| Hollywoodland | Apr 3 2021 |
Another case of he said (they did) she said (they didn't).
Above is a cover of National Enquirer that hit newsstands today in 1960 with a cheery looking Debbie Reynolds on the cover. Editors promise the truth about her romance with Glenn Ford, but the quotes around “romance” tell the story—she there wasn't one. The two starred together in the films It Started with a Kiss and The Gazebo, both released in 1959, and the affair rumors quickly sprang up.
Have you noticed a pattern of actors saying there were sexual relationships but actresses saying there weren't? If we were dealing with regular people we'd side with the men maybe 10% of the time, but in the case of movie stars we aren't sure actors had much to gain by lying. On the other hand, during the sexually unliberated years of the ’50s and ’60s actresses had plenty to gain by appearing to be as close to virginal as possible.
So it's another classic case of Hollywood he said/she said. Ford's biographer, who happens to be his son, said there was a physical relationship. How can he be sure? Several ways, perhaps, but notably, Glenn Ford taped all his calls—which is a story we may get into another time—so maybe there was confirmation from those that he and Reynolds were doing the nasty. In any case, we're really just interested in this cool cover shot. Reynolds does polka dots with style.
