Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - The Weight of Fame: A Hollywood Tragedy

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Talented and beautiful, Molly O'Day is a rising star in 1920s Hollywood. But when Molly's teenage body starts to change and she can no longer fit into the dress she wore when she was 16, the studio wants nothing to do with her. As the scripts dry up and the money runs out, Molly faces a difficult but painfully familiar choice.  For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than adds supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined.

Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history,

separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right Network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin. In the wardrobe department of a Hollywood studio, An 18-year-old called Molly O'Day is trying on a costume. Around her, seams, dresses, tug at fastener's pins gritted between their teeth.

Molly O'Day wore this same dress last year for her star turn in 1927's The Patent Leather Kid. Now it doesn't quite fit. There's nothing strange about that. Molly O'Day is a teenager. Her body is growing, changing. Why should she fit last year's template? And Hollywood costumiers know every trick in the book. They know how to unpick lining, how to let out seams,

how to shift a row of hooks and eyes to the very lip of the fabric. They can just alter this dress, can't they? Alas, no. Molly O'Day and this dress are a problem. because locked away in another room on that studio lot is a contract. It stipulates working hours and exclusivity and something else too.

Molly O'Day must hold the same silhouette forever. As long as she wants to keep working, the body of this young woman must not change. I'm Tim Harford. and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Molly O'Day wasn't her real name. She was born Suzanne Noonan, and she had begun life thousands of miles from Hollywood,

the daughter of an opera singer and a prominent New Jersey judge, and the youngest of 11 children. The family was comfortable until Judge Noonan died young. The banks closed and we became poor. Suzanne recalled. Struggling, Mrs. Noonan sold their home and took her children to Los Angeles where the film industry was exploding.

Movie palaces were springing up amid the orange groves and oil fields. The city was part boomtown, part fantasy machine. I was 14, so I tried acting. I was pretty, a fresh face, so it all took off. Still just a schoolgirl, Suzanne was spotted by Hollywood pioneer Hal Roach. She began acting in his two reels, slapstick comedy shorts, screened before a main feature presentation. It was a brilliant training round.

She learned how to act for camera alongside soon-to-be legends, Laurel and Hardy. But her big break came in 1921. When aged 16, she beat 2,000 other girls to win the role of Curly Callaghan in War Epic, The Patent Leather Kid. General production manager, Al Rocket, was impressed by her raw instinct. One of the problems was finding a suitable actress for the part of the heroine. I told this girl, the story of the Patent Leather Kid, very carefully, and slowly, and she had tears on her eyes when I finished. As Curly Callaghan, Suzanne shape-shifted from flighty nightclub dancer

to tend a nurse on the front lines of the Great War. It was a far cry from the physical comedy she was trained in, but she delivered. Her co-star, Hollywood royalty Richard Barthelmuss, appears to have appreciated her gift for acting too. was a delight to work with. He took me under his wings, so to speak. The studio behind the film, First National Pictures, signed Suzanne to a long-term contract, under which she would star in several features a year. They recognised that in this young woman, they'd discovered two things. A great

talent than someone they could sell. With her dark hair and expressive eyes, Suzanne was ripe for rebranding as a homegrown Celtic starlet. So they gave her a new name. Molly O'Day was born. The Patent Leather Kid was a smash hit. Richard Barthelmus was nominated for an Academy Award, and critics praised Molly's performance too. She is sincere and earnest,

and most competent in a part that demands a great deal, said the New York Times. Proving she was no one-hit wonder, Molly went on to star in a string of popular features. In The Lovelorn, she navigated the pitfalls of youthful romance. In hard-boiled Haggerty, she had a double role, playing both Frenchwoman Germain Benoit and Germain's look-like sister.

In The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, she reunited with Richard Barthelmuss. Molly was also named a Wampus Baby Star, a prestigious accolade bestowed by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers. It wasn't unlike 30 under 30 lists today. Naturally, if you do something good, you get other offers. As a baby star, Molly landed deals to market cosmetic products. appearing in national campaigns for brands such as Lux Toilet Soap.

But more than that, anointment by the Wampus was the definitive seal of approval from the industry's gatekeepers. It signalled to everyone who mattered that Molly O'Day was the next big thing. Her personal life flourished too. She began dating actor and dancer joy. Raft, who described her as one of the sweetest and most gentle women he'd ever met. To the press and the public, Molly had it all. She was being hailed as the miracle girl of Hollywood. Her eyes so swift and so brilliant that the papers called it meteor-like.

