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Speaker 1: Pushkin. In the wardrobe department of a Hollywood studio, an

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Speaker 1: eighteen year old called Molly O'Day is trying on a costume.

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Speaker 1: Around her seamstresses, target fasteners, pins gritted between their teeth.

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Speaker 1: Molly O'Day wore this same dress last year for her

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Speaker 1: star turn in nineteen twenty seven's The Patent Leather Kid.

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Speaker 1: Now it doesn't quite fit. There's nothing strange about that.

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Speaker 1: Molly O'Day is a teenager, her body is growing changing.

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Speaker 1: Why should she fit last year's template? And Hollywood costumiers

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Speaker 1: know every trick in the book. They know how to

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Speaker 1: unpick lining, how to let out seams, how to shift

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Speaker 1: a row of hooks and eyes to the very lip

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Speaker 1: of the fabric. They can just alter this dress, can't they? Alas, No,

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Speaker 1: Molly Oday and this dress are a problem, because locked

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Speaker 1: away in another room on that studio lot is a contract.

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Speaker 1: It stipulates working hours and exclusivity and something else too.

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Speaker 1: Molly O'Day must hold the same silhouette forever, as long

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Speaker 1: as she wants to keep working. The body of this

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Speaker 1: young woman must not change. I'm Tim Harford, and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to cautionary tales Molly o' day wasn't her real name.

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Speaker 1: She was born Suzanne Noonan, and she had begun life

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Speaker 1: thousands of miles from Hollywood, the daughter of an opera

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Speaker 1: singer and a prominent New Jersey judge, and the youngest

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Speaker 1: of eleven children. The family was comfortable until Judge Noonan

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Speaker 1: died young.

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Speaker 2: The banks closed, and we became poor.

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Speaker 1: Suzanne recalled struggling Missus. Noonan sold their home and took

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Speaker 1: her children to Los Angeles, where the film industry was exploding.

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Speaker 1: Movie palaces were springing up amid the orange groves and

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Speaker 1: oil fields. The city was part boomtown, part fantasy machine.

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Speaker 2: I was fourteen, so I tried acting. I was pretty

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Speaker 2: a fresh face, so it all took off.

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Speaker 1: Still just a schoolgirl, Suzanne was spotted by Hollywood pioneer

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Speaker 1: Hal Roach. She began acting in his two reelers, slapstick

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Speaker 1: comedy shorts, screened before a main feature presentation. It was

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Speaker 1: a brilliant training round. She learned how to act for

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Speaker 1: camera alongside soon to be legends Laurel and Hardy. But

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Speaker 1: her big break came in nineteen twenty six, when aged sixteen,

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Speaker 1: she beat two thousand other girls to win the role

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Speaker 1: of Curly Callahan in war epic The Patent Leather Kid.

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Speaker 1: General production manager Al Rockett was impressed by her raw instinct.

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Speaker 3: One of the problems was finding a actress for the

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Speaker 3: part of the heroine. I told this girl the story

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Speaker 3: of the pat and Leather Kid very carefully and slowly,

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Speaker 3: and she had tears in her eyes when I finished.

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Speaker 1: As Curly Callahan, Suzanne Shape shifted from flighty nightclub dancer

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Speaker 1: to tender nurse on the front lines of the Great War.

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Speaker 1: It was a far cry from the physical comedy she

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Speaker 1: was trained in, but she delivered. Her co star Hollywood

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Speaker 1: Royalty Richard Barthelmus appears to have appreciated her gift for

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Speaker 1: acting too.

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Speaker 2: He was a delight to work with. He took me

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Speaker 2: under his wing, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: The studio behind the film, First National Pictures, signed Suzanne

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Speaker 1: to a long term contract under which she would star

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Speaker 1: in several features a year. They recognized that in this

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Speaker 1: young woman they discovered two things. A great talent than

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Speaker 1: someone they could sell. With her dark hair and expressive eyes,

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Speaker 1: Susanne was ripe for rebranding as a homegrown Celtic starlet,

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Speaker 1: so they gave her a new name Molly o' day

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Speaker 1: was born. The patent Leather Kid was a smash hit.

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Speaker 1: Richard Barthelmess was nominated for an Academy Award, and critics

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Speaker 1: praised Molly's performance too.

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Speaker 4: She is sincere and earnest and most competent in a

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Speaker 4: part that demands a great deal.

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Speaker 1: Said The New York Times, proving she was no one

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Speaker 1: hit wonder. Molly went on to star in a string

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Speaker 1: of popular features. In the Lovelorn, she navigated the pitfalls

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Speaker 1: of youthful romance. In Hard Boiled Haggerty, she had a

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Speaker 1: double role, playing both frenchwoman Germaine Benoit and Germaine's lookalike sister.

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Speaker 1: In The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, she reunited with

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Speaker 1: Richard Bartelmus. Molly was also named a Wampus Baby Star,

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Speaker 1: a prestigious accolade bestowed by the Western Association of Motion

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Speaker 1: Picture Advertisers. It wasn't unlike thirty under thirty lists today.

