Old Hollywood's Most Scandalous Affairs

The Golden Age of Hollywood has long since enamored the world thanks to its glitz, glamour, and legendary movie stars, as famous faces like Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor all dominated the screen and stage and kept the shutterbugs hopping. Living under a perpetual spotlight meant that nothing stayed a secret for long, and many celebrities learned the hard way that their romantic trysts and forbidden affairs could end up becoming juicy tabloid fodder greedily consumed by the masses.

Elizabeth Taylor's love life garnered both intense media fascination and scrutiny, as her many high-profile relationships and shocking liaisons made headlines throughout her transcendent career. Similarly, Ole Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra was known for being quite the ladies' man and never shied away from pursuing Tinseltown's most talented and beautiful, his romantic conquests becoming the stuff of legend in the decades since.

From the Vatican condemning Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's globe-trotting dalliance to Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner's illicit late-night joyride, old Hollywood has seen its fair share of jaw-dropping affairs that remain truly scandalous.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall famously fell in love during the production of the 1944 film "To Have and Have Not," the 44-year-old Bogart having been married to his third wife, Mayo Methot, when he fell head-over-heels for the 19-year-old rising star. Their emotional connection was palpable from the start of the shoot, and Bogart affectionately referred to Bacall as "Baby," the pair developing a mentor/student dynamic as the leading man taught the then-newcomer the cinematic ropes and became her fierce protector.

Bogart divorced Methot and married Bacall on May 21, 1945. The couple's 25-year age gap and scandalous affair initially caused a splash in the industry, though they ultimately became regarded as one of Hollywood's most revered couples. "I fairly often have thought how lucky I was," Bacall told Vanity Fair in 2011. "I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life."

The couple starred in four films together and had two children, remaining married until his death at 57 on January 14, 1957, the heavy-smoking actor passing away from esophageal cancer and leaving Bacall a widow at 32. "When Bogie and I were married, the Hollywood gloom set shook their collective heads and moaned, 'It won't last.' We knew better. What the catastrophe-anticipators didn't consider was that the Bogarts were in love," Bacall later reflected on their profound relationship via Biography. 

Hollywood's most open secret was the enduring love affair between Tinseltown titans Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who fell in love while making the 1942 film "Woman of the Year" despite Tracy still legally being married to Louise Treadwell. A devout Catholic, Tracy refused to divorce his wife even after they first became estranged in 1933, the pair remaining friendly with one another and publicly acknowledging their separation to the media; they subsequently reconciled in 1935.

Though Tracy and Hepburn's relationship was well known to those inside their social circle, the couple's romance was kept under wraps by the studio and hidden from the public for decades. They intentionally avoided one another in social outings and didn't live together out of consideration for Treadwell, though Hepburn eventually moved in with Tracy after he was hospitalized in 1963 for pulmonary edema.

Tracy died of a heart attack at 67 on June 10, 1967, just days after the couple finished production of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." Hepburn had been home with the actor in their cottage when he passed away, and she did not attend his funeral out of respect for his wife and children. It wasn't until Treadwell's death in 1983 that Hepburn publicly acknowledged her romance with Tracy. "I honestly don't know. I can only say that I could never have left him. [We] just passed 27 years together in what was to me absolute bliss," she said at the time, according to The Rake. 

During the production of "Stromboli," leading lady Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini began a highly scandalous affair that resulted in a media firestorm and the starlet becoming pregnant; she gave birth to their son Robin in February 1950, the same month the film premiered. Both Bergman and Rossellini had been married at the time and divorced their respective spouses to be together, yet the romance led to the prolific actor being denounced on the floor by the United States Senate.

Senator Edwin C. Johnson had referred to Bergman as his favorite actor, yet stated she "had perpetrated an assault upon the institution of marriage" and even declared her "a powerful influence for evil" on March 14, 1950 (via Parade). Johnson's ridiculous tirade and the controversy surrounding Bergman caused her to flee the country for Italy, where she resided for five years with Rossellini. The two married on May 24, 1950, and would welcome twin daughters, Isotta Ingrid and Isabella Rossellini, though they ultimately divorced in 1957.

Following the Hollywood-rocking affair, Bergman received letters of support from famous figures like Ernest Hemingway and Cary Grant, and she triumphantly returned from her exile by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1956's "Anastasia." "People saw me in 'Joan of Arc' and declared me a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman, another human being," Bergman was quoted as saying (via Scandinavian Standard) about the scandal and her wholesome on-screen persona. 