An apt description, perhaps. But one that carries a quiet warning. Meteors burn bright, but they also burn fast. Two first national pictures. Molly O'Day wasn't a miracle girl, but an item on a balance sheet. By the 1920s, the movies were a lucrative industry, and the major studios controlled the entire pipeline. They owned the film sets, the distribution networks,

and the movie palaces up and down the country. They farmed their actors out for brand deals and took a cut of the profits. The industry revolved around a vital resource. Starpower. It was the stars, magnetic and beloved, who pulled millions of Americans into the movie theaters each week.

It was those same stars who sold the sheet music, the cosmetic products, and the fashion trends. The stars were the studio's most bankable assets. And so, to minimize risk, studio executives treated them not as partners, but as corporate property. Screenplayers weren't freelancers

who negotiated a new deal with each movie. Instead, they were salaried employees with long-term contracts. Iron-clad agreements that covered everything from working hours and pay to how they should behave in their private lives and who they could marry. The more popular a star became, the greater their power to negotiate perks

such as private dressing rooms, top billing and script approval. But newer stars on the lower rungs of the studio system were little more than cogs in a massive machine. If they stepped out of line, they faced suspension. without pay, or even dismissal. It was a confining, precarious way to live.

It was the people you worked with that became favourites, not the studio, said Molly. You did, as you were told. And what you were told might not just be about your work schedule or your love life. It might also extend to your measurements. Some contracts specified a maximum weight for a performer. Others included clauses about facial and physical disfigurement. And in practice, any bodily change that might result in lower box office returns could be lumped under this vague umbrella.

On the surface, Molly's career was flourishing. But behind the scenes, the scripts stopped pouring in. Molly should have been memorising lines, but instead she found herself waiting at home for work. In the language of the studio system, she was idle. Fan magazine Photo Play reported that Al Rocket summoned the teenager to his office, scrutinized her body, and then delivered a crushing blow.

Molly, you can get as fed as you please. It's your life and you have to live it. But as far as we're concerned, you're through. That is until you get down to the right physical size for our pictures. It was an ultimatum, diet, or else. Molly had gained some weight and first national pictures wasn't happy about it. She hadn't gained much, but the fashion of the day was to be extremely thin, the ideal, the silf-like flapper. And Molly was around 20 pounds heavier than the average screen star of her height.

Fan magazine Photo Play thought it knew how this had happened. Molly didn't dissipate according to accepted standards. She didn't run around with men. She didn't buy Rolls Royces or swimming pools and tie up all her income on down payments. She just bought ice cream and cream puffs and candy. Molly herself recalled things a little differently. Everything I ate seemed to add pounds.

I was a growing kid and I was hungry. And it was the streamline era in the picket. where a girl had to have a figure like a lead pencil. I didn't have that kind. Cautionary tales will return. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh.

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It's the same hosts and the same. Same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHard Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHart's twice as large as the next two combined.

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland,

I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact. So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died.

The Third Way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Spring 1996, 29-year-old Mary Linnon of Boston was planning her wedding. She and her fiancé Tom were hoping to raise a big family, and they were excited about their life together. Mary had promised her mother that they'd go wedding dress shopping, but first she wanted to lose some weight she'd gained over the winter months. She was keen to look and feel her best at her wedding. This was the 1990s.

Trying to look and feel your best meant confronting some unforgiving beauty standards. Emaciated heroin chic was dominating the runways. Meanwhile, Hollywood was pumping out star-studded wedding rom-coms, but the big day wasn't just a rite of passage, but a glossy high-value production with the bride as its flawless star. Mary had been athletic for much of her life, and until now, she hadn't worried about her weight.

Because of a family history of thyroid problems, she decided to consult an endocrinologist who ran some tests. Good news, said the doctor, your thyroid function is perfectly normal. Then she told Mary about a new weight loss treatment called Fenfeng. Across America it was being touted as a miracle for the speed and ease with which it melted away unwanted fat. Fenfenn was actually an off-label combination of two pre-existing drugs. Phenfluoramine, an appetite suppressant, and fentamine, a mild stimulant. Together they performed a clever trick.

Phentamine boosted patients' energy levels, while fenfluramine told the brain to flood its synapses with extra serotonin, creating a feeling of fullness. Mary was intrigued by the little blue and white pills. So the doctor wrote her a prescription. and she started taking them. They worked well. Ten pounds quickly disappeared from Mary's body.

Eleven days into her treatment, she arranged to meet her parents for a round of golf. Out on the course, she suddenly felt dizzy. Her chest tightened. She began to panic. I can't breathe. Mary gasped. I think I'm going to faint.

