Anne Helen Petersen’s Scandals of Classic Hollywood column is consistently one of the best features at The Hairpin, even for those among us who have never heard of any of these actors because we barely have the attention span to sit through a modern-day movie, let alone one in black and white where the married couples are sleeping in separate beds.
The latest installment has particularly broad appeal—it’s about Ronald Reagan. Read it and then make your way through the archives for stories about the cultural importance of fame and gossip filtered through the lives of all-too-human movie stars.