Really Spanked or Not?

There was also a story about Mork and Mindy where Mindy was meant to come into the bathroom whilst Mork was in the shower, he'd drop the towel that was covering him and she'd be suitably shocked. In reality because they were filming him above the waist only Robin Williams would still be wearing the towel. He doubted the ability of co star Pam Dawber to feign the shock, so when they filmed it he dropped the towel for real. She was very shocked.

I'm pretty sure it was Otto Preminger who allegedly said: "Actors are like cattle and should be treated as such..."

No, that was Hitchcock again. Carole Lombard got back at him for that remark - when he was about to start shooting Mr and Mrs Smith she brought three cows into the studio, hung signs round their necks reading 'Carole', 'Robert' and 'Gene' (her co-stars) and left them there for Hitch to discover when he arrived. Apparently he saw the joke.

Preminger notoriously treated his actors far worse than Hitch generally did. When he was shooting The Cardinal his treatment of his young lead actor, Tom Tryon, so appalled John Huston, who had a supporting role, that he took Preminger aside and said, "Otto, you're reducing that poor boy to a nervous wreck. You need to help him relax." "Ach, so?" said Preminger. "Very well." He marched on to the floor where Tryon was standing quivering with nerves, came up behind him and bellowed in his ear, "RELAX!!" Tryon quit acting not long afterwards....

That doesn't surprise me, Carole Lombard was famous for her practical jokes.

I seem to recall Tom Tryon became a prominent author, at least for a while...

Going back to the question at the start of this thread, I'd have to say that most of the early juvenile spankings were real.

Mostly because it was normal to spank kids back then.

There's even a scene where America's Little Sweetheart - Shirley Temple - was spanked for a film. It didn't make it into the movie, but there's a mention of it in her autobiography. http://www.spankfacts.freewebspace.com/winkie.htm has an excerpt about.

Goodgulf