Towards the end of 1927, first national pictures gave Molly 12 weeks to restrict her calorie intake and fit back into her costume from the patent leather kid. If she couldn't, there'd be consequences. Then, as now, the issue of weight was make or break in Hollywood. To secure a plum roll, Lila Lee once lived on nothing but orange juice.

She dropped eight pounds in less than two weeks. Vilma Banke had to lose 15 pounds before Samuel Goldwyn would hire her. Fan magazines and gossip rags compounded the pressure, incessantly speculating about screen stars measurements and diets, and bluntly acknowledging that an actress's talent was far less important than her figure. As actress and model callous Palmer warned, The saddest sight in the world is that of a pretty girl eating marshmallow Sundays.

The magazines openly shamed Molly, describing her solid flesh. One paper cruelly claimed that, in her effort to slim down, she visited influenza patients, hoping to catch. the disease and lose her appetite. Fans were irked by this coverage and they made it known in their letters to the magazines. I see Molly O'Day is not allowed to be a star

because she's put on a few pounds of weight. Wrote one fan. If directors chose stars that have a few curves instead of girls who look like sticks, I would be better pleased. But such voices didn't convince studio executives. Molly's agreement with First National didn't require her to hold to a specific weight range, but did include the facial and physical disfigurement clause.

The studio seems to have argued that Molly's adolescent weight gain was a kind of disfigurement, and they suspended her without pay. We don't know exactly what Diet Molly went on, but in the 1920s there were plenty of options to choose from. In what the press called a reducing craze, women chased the waif-like flapper form with all sorts of punishing regimens. Some ate nothing but grapefruit, oranges, toast and eggs for 18 days straight.

Others gave up potatoes, butter and sweets, and submitted to regular enemers. a lawless market for reducing AIDS boomed. Laxative gums, reducing girdles, soaps that promised to dissolve fat away. Wash away double chins and years of age with Lamar's 50 cents a bar. Other methods were even more sinister. It was rumoured that if you swallowed tapeworms,

The parasites would absorb anything you ate. Then there were over-the-counter pills like riddo fat, which contained concentrated thyroid extract. In 1926, one dieter took too many of these and quickly developed heart disease. She died soon afterwards at the age of 33. Whatever solution Molly chose, it didn't work. Twelve weeks after Owl Rocket's ultimatum,

she still couldn't fit into the dress. She was replaced as the lead in a picture called The Barker, and again suspended. Molly managed to keep herself busy. Recalling how difficult life had been for her mother, she founded a relief association for women who needed help with childcare but had nowhere else to turn. All the same, this suspension from work, now nearly six months long,

must have been bitterly disappointing for Molly, not to mention humiliating. The question of how to win back her career was never far from her mind. By July 1928, Molly's allotted idle time was coming to an end. Al Rocket sent his boss a memo. Molly all day starts back on Salaried Day. We are discontinuing her bonus until we find out what condition she is in and just where she will fit into this year's production.

He needn't have worried. When Molly returned to the studio, she was thoroughly reduced. Triumphant, she donned the costume she had worn as Curly Callaghan. But the ordeal had left its mark. Maybe the studio still didn't think she was. thin enough. Maybe the relentless scrutiny had bred in Molly a deep internal panic. Either way, the goalposts had moved, and fitting into the dress no longer represented victory. Maintaining a slim silhouette through diet would be a grueling lifelong battle. But what if there was a

permanent solution. Everyone in Hollywood knew that there were doctors who, for a fee, would remake the body. Surgeons who tightened wrinkles, altered noses, and sliced fat clean away. Boston, 1996, Mary Linnon's distressing symptoms continued. She visited her doctor's office to ask if the dizziness and shortness of breath could be a side effect of her new medication and was told by the office nutritionist to stop taking Fenfenn. After that, her symptoms improved.

But a few months later, they were back and worse. Flights of stairs left Mary totally exhausted. Her legs and stomach began to swell with water retention. She felt like she was suffocating, and she collapsed at work. Eventually, Mary was so unwell that she and Tom were forced to postpone the wedding. In November, matters came to her head. Mary was rushed to a Boston emergency room, where doctors threaded a thin catheter into her heart

to check the flow of blood around her body. Soon enough, they had a diagnosis. Primary pulmonary hypertension. P.P.H. The delicate capillaries sending oxygen to Mary's lungs were thickening with scar tissue. They were narrowing, closing. Her heart was exhausted from trying to pump blood

to the blocked tissue, and it was failing. Petrified, Mary listened to the grim prognosis. The damage was permanent. Most patients with PPH didn't survive more than a few years. 29-year-old Mary had taken some pills to help her lose weight for her wedding. Months later, she was handed what amounted to a death sentence. In Hollywood, Molly, or perhaps, the studio executives responsible for her contract,

got in touch with Surgeon to the Stars, Dr. Robert Griffith, who practiced a procedure known as Lepectomy, the removal of fat. Such body contouring was in its infancy, and it was dangerous. Anesthesia was rudimentary. Penicillin hadn't been developed yet, and the procedure created open wounds that left patients. vulnerable to infection. Two years earlier, a young woman from Paris

had undergone a similar procedure on her calves. It was more complicated than her surgeon anticipated. He removed too much tissue, had trouble suturing the gaping wound, and decided not to operate on the second leg. Within days, her condition had deteriorated. Gangrene set in. and her leg had to be amputated.

