To say that Hollywood has a sexual harassment problem would be a gross understatement. Following a barrage of reports about producer Harvey Weinstein and director James Toback, more and more women have come forward to share their own stories of sexual misconduct and assault. Making these allegations all the more harrowing is how closely they follow a decades-long pattern of predatory behavior. Case in point: a 1945 interview with Maureen O'Hara, one in which the Irish actress describes being sexually harassed on a film set.
The 72-year-old article was originally published in The Mirror but has made its way into the twenty-first century thanks to a tweet posted earlier this month by pianist James Rhodes. O'Hara, who starred in films like The Quiet Man, How Green Was My Valley, and Miracle on 34th Street, says that after rejecting producers' and directors' sexual advances she was labeled a "cold potato without sex appeal."
"I am so upset with it that I am ready to quit Hollywood. It's got so bad I hate to come to work in the morning," she said at the time. "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 word around town that I am not a woman-that I am a cold piece of marble statuary."
