10 Golden Age Scandals Hollywood Wants You To Forget

Having a child out of wedlock today is no big deal but back in Oscar-winning Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman’s heyday it was quite the scandal. The Casablanca and Joan of Arc star was working with Italian director Roberto Rossellini on his film Stromboli when the pair, both married, fell in love and began an affair that resulted in Bergman falling pregnant.

Their on-set affair caused ructions throughout the US and Bergman’s previously virtuous public image was all but destroyed. Censorship boards and religious organisations called for a banning of Bergman’s films and talk show host Ed Sullivan refused to have the actress on his show. An American senator, Edwin C. Johnson, even stuck his oar in condemning Bergman “a powerful influence for evil” and dismissing Rossellini as a “common love thief”. The public outcry caused Bergman to retreat to Italy where she gave birth to her son Renato and married Rossellini in 1950 once their respective divorces were finalised. Though the couple would be divorced themselves by 1957, they also managed to squeeze in twin daughters, one of whom is actress Isabella Rossellini.

While the scandal took its toll on her acting career, Bergman did return to Hollywood in the mid-1950s when she starred in the historical drama Anastasia. Her performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress – perhaps Tinseltown’s way of apologising for its terrible shunning of the actress a few years previously.