Dr Griffith would likely have known about what had happened to this young woman from Paris, although it's unclear whether Molly herself did. In late 1928, she checked into a Los Angeles hospital where Griffith made long incisions across her hips and legs. He carved away around 10 pounds of fat before pulling her skin-taught and sewing her back up. Shortly afterwards, Variety reported that Molly had been spotted at the first national lot,

hoping to see her name on the cast sheet soon, and looking sylph-like and happy. She was also weak and walking with a cane. Cautionary tales will be back shortly. women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart.

Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-844-E. Eyeheart. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them, like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastas.

from conjecture to accepted fact. So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Boston, Mary Linnon's diagnosis pointed to a catastrophic side effect of her weight loss medication.

Fenfenn caused the brain to release extraceraterin, in turn creating a feeling of fullness. But that extra serotonin had also seeped into her bloodstream, causing the small vessels in her lungs to thicken and close. Mary had taken Fen for just 23 days, but that had been enough time to set permanent damage in motion. A total heart and lung transplant was deemed too risky for Mary. Her only other option was a mechanical pump, administering a vital drug via a tube straight into her chest at a cost of up to $200,000 per year.

Mary was hooked up to the unwieldy pump for 24 hours a day. If there were any issues with the device, an alarm sounded, and she had just two minutes to fix it. If she failed, she'd most likely go into cardiac arrest. It was a terrifying way to live. Mary learned that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair and that she would be unable to safely carry any children. She wept at this news.

Gone were her hopes for a big family with Tom. Now they were focused on getting through each day, managing the risk of infection at the wound site where the tube passed into her chest. Mary told her parents that she was afraid to die and she told them something else she didn't want what had happened to her to happen to other women

she was determined to get fen-fen off the market so her parents helped her find an attorney ambitious personal injury lawyer Alex MacDonald took the case on and began sifting through a mountain of internal corporate documents from Yath Aest, which manufactured the key component of Fenf and the American Home Products Corporation, its parent company. His goal was to prove that the companies had known all along about the drug's lethal effects

and that they had hidden them to protect their profits. At home, Alex told his wife about the case. She was a pediatric cardiologist. She had heard of Fen Fen. In fact, a national weight loss franchise had offered her thousands of dollars to prescribe it to her patients. But her speciality was children's hearts,

not weight loss or nutrition, and she flatly refused. Alex soon learned that other doctors had done just the opposite. As he trawled the pharmaceutical data, he discovered that millions of pharma, fen-fen prescriptions were being written each year, meaning that millions of people, mostly women, were sitting on a medical time bomb, completely unaware. In December 1928, Molly was still idle.

First National had sidelined her entirely, whether it was because she was still too weak, still not thin enough, or because public gossip had tarnished her star power, the studio kept her on the shelf. Molly's boyfriend, George Raft, blamed her unemployment on the angry scars that now wrapped around her body. He was furious with her quack surgeon, who, he said, had not only ended her career, but nearly killed her. Here lay the bitter irony of Molly's sacrifice.

She had submitted to a violent medical procedure and had her flesh carved away to satisfy the studio's demands. And now, in the eyes of the studio, she was unusable, a broken product. In 1929, a newspaper reported that she'd gained the pounds back. When her contract came up for renewal, First National quietly let it expire. The following year, Molly swapped the movies for a touring vaudeville act. It was a disaster, panned by the critics. They thought she moved clumsily, as though she was uncomfortable in her own body.

In November 1930, after the failure of her. her vaudeville show, Molly filed for bankruptcy. By winter 1996, Mary Linnon's life revolved around the heavy pump. But one day, she managed to get out of the house to see a movie. In the darkness of the cinema, the tube came loose. She rushed to the lobby and scrabbled to fix it, keenly aware that the two-minute clock was ticking down. When she managed to reconnect the device, she broke down in tears. Mary's condition was deteriorating rapidly. There was so little oxygen flowing through her body

that she began to lose the sight in one eye. Then, in February 1997, her heart and lungs gave out completely, Paramedics rushed to the scene. As they loaded her into the ambulance, she begged them to save her life. They couldn't. Mary Linnon died in hospital at the age of 30, less than a year after taking her very first dose of Fenfenn.

Lawyer Alex MacDonald went to Mary's funeral. He watched her fiancé, whose eyes were so puffy, from crying that he could barely open them. He watched her parents, who seemed simply dazed. Instead of walking down the aisle before a bride, I walked behind a casket, said her mother. Five months after Mary's death, the medical establishment formally connected the dots.

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic announced that they'd found dozens of rare heart disease cases in otherwise healthy young women. The link between them, these women, had all been prescribed Fenn Fenn. In September, under immense pressure, the FDA forced the drugs off the market. Fenn Fenn was finally off the shelves, just as Mary had wanted. But the legal battle was only just beginning. Equipped with this new medical data, Alex MacDonald pressed on with the linen family's suit. From the 1920s flapper to 1990's heroin chic, women have faced a merry-go-round of impossible physical standards,

many of them biologically unachievable for the average human body. And whenever there's an impossible physical standard, a market emerges to sell a technical hack. A miracle soap, a surgeon's scalpel, a cocktail of drugs. In the rush for these fixes, the possibility of collateral damage is all too often minimised. When Molly O'Day's teenage body did exactly what normal healthy bodies do, she was shamed and punished, so much so that she submitted to the surgeon's knife. Decades later, Mary Linen was handed a different fix, little blue and white pills that promised weight loss

as they quietly mutilated her body from within. It might be tempting to dismiss Molly and Mary as simply vain or naive. I think their decisions are entirely understandable. A glowing career was being dangled in front of Molly. It was her employers, the people responsible for her income, who asked her to shrink. Mary, on the other hand, wasn't being ordered to lose weight by a studio executive. No one was writing about her in national magazines. She was a bride to be, navigating the visual demands of the 1990s.

She was also a patient, navigating her health, when she sought guidance, a specialist, doctor offered her Fen-Fenn Fenn as a safe medical solution. Both women placed their trust in people who seemed to know what they were doing and met with a brutal commercial logic. Technical hacks are still with us. Some, like GLP1 weight loss drugs, promise genuine health benefits. Others, like the Brazilian buttlift carry a real risk of death for a purely aesthetic payoff. These hacks have very different utilities,

but their popularity points to an enduring cultural truth. We treat physical variety not as the feature of human experience, but a bug to be patched. And we reward rapid visible change. whatever the cost. In January 2000, the Linnon family's civil suit finally went to trial. World-renowned cardiologist Dr. Stuart Rich took the stand and explained how Fen-Fen had rewritten the biology of Mary's lungs. Her death, he said, was akin to slow strangulation

or drowning. Attorney Alex MacDonald argued that company executives had received clear reports about the danger to Fenfenn users of heart and lung damage, and that they'd hidden those reports, fearing their profits would suffer. Exhausted by the trial, and wary of the potential for a protracted appeals process, the linens ultimately agreed to a settlement of $15.5 million. At the time, it was the last. wrongful death recovery in Massachusetts history. They planned to use some of the money to start a foundation in Mary's name,

dedicated to the study of primary pulmonary hypertension. In the years that followed, the company had to set aside at least $21 billion to address the growing national fallout of Fenfenn. It has consistently denied. that it acted improperly. After Molly O'Day lost her leading lady status, she secured a few supporting roles in B movies. In her mid-twenties, she walked away from acting altogether.

She got married, had four children, and found success as a real estate agent. In her spare time, she worked with the homeless. In 1997, the year that Mayor, Mary Linnon passed away, Molly was living peacefully in California, a matriarch in her 80s, with eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Shortly before her death in 1998, she gave a final interview. Asked about her years in Hollywood, Molly explained that she was still bothered and saddened

by what had happened to her there. She also reflected that she'd been a good actress. I was a natural. If only natural had been enough. The key source for the story of Mary Linnon was dispensing with the truth, the victims, the drug companies, and the dramatic story behind the battle over Fenfeyn

by Alicia Mundy. For a full list of sources, see the show notes at Tim Harford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Ben Nadav Haferi edited the scripts.

Cautionary Tales features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guthridge, Ed Gohen, Stella Harford, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Corinne Gilead Fisher, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really does make a difference to us. And if you want to hear it, add free and receive a bonus audio episode, video episode, and members-only newsletter every month, why not join the Cautionary Club?

To sign up, head to patreon.com slash cautionary club. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash cautionary club. On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history,

separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right Network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the IHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.