Dear LPG,

I think people of all ages know what is meant by the two word phrase ‘casting couch’. 

I, like many, have seriously mixed opinions about the Pandora’s Box that was opened just after Jimmy Savile’s death in 2011, and cannot begin to fathom the effects that some of the children and young people involved have endured.  Since then, so many victims have come forward with the consequence that many famous men from all avenues have been named and shamed, with some proving to have been put through harrowing financial and career-altering experiences despite the fact that they have been found to be innocent.

First, the finger was pointed at, the music industry with many DJs accused, and since then politicians, sportsmen and so many other public figures. Now the focus is spotlighting the film industry again.  I really wonder why the whole episode only came to light so recently.

A close family relative of mine was a cousin of Joan Collins the actress and had aspirations of becoming an actress herself.  She became Pearl White’s body double although it was said that that actress, who was very famous at the time, performed many of her own stunts.  Back in the early 20th century the casting couch was really well known as the best way for young girls to ‘get on’ in that industry; so well known, in fact, that her parents put pay to any acting career that she may have gone on to have.

I am talking about the film industry in particular when I say that it is ironic that as early as the 1920s and 1930s a girl who wanted an acting career was looked down upon because of the things that it was accepted that she would have been expected to do to move her career forward, and it appears that, over the years, little has changed on that front.  In spite of all the visual, literary, historic and factual information available the internet is peppered with accounts of how many actresses, who have celebrity status now, achieved it.  I also cannot help but be aware of the way that promiscuity has raised over the years, and parents don’t have anything like the same degree of control over their children these days.   So, armed with the more specific knowledge and history that is available to young aspiring actresses now, perhaps more of the young women who opt for that line of work know that success will bring fame and riches with it, but they also have to be more than aware of what they may have to do to achieve that success.

These days fame and success is craved by so many that I also wonder if some of the people who have more recently admitted to being victims of harassment are not doing so to secure their little slice of the fame and compensation cake.

XX, internet land…

(►►►)   (►►►)     (►►►)