10 Scandalous Stars of the Silent Screen

Recently, I found one of my co-workers glued to the Britney-cam live feed on CNN.com. During the ensuing conversation on the ridiculous nature of stars "nowadays," I began to recall the ridiculous (and tragic) behavior of stars "back in the day" as well. Here are 10 celebrities and their scandals you may or may not be familiar with.

1. Mabel Normand

Mabel Normand (1895 - 1930) was one of the most popular comediennes of the silent era. After embarking on a relationship with legendary director Mack Sennett, Normand worked side-by-side with other notable (and scandalous) stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle. In 1918, after her relationship with Sennett dissolved, Normand descended into alcoholism and narcotics abuse. Eventually pulling her life back together, Normand became the last person to see director William Desmond Taylor alive (see below), after Taylor was shot and killed only moments after Normand left his Hollywood home. The two had been friends and exchanged literature (yes, literally), and although she was never considered a serious suspect, newspaper rumors ran wild about her drug use and connections with Arbuckle. In 1924 she was involved in another scandal when her chauffeur shot her lover with Normand's own pistol. Never far from the headlines, she died of tuberculosis at the age of 35.

2. Jean Harlow

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Jean Harlow (1911-1937), namesake for Nicole Ritchie's baby, seems in many ways to be early cinema's Anna Nicole Smith. Rising to fame at the end of the silent era as a sex symbol of the 1930s, the "Blonde Bombshell" was plagued with scandal all of her short life. Her father was a connected mobster, nude photos were taken of her at the age of 17, and she had a reported abortion of a child fathered by her one-time fiancee William Powell. However, Harlow's most recognized scandal involved her second husband Paul Bern, an intellectual luminary of Hollywood over 22 years her senior. On September 5, 1932 just months after their wedding, Bern was found shot in the head, sprawled in front of a bedroom mirror and drenched in Jean's perfume. A note accompanied his body, which was ruled a suicide, that confirmed rumors Bern suffered from an impotence which he found too embarrassing to live with. Harlow's own death a few years later was again tabloid fodder. Though the official cause of death was from kidney disease that became more aggressive after a string of illnesses, at the time many (untrue) myths suggested Harlow's kidneys were damaged because of beatings from her husband Paul, or that the bleach from her hair had seeped into her brain and killed her.