10 Golden Age Scandals Hollywood Wants You To Forget

Walter Wanger was regarded as one of Hollywood’s more intellectual film producers and proved his bent for social consciousness with politically themed films like The President Vanishes and You Only Live Once. His second wife Joan Bennett came from an acting family and had found success herself in films like Little Women and The Woman in the Window. A formidable couple indeed but a pair whose relationship, and possible extramarital affairs, led to a shocking – and not to mention painful – crime.

In late 1951, Bennett met with her long-time agent Jennings Lang to discuss an upcoming TV show but the end of their meeting was disturbed when Wanger, believing the two were having an affair, shot twice at Lang with one bullet hitting him somewhere in the groin. Lurid details are blurry so the exact fate of Lang’s groin is unknown, but legend has it that his balls took the brunt of the bullet’s impact. Lang did, however, go on to have three sons so we’d assume that his testicles were at least somewhat functional.

Nevertheless, Wanger ended up doing four months of jail time after a trial that used temporary insanity as a defence for his actions. Funnily enough, while Bennett’s film career suffered drastically in the wake of the shooting, Wanger returned to a successful career after his release producing critically acclaimed films like Riot in Cell Block 11, a movie partially inspired by his own experiences whilst serving time in prison.