10 Golden Age Scandals Hollywood Wants You To Forget

By her twenties, Welsh émigré Peg Entwistle had achieved more than most. After settling in New York City Entwhistle began carving out a successful theatrical career appearing as Hedwig in Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, a role that reportedly inspired the legendary Bette Davis to take up acting, and in a long-running Broadway production of the play Tommy (not to be confused with The Who’s rock musical of the same name). But then the Great Depression hit and Broadway tickets sales suffered, so Peg headed out west to find fame and fortune in Tinseltown.

Roles were scant, however, and the competition fierce. Though Entwistle found work in a few stage productions, when her big break rolled around with the movie Thirteen Women the vast majority of her role ended up on the cutting room floor. Fearing herself a failure and clearly disillusioned by the fame machine, Peg Entwistle took off to the iconic Hollywood sign and after ascending a maintenance ladder, leapt to her death from the letter ‘H’. She was just 24 years old.

Her body was found two days later with a suicide note that read “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago it would have saved a lot of pain”. A sad end to a young women’s once promising life and proof that all that glitters is not gold in Tinseltown.