Undeniably one of old Hollywood's most shocking, eyebrow-raising scandals was between screen siren Elizabeth Taylor and singer Eddie Fisher, as the two became romantic following the devastating death of her husband Mike Todd in a plane crash in 1958. (Taylor had married Todd in 1957, and they welcomed a daughter the following year before his tragic death.)

The brunette beauty had sought comfort from their mutual friend Fisher, who happened to be married to Taylor's close friend and fellow actor Debbie Reynolds. The affair led to widespread outrage, and Taylor was declared a "homewrecker" by the media, the scandal destroying her friendship with Reynolds.

Taylor and Fisher got married in Las Vegas in 1959 following his divorce from Reynolds, though their tumultuous marriage proved to be short-lived when the "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" star had an affair with Richard Burton in 1962. Taylor would later reveal that she only married Fisher out of grief and was able to reconcile with Reynolds in the 1960s. In the documentary "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes," the actor shared her deep regret for the whole affair (via The New York Post).

"I don't remember too much about my marriage to him, except that it was one big, friggin' awful mistake," she revealed in the film. "I never loved Eddie. I liked him. I felt sorry for him. And I liked talking to him. But he was not Mike."

Throughout her illustrious Hollywood reign, Elizabeth Taylor's love life was the subject of intense fascination by the masses, as the cinema icon was married a stunning eight times. But Welsh actor Richard Burton was the only husband Taylor married twice. Burton and Taylor ended up tying the knot after striking up a notorious love affair in 1962 during the filming of "Cleopatra." Taylor was still married to Eddie Fisher while Burton was with Sybil Williams when their romance first became the talk of Tinseltown.

The couple caused global buzz when they were infamously photographed on a yacht in Italy together. The Vatican even condemned them for "erotic vagrancy" and proclaimed it an "insult to the nobility of the hearth," while the U.S. Congress even attempted to bar them from returning to the country. Taylor and Burton both divorced their partners and were married on March 15, 1964, and they would continue their on-again/off-again romance in the ensuing decade.

"I fell in love at once," Burton said of meeting Taylor (via Town & Country). "She was like a mirage of beauty of the ages, irresistible like the pull of gravity." They remained together for a decade before divorcing and reconciling once again in 1975, their second marriage lasting less than a year; they remained close the rest of their lives. "I was still madly in love with him the day he died. I think he still loved me, too," Taylor told Vogue (via Biography). 

Raven-haired screen siren Ava Gardner's explosive relationship with legendary crooner Frank Sinatra started out with a defiant bang, as sparks flew between the two in 1949 when he was still married to Nancy Barbato. The Hollywood heavyweights famously attended a party in Palm Springs and decided to go on a little drunken escapade together, taking a joyride and shooting out storefront windows with their pistols (according to People). Naturally, Sinatra's publicist got them out of jail in the middle of the night after they were arrested.

"I looked at her and said, 'Jesus, you got prettier since last time I saw ya,'" Sinatra reportedly said in Gardner's biography (via Women's World). "This was not the young girl from Carolina at the studio. This was a woman who was glorious." The pair had first met in 1943 when Gardner was married to her first husband, Mickey Rooney, and Sinatra to his childhood sweetheart Barbato, and even then, their connection was electric. Ole Blue Eyes eventually divorced his wife in 1951 and married Gardner 72 hours after it was finalized.

The two were married from 1951 to 1957, and their relationship woes were constantly splashed in the tabloids, as they fought and loved one another fiercely. Their romance was plagued by infidelity, jealousy, and two abortions, and by 1953 they separated; Sinatra and Gardner divorced in 1957 but remained close friends until her death in 1990, and the iconic singer would later call Gardner the love of his life.

Debonair leading man Cary Grant and the vivacious Sophia Loren began an affair together after appearing in 1957's "The Pride and the Passion," with the actors later reuniting the following year for the romantic comedy "Houseboat." Grant's wife Betsy Drake was initially supposed to star opposite her husband in the film when Loren was cast, as their chemistry had been palpable in their previous project and the Italian star was steadily garnering international recognition.

