This Irish actress called out sexual harassment in Hollywood in 1945
As more and more men and women come forward to share their experiences of sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood, a resurfaced news article from the 1940s shows that this not a new issue.
An image of the 1945 article, first published in The Mirror, began circulating online after it was shared on Twitter by British concert pianist, James Rhodes.
It reports how Irish-born actress, Maureen O'Hara, accused a Hollywood producer of calling her a “cold potato without sex appeal” because she refused to have have sex with him.
This was reported in 1945. What a woman pic.twitter.com/6cTFGgadNf
— James Rhodes (@JRhodesPianist) November 4, 2017
“I'm so upset,” she told The Mirror.
“I am ready to quit Hollywood. It's got so bad I hate to come to work in the morning.”
She went on to explain how producers and directors had made attempts to damage her reputation because she turned them down.
“I'm a helpless victim of a Hollywood whispering campaign. Because I don't let the producer and director kiss me every morning or let them paw me they have spread around town that I am not a woman, that I am a cold piece of marble statuary.”
In 2004, she told The Daily Telegraph how standing up for herself harmed her career.
“I wouldn't throw myself on the casting couch, and I know that cost me parts. I wasn't going to play the whore. That wasn't me.”
Maureen died on October 24, 2015, at the age of 95. She is best known for her roles in The Quiet Man, Miracle on 34th Street and The Parent Trap.
