In the 1920’s-50’s movie studio productions had a lot of power over actors that worked for them. Many beautiful actresses where told that they couldn’t get married or pregnant to keep their bombshell status. If an actress happened to get pregnant they had the say on what happened. Actresses that had to face these outcomes against their will include Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Lana Turner and many others.

Jean Harlow for one example got pregnant due to an affair with a co star, the company she was working for made an arrangement for her to undergo treatment in a hospital and claimed to the public the visit was for bedrest and only seen by her private doctors and nurses which the truth later came out on the real reason of her visit.

Jeanette McDonald fell pregnant in 1935, it was said that the studio boss stated that the problem should be dealt with and soon after Jeanette was admitted into a hospital with an ‘ear infection’

Judy Garland known for her role in the famous Wizard of Oz also fell victim to not having a choice. At the height of her career, Judy fell pregnant to her husband and was pressured into getting an abortion by him and her mother. The company she worked for at the time were even more distraught at this and persuaded Judys mother and husband to put pressure on her to have an abortion as it would cost them millions if she didn’t. Judy talked about this occurrence were here mother was driving her somewhere, Judy asked where they were going and her mother replied never mind, you”ll see. Her mother walked her into the office which was a clinic to have the procedure done which left everyone satisfied with the result. Unfortunately this was not the only abortion Judy was forced into getting.

These hollywood stars were adored by many for their innocence, beauty and talent but behind the scenes they faced their own traumas that would shock the world if they were known at the time.

In 1931 Joan Crawford, estranged from her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., became pregnant with what she believed was Clark Gable’s child and MGM head of publicity Howard Strickling arranged for an abortion. Rather than reveal the truth, Crawford told Fairbanks that during the filming of Rain on Catalina Island, she slipped on the deck of a ship and lost the baby.

Crawford’s rival Bette Davis also willingly chose to have abortions for the sake of her career. Davis was the breadwinner for her entire family—her mother and sister, and her husband, Harmon Nelson, whom she married in 1932. If she’d had a child in 1934, she told her biographer Charlotte Chandler in The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, she would’ve “missed the biggest role in her life thus far”—that of Mildred in Of Human Bondage, which earned Davis her first Oscar nomination. Other great parts—“Jezebel, Judith, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Margo Channing”—may not have followed, either. “But I didn’t miss any of these roles, and I didn’t miss having a family,” she said. Later in life, Davis had three children.

Some actresses struggled with whether or not to keep their child. Mexican screen siren Lupe Velez committed suicide in 1944 because she was pregnant by her lover Harald Ramond, who wouldn’t marry her. A devout Catholic, she declined to call “Doctor Killkare” (“the joke name for Tinseltown’s leading abortionist,” according to Kenneth Anger in Hollywood Babylon), and downed 75 Seconal instead, according to Hollywood Babylon.