic legend in the 1946 film Gilda when, playing a scarlet mantrap who just couldn't help herself, she peeled off elbow-length gloves and purred "Put the Blame on Mame." She later sadly reflected, "Every man I've known has fallen in love with Gilda and wakened up with me." Married five times (famously to Orson Welles and playboy potentate Prince Aly Khan), she went looking for love in many other wrong places as well. Welles explained their divorce by saying, "I was going to come home every night for the my life to a woman in tears. I felt so guilty--and I adored her. Oh, it was awful." Hayworth said, "I haven't had everything from life. I've had too much.' One hopes that her pain was assuaged by others she's thought to have encountered, a group that includes bullfighter Luis Dominguin, Kirk Douglas, super-agent Charles Feldman, Glenn Ford, producer Raymond Hakim, Howard Hughes, singer Tony Martin, Victor Mature, Robert Mitchum, David Niven, polo star Manuel Rojas, Gilbert Roland and James Stewart.

AVA GARDNER

She was not only one of the most extraordinary-looking creatures ever captured by the cameras, but also one of the most fascinating and dangerous offscreen. Cast best as a faintly weary woman of the world who could match any man for wicked wit and wisdom, even Ava Gardner's best achievements on film (The Killers, The Great Sinner, The Barefoot Contessa, Bhowani Junction) are eclipsed by her legend as an exuberant sensualist. Speaking of herself and Elizabeth Taylor, Gardner said, "Some people say Liz and I are whores, but we are saints. We do not hide our loves hypocritically, and when we love we are loyal and faithful to our men." She was married first to Mickey Rooney (who called her "a lady of strong passions, one of them rage"), then to Artie Shaw and finally to Frank Sinatra, who was reportedly driven to near-suicidal agony over his inability to tame her. Some Hollywood historians believe that the fabulous Gardner's world-class list of lovers included bullfighters, beach boys and more famous names like Richard Burton, Howard Duff, Robert Evans, Clark Gable, Howard Hughes, John Huston, Fernando Lamas, Robert Mitchum, David Niven, George C. Scott, Johnny Stompanato, Turhan Bey, Robert Taylor, Mel Torme, Robert Walker and screenwriter Peter Viertel.

LANA TURNER

Promoted as "The Sweater Girl," Lana Turner became a sensation playing platinum-haired, on-the-make types in such classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Bad and the Beautiful. She was a scandal-ridden dime-store goddess on-screen and off Did Frank Sinatra catch her red-handed in bed with Ava Gardner or did he misinterpret an innocent pajama party for two? Did she or did her young daughter stab to death her hoodlum lover, Johnny Stompanato? Turner was famous for showing up for work black-and-blue after trysts with rough lovers. Gloria Swanson dismissed her as "not even an actress--only a trollop." Turner herself said, "Sex was so much what I symbolized, so much of my image, that I closed myself off to the pleasures of the act." Closed off or not, Turner married seven times (musician Artie Shaw, muscleman Lex Barker and businessman Bob Topping were among her official mates) and allegedly racked up a love roster believed to have included attorney Greg Bautzer, Robert Taylor, Desi Arnaz, Richard Burton, Tommy Dorsey, Robert Evans, Clark Gable, John Garfield, Howard Hughes, Dean Martin, Tyrone Power, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, Robert Stack and Robert Wagner, plus at least one gas station attendant.

GENE TIERNEY

If Gene Tierney's otherworldly beauty made her appear as haunted as she was haunting in such '40s films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Leave Her to Heaven, that was nothing compared with her life offscreen. She was reputed during her life to have had relationships with Kirk Douglas, Howard Hughes, Prince Aly Khan, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Victor Mature, Tyrone Power, Mickey Rooney, George Sanders, Robert Sterling, singer/actor Rudy Vallee, studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and Spencer Tracy (who said of her, "Although she was beautiful in her films, they couldn't quite capture all of her. Fortunately, I did, even if it was late in my life"). But the defining event of Tierney's life occurred apart from romantic exploits. When Tierney was pregnant for the first time (her husband was noted fashion designer Oleg Cassini), she contracted measles, which left her daughter retarded and in need of lifelong institutionalization. Wracked with guilt, Tierney later suffered a breakdown, was hospitalized, and stayed out of the movies for years. She later remarried and returned intermittently to the screen, but as one of the most exquisite beauties ever captured on film, she stands as an eloquent emblem of all that beauty cannot protect one from.

INGRID BERGMAN

Some of the most privately passionate Hollywood .stars have projected wholesome, radiant sexuality on-screen. Swedish import Ingrid Bergman, unequaled before or since in the adoration she won from audiences and critics, was one of them. On-screen she was particularly natural and glowing in roles that required masochism and self-denial. Offscreen, she unapologetically embraced sensuality with men for whom she cared deeply. Anthony Quinn said of her, "I reckon there wasn't a man who came within a mile of her who didn't fall in love with her." Having starred in Casablanca and Spellbound and won a Best Actress Oscar for Gaslight while still in her twenties, she had the talent and power to enhance her unique loveliness in the feast of temptation Hollywood inevitably presents. In 1950, while married to the Swedish physician who'd seen her through her ascension to stardom, she became pregnant by director Roberto Rossellini, provoking a public furor impossible to fully appreciate today. How could the transcendently beautiful, almost saintly Bergman do such a thing? What fans didn't realize was that Bergman was given to love affairs so incendiary that Allied Hitchcock, for whom she starred in three films, was purportedly moved to observe uncharitably of her, "She'd do it with doorknobs." Her biographers disagree as to whom Bergman merely captivated as opposed to actually bedded, but a cumulative list of alleged romances would include Yul Brynner, photographer Robert Capa, musician Larry Adler, director Victor Fleming, playwright Robert Anderson, Gary Cooper, Joseph Cotten, Leslie Howard, Burgess Meredith and Spencer Tracy.

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