Old Hollywood Stars Who Were Forced to Live a Double Life

#1: Raymond Burr Invented Dead Wives and a Son Who Never Existed

Television audiences knew Raymond Burr as the calm, commanding star of Perry Mason and Ironside. Behind that dependable image, Burr lived privately with longtime partner Robert Benevides. During a far less accepting era, however, stories about wives and fatherhood helped disguise his real personal life.

Burr claimed that two wives had died and that a son named Michael had died from leukemia at age ten. Later researchers found no reliable evidence that either woman or the child existed. His one documented marriage ended quickly, while his relationship with Benevides lasted decades.

#2: Sammy Davis Jr. Was Threatened Into Ending His Interracial Romance

Few entertainers could match Sammy Davis Jr., the singer, dancer, actor, and Rat Pack star who conquered Broadway, Las Vegas, and Hollywood. Yet even his enormous talent could not protect him from the intense racism surrounding his secret 1957 relationship with rising actress Kim Novak.

When Columbia chief Harry Cohn learned about them, Davis reportedly received a mob threat warning him to marry a Black woman immediately. He ended the romance, paid singer Loray White to become his wife, and entered a brief marriage created mainly to quiet the scandal.

#3: Rock Hudson Hid Stayed in the Closet to Protect His Heartthrob Career

Rock Hudson spent his career playing the kind of man female audiences were expected to desire. The towering star of Giant, Magnificent Obsession, and Pillow Talk became one of the 1950s’ greatest romantic idols, but maintaining that image required careful, constant protection from the truth.

Away from the cameras, Hudson was gay during an era when coming out could destroy a leading man’s career. His agent stopped a magazine from exposing him, managed damaging rumors, and promoted a publicly straight image that included Hudson’s three-year marriage to actress Phyllis Gates.

#4: Universal Turned Bernard Schwartz Into the All-American Tony Curtis

Bernard Schwartz grew up in the Bronx as the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. By the time audiences saw him in Some Like It Hot, Spartacus, and Sweet Smell of Success, Universal had polished him into Tony Curtis, one of Hollywood’s smoothest all-American heartthrobs.

After signing with Universal, Schwartz became Anthony Curtis, with “Curtis” taken from a surname in his mother’s family and “Anthony” inspired by the novel Anthony Adverse. The studio later shortened it to Tony. Lessons in speech, riding, and fencing completed the new leading-man package.

#5: Loretta Young Hid Her Pregnancy Before “Adopting” Her Own Daughter

Loretta Young was one of Hollywood’s most polished leading ladies, winning an Oscar for The Farmer’s Daughter and later starring in her own television series. Her spotless public image was especially valuable in the 1930s, which made an unexpected pregnancy a dangerous secret to hide.

While filming Call of the Wild in 1935, Young became pregnant by married co-star Clark Gable. She gave birth secretly, placed her daughter Judy with caregivers, then publicly “adopted” her 19-month-old daughter to protect her career.