During her early days in Hollywood, Loren had been in a long-term relationship with film producer Carlo Ponti, though Grant and Loren ended up falling for one another despite their respective partners. She detailed their intense connection in her memoir "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life" and the complications it brought forth. "I was charmed by his dry wit, his wisdom, his affectionate manner, his experience," she wrote (via Best Life).

"We started spending more and more time together. Both of us soon realized that the feelings between us were beginning to be laced with love — and we were scared." The affair ended after they completed filming, though Grant hoped in vain to rekindle their romance; Loren decided to marry Ponti instead. "Cary belonged to another world in America," she told The Sydney Morning Herald. "I felt that I would never fit in there. I would never have a future there because of my nationality. I was scared to change completely in life without knowing if this relationship or quasi-relationship was going on."

Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh are two of classic Hollywood's most prolific figures, and they began an affair in 1937 while making "Fire Over England," despite Olivier being married to Jill Esmond and Leigh to Herbert Leigh Holman. The English actors continued their liaison when they appeared in a stage production of "Hamlet," portraying star-crossed lovers Hamlet and Ophelia. Olivier and Leigh revealed their romance to their spouses and subsequently divorced them to be together.

"I couldn't help myself with Vivien. No man could," Olivier said in the book "Lord Larry: A Personal Portrait of Laurence Oliver" (via Harper's Bazaar). "I hated myself for cheating on Jill, but then I had cheated before, but this was something different. This wasn't just out of lust. This was love that I really didn't ask for but was drawn into." They eventually married in 1940 and stayed together for 20 years, their relationship tested and strained by Leigh's public bouts with her mental health.

Despite Leigh starring in acclaimed films including "Gone with the Wind" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" (for which she won an Academy Award), the actor was labeled difficult by Hollywood due to her frequent struggles with depression, miscarriages, and bipolar disorder. Olivier and Leigh divorced in 1960. Tragically, she died seven years later at 53 from tuberculosis; her ex-husband traveled to her home the day after to "pray for forgiveness for all the evils that had sprung up between us" (via New York Post). 

Known as "The Love Goddess" throughout Tinseltown, Rita Hayworth more than lived up to the nickname and had many romantic suitors, though fellow star Glenn Ford was arguably her most enduring. The pair famously starred together in multiple films, including the 1946 noir classic "Gilda," during which they began a long, sporadic relationship that spanned decades. Hayworth had been married to Orson Welles when their romantic dalliance first began, and according to Ford's biography, Hayworth was the love of his life.

She had allegedly gotten pregnant by Ford during the production of 1948's "The Loves of Carmen" and gone to France to have an abortion, yet the harrowing ordeal didn't hinder their intimate relationship. Hayworth and Ford starred in five films together between 1946 and 1965, becoming one of cinema's most sought-after romantic pairings. Though they never had a traditional relationship, the movie stars remained permanently in each other's lives until Hayworth's death in 1987.

"They never married because either one or the other was married to someone else," his son Peter Ford told Closer. "It was a relationship that lasted many, many decades." The actor was so smitten with Hayworth that he even bought a home next door to hers in 1960 despite her marriage to screenwriter James Hill. "That's where he built his dream house. The day after he finished that house and moved into it, she filed for divorce. The two of them were back together again," Peter further revealed. 

Though they are now regarded as one of Hollywood's most beloved couples, the origins of silver screen stars Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's romance were less than wholesome. The two first met in 1953 during the production of the Broadway show "Picnic" and developed a deep bond with one another in the ensuing years; their mutual attraction and friendship were widely known amongst their inner circle despite his marriage to Jackie Witte.

Newman had been married to Witte since 1949, and the couple shared three children together, but when he was cast opposite Woodward in the 1957 drama "The Long, Hot Summer," their romance intensified, and Newman divorced her to marry Woodward in 1958. "Paul and I were good friends before we were lovers. We really liked each other," Woodward said (via Daily Mail). "We could talk to each other, we could tell each other anything without fear of ridicule or rejection. There was trust."

The cinema legend remained devoted to Woodward, and they were famously married for fifty years, during which they welcomed daughters Nell, Melissa, and Clea and relocated to Westport, Connecticut, to enjoy a more private life. The couple celebrated their golden anniversary in 2008 with their closest friends and family, Newman declaring via Biography, "I feel privileged to love that woman. That I am married to her is the joy of my life." Their decades-spanning romance ended when Newman passed away on September 26, 2008, at 83.