A Hollywood role she never asked for
'Girl 27' probes the 1937 rape of a studio extra, how it was hushed up and how it changed the victim forever.
By Robin Abcarian, LA Times Staff Writer
January 19, 2007
Momentous things happened the first week of June 1937. Jean Harlow, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, died suddenly and mysteriously at 26. The Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated his kingdom, married the woman he loved. And, though nobody would remember it, a 20-year-old dancer and extra named Patricia Douglas who'd been raped by an MGM salesman at a studio party futilely pressed for justice.
David Stenn, a 45-year-old Los Angeles biographer and TV writer, stumbled across her story when he was researching his 1993 book, "Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow." When his editor, Jackie Onassis, asked him what project he'd like to tackle next, he told her about the long-forgotten rape and the victim's harrowing legal battle against the studio.
Years of digging led to a Vanity Fair story by Stenn in 2003, and then to his directorial debut with "Girl 27," a self-financed documentary that will premiere Monday at the Sundance Film Festival. "Girl 27" is an uneven but strangely compelling documentary about a shocking and highly publicized event that disappeared into the mists of studio history.