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Speaker 2: Naturally, if you do something good, you get other offers.

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Speaker 1: As a Baby Star, Molly landed deals to market cosmetic products,

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Speaker 1: appearing in national campaigns for brands such as Luxe Toilet soap.

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Speaker 1: But more than that, anointment by the Wampus was the

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Speaker 1: definitive seal of approval from the industry's gatekeepers. It signaled

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Speaker 1: to everyone who mattered that Molly O'Day was the next

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Speaker 1: big thing. Her personal life flourished too. She began dating

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Speaker 1: actor and dancer George Raft, who described her as one

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Speaker 1: of the sweetest and most gentle women he had ever met.

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Speaker 1: To the press and the public, Molly had it all.

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Speaker 1: She was being hailed as the miracle girl of Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: Her rise so swift and so brilliant that the papers

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Speaker 1: called it meteor like an apt description, perhaps that one

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Speaker 1: that carries a quiet warning Metea's burn bright. But they

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Speaker 1: also burn fast two first National pictures, Molly O'Day wasn't

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Speaker 1: a miracle girl, but an item on a balance sheet.

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Speaker 1: By the nineteen twenties, the movies were a lucrative in industry,

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Speaker 1: and the major studios controlled the entire pipeline. They owned

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Speaker 1: the film sets, the distribution networks, and the movie palaces

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Speaker 1: up and down the country. They farmed their actors out

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Speaker 1: for brand deals and took a cut of the profits.

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Speaker 1: The industry revolved around a vital resource, star power. It

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Speaker 1: was the stars, magnetic and beloved who pulled millions of

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Speaker 1: Americans into the movie theaters each week. It was those

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Speaker 1: same stars who sold the sheet music, the cosmetic products,

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Speaker 1: and the fashion trends. The stars were the studio's most

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Speaker 1: bankable assets, and so to minimize risk, studio executives treated

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Speaker 1: them not as partners but as corporate property. Screenplayers weren't

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Speaker 1: freelancers who negotiated a new deal with each movie. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they were salaried employees with long term contracts, iron clad

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Speaker 1: agreements that covered everything from working hours and pay to

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Speaker 1: how they should behave in their private lives and who

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Speaker 1: they could marry. The more popular a star became, the

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Speaker 1: greater their power to negotiate perks such as private dressing rooms,

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Speaker 1: top billing, and script approval. But newer stars on the

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Speaker 1: lower rungs of the studio system were little more than

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Speaker 1: cogs in a massive machine. If they stepped out of line,

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Speaker 1: they faced suspension without pay, or even dismissal. It was

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Speaker 1: a confining, precarious way to live.

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Speaker 2: It was the people you worked with that became favorites,

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Speaker 2: not the studio.

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Speaker 1: Said Molly, You did as you were told, and what

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Speaker 1: you were told might not just be a about your

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Speaker 1: work schedule. Or your love life. It might also extend

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Speaker 1: to your measurements. Some contracts specified a maximum weight for

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Speaker 1: a performer. Others included clauses about facial and physical disfigurement,

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Speaker 1: and in practice, any bodily change that might result in

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Speaker 1: lower box office returns could be lumped under this vague umbrella.

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Speaker 1: On the surface, Molly's career was flourishing, but behind the scenes,

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Speaker 1: the scripts stopped pouring in. Molly should have been memorizing lines,

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Speaker 1: but instead she found herself waiting at home for work.

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Speaker 1: In the language of the studio system, she was idle.

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Speaker 1: Fan magazine Photoplay reported that Al Rocket summoned the teenager

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Speaker 1: to his office, scrutinized her body, and then delivered a

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Speaker 1: crushing blow.

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Speaker 4: Molly, you can get as fair as you please. It's

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Speaker 4: your life and you have to live it. But as

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Speaker 4: far as we're consigned, you're through. That is, until you

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Speaker 4: get down to the right physical size for our pictures.

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Speaker 1: It was an ultimatum, diet or else. Molly had gained

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Speaker 1: some weight, and First National Pictures wasn't happy about it.

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Speaker 1: She hadn't gained much, but the fashion of the day

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Speaker 1: was to be extremely thin. The ideal the sylph like flapper,

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Speaker 1: and Molly was around twenty pounds heavier than the average

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Speaker 1: screen star of her height. Fan magazine Photoplay thought it

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Speaker 1: knew how this had happened.

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Speaker 5: Molly didn't dissipate a core to accepted standards. She didn't

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Speaker 5: run around with men. She didn't buy rolls, Royce's or

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Speaker 5: swimming pools and tie up all her income on down payments.

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Speaker 5: She just bought ice cream and cream puffs and candy.

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Speaker 1: Molly herself recalled things a little differently.

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Speaker 2: Everything I ate seemed to add pounds. I was a

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Speaker 2: growing kid, and I was hungry. And it was the

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Speaker 2: streamline era in the pictures, where a girl had to

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Speaker 2: have a figure like a lead pencil. I didn't have

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Speaker 2: that kind.

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Speaker 1: Cautionary tales will return. Spring nineteen ninety six, twenty nine

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Speaker 1: year old Mary Lennon of Boston was planning her wedding.

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Speaker 1: She and her fiancee Tom were hoping to raise a

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Speaker 1: big family, and they were excited about their life together.

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Speaker 1: Mary had promised her mother that there'd go wedding dress shopping,

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Speaker 1: but first she wanted to lose some weight she'd gained

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Speaker 1: over the winter months. She was keen to look and

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Speaker 1: feel her best at her wedding. This was the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: Trying to look and feel your best meant confronting some

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Speaker 1: unforgiving beauty standards. Emaciated heroin chic was dominating the runways. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Hollywood was pumping out star studied wedding rom coms. But

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Speaker 1: the big day wasn't just a rite of passage, but

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Speaker 1: a glossy, high value production with the Bride as its

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Speaker 1: smaller star. Mary had been athletic for much of her life,

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Speaker 1: and until now she hadn't worried about her weight. Because

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Speaker 1: of a family history of thyroid problems. She decided to

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Speaker 1: consult an endocrinologist who ran some tests. Good news, said

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Speaker 1: the doctor, Your thyroid function is perfectly normal. Then she

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Speaker 1: told Mary about a new weight loss treatment called Fenfen.

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Speaker 1: Across America, it was being touted as a miracle for

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Speaker 1: the speed and ease with which it melted away unwanted fat.

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Speaker 1: Fenfen was actually an off label combination of two pre

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Speaker 1: existing drugs, fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant, and fenamine, a mild stimulant.

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Speaker 1: Together they performed a clever trick. Fentamine boosted patients energy levels,

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Speaker 1: while fenfluramine told the brain to flood its synapses with

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Speaker 1: extra serotonin, creating a feeling of fullness. Mary was intrigued

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Speaker 1: by the little blue and White pills, so the doctor

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Speaker 1: wrote her a prescription and she started taking them. They

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Speaker 1: worked well. Ten pounds quickly disappeared from Mary's body. Eleven

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Speaker 1: days into her treatment, she arranged to meet her parents

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Speaker 1: for a round of golf. Out on the course, she

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Speaker 1: suddenly felt dizzy. Her chest tightened. She began to panic.

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Speaker 1: I can't breathe. Mary gasped, I think I'm going to faint.

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Speaker 1: Towards the end of nineteen twenty seven, First National Pictures

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Speaker 1: gave Molly twelve weeks to restrict her calorie intake and

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Speaker 1: fit back into her costume from the patent Leather Kid.

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Speaker 1: If she couldn't, there'd be consequences. Then, as now, the

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Speaker 1: issue of weight was make or break in Hollywood. To

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Speaker 1: secure a plum roll. Lilah Lee once lived on nothing

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Speaker 1: but orange juice. She dropped eight pounds in less than

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Speaker 1: two weeks. Vilmabanke had to lose fifteen pounds before Samuel

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Speaker 1: Goldwyn would hire her. Fan magazines and Gossip rags compounded

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Speaker 1: the pressure incessantly speculating about screen stars measurements and diets,

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Speaker 1: and bluntly acknowledging that an actress's talent was far less

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Speaker 1: important than her figure. As actress and model Carss Palmer warned.

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Speaker 5: The said is sat in the world is that of

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Speaker 5: a pretty girl eating marshmallow, sundaes.

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Speaker 1: The magazine's openly shamed Molly, describing her solid flesh. One

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Speaker 1: paper cruelly claimed that in her effort to slim down,

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Speaker 1: she visited influenza patients, hoping to catch the disease and

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Speaker 1: lose her appetite. Fans were irked by this coverage, and

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Speaker 1: they made it known in their letters to the magazines.

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Speaker 2: I see Molly O'Day is not allowed to be a

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Speaker 2: star because she's put on a few pounds.

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Speaker 1: Of weight, wrote one fan.

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Speaker 2: If directors chose stars that have a few curves instead

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Speaker 2: of girls who look like sticks, I would be better pleased.

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Speaker 1: But such voices didn't convince studio executives. Molly's agreement with

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Speaker 1: First National didn't require her to hold to a specific

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Speaker 1: weight range, but did include the facial and physical disfigurement clause.

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Speaker 1: The studio seems to have argued that Molly's adolescent weight

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Speaker 1: gain was a kind of disfigurement, and they suspect her

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Speaker 1: without pay. We don't know exactly what diet Molly went on,

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Speaker 1: but in the nineteen twenties there were plenty of options

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Speaker 1: to choose from. In what the press called a reducing craze,

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Speaker 1: women chased the waiflike flapperