How a Hollywood Studio Got Away With Rape in 1937
In the late 1930s, MGM was the greatest of all the Hollywood studios, the place famous for having more stars than there were in the heavens. Patricia Douglas was not one of them. Instead, she was a young wannabe, a girl who lived with her mother and had never had any sexual encounter — until the fateful night when she was invited to take part in what she thought was an upcoming movie.
In fact, along with dozens of other underage women, she was being brought in to entertain hundreds of salesmen who had flocked to Los Angeles for an MGM convention. Cigar smoke swirled, champagne bottles were popped, and by the end of the evening, Douglas, then a 20-year-old virgin (reports at the time, and with the above photo, wrongly said she was 17), was the victim of rape.