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Seduction begins at an MGM sponsored orgy at the Ambassador Hotel, as told through the eyes of one of the attendees, a young female screenwriter named Frederica Sagor. Sagor would go on to pen one of the frankest memoirs of 1920s Hollywood ever written, revealing the systematic sexual exploitation of women in the film industry by men like Marshall Neilan -- one of Howard Hughes’s early mentors. Frederica’s story also details how tough it was for a woman to hold on to power behind the scenes in the film industry as Hollywood evolved.
SHOW NOTES:
Sources:
Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood by Karina Longworth
The Shocking Miss Pilgrim by Frederica Sagor Maas
Lois Weber in Early Hollywood by Shelley Stamp
The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro and outro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca. The outro song this week is “It Could Be You” by Blur.
Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode:
Reflectif (Artist Unknown)
The Charleston 1 Hakan Ericsson
Club Noir 4-John Ahlin
Waltz for Cello 3—Jonatan Jarpehag
42nd and Broadway (Artist Unknown)
Got That Feeling-Peter Sandberg
My Simple Thing—Peter Sandberg
Chamber String Rock-Hakan Ericsson
Kansas City Flashback 1-Magnus Ringbloom
Sad Drama 4-Merlean
Loser-Anders Ekengren
Black and White Memories 3-Martin Hall
Jazz And Blue Piano 1-Jonathan Jarpehag
Viona’s Lullaby-Peter Sandberg
Sunset—Kai Vogel
Marshall Neilan and Mary Pickford on set, c. 1920's | Photo via the Mary Pickford Foundation
Credits:
This episode was written, narrated and produced by Karina Longworth.
Editor: Olivia Natt.
Research and production assistant: Lindsey D. Schoenholtz.
Social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.
Logo design: Teddy Blanks.
Frederica Sagor Maas