1. The contracts

Back in the Age of Silver Screens, actors and actresses couldn't just freely waltz back and forth between whatever projects they so desired to take part in. Well, they could, so long as they wanted to appear in a film that was being sponsored by a studio for whom they had a contract under. However, if he/she was signed with MGM, but wanted to participate in a movie being put forward by Warner Bros., MGM had to agree to loan the actor/actress, or in more extreme cases, let the actor/actress out of his/her contract. Both of which were processes that involved a fair share of backscratching and tugging of strings. While being under contract with a big studio came with an excess of perks too, it came at a great cost of one's agency.

2. The Hays Code

In response to negative backlash by religious groups who condemned movies for their glamorization of crime, violence, and sex -- a movement that nearly provoked the United States Congress to intervene, the Big Five Studios agreed to institute the Production Code, better known as The Hays Code, named after one of its founding architects, William H. Hays.

The code effectively outlawed course language, homosexuality, favorable depictions of extramarital relationships, and miscegenation (interracial marriage). Instituted to emphasize and promote the adoption of more traditional values in film-making, if this code didn't render Hollywood more racist, or intolerant on the grounds of gender and sexuality, it certainly caused Tinseltown to take a sharp turn far down the right.

3. The racism

With all the outcry, and call to see non-Caucasian actors, writers, and directors to be cast and recognized in the mainstream of Hollywood productions, it's hardly a surprise to find its treatment of skin color and ethnic origin as a taint on its past. From black facing, or casting white actors to portray characters of oriental background in a degrading manner, the reach of racial prejudice in Classical Hollywood extended far beyond the screen.

In fact, in those days, African and Asian-Americans were prohibited from living in certain neighborhoods unless they worked in one of the designated houses as a servant. At one point, even Jews were not permitted to come within an inch of a city whose influence they not only shaped but mythologized, altogether.

4. The misogyny

In the midst of the #metoo era that has brought a reckoning of divine proportions in the movie industry, Hollywood's less than dignifying treatment of women goes beyond, and way far back from the exploits of Harvey Weinstein. With the exceptions of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn who were able to power their way onto the screen through the prowess of their acting alone, actresses were almost exclusively recruited for how well they could fit into a dress or something that proved to be more revealing than the character they were tasked to portray. Physically speaking, of course.

But studios didn't just control what actresses were allowed to wear or not wear on set, they also had the final say of what she was allowed to wear on her way to the grocery store, or when she decided to enjoy a cigarette while sitting on her balcony -- wary she might go bulimic, or hurl herself off if it wasn't going to be the contents of her stomach. With their wardrobes seized from beyond their control with zealous precision, being an actress meant you were subject to how people wanted to see you. And not how you saw yourself.

5. The gossip

You may laugh now, but back then, you're appearing in the tabloids could determine whether you won an Oscar, or died a broke, washed up, has been. With the talk of town largely controlled by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Sheilah Graham, these three woman -- the unholy trio -- had the power to crush an actors's career beneath the tip of their pens, or write his name into history, to go along with the countless names cast in Golden Stars on The Walk of Fame.

Though many in Hollywood despised the unholy trio, it was better not to piss them off if you truly valued your career, your livelihood, or your life for that matter. Despite how the tabloids have become more aggressive in the contemporary era, they certainly don't wield the power to draw or redraw the boundaries of life and death. Something Hopper, Parsons, and Graham did at their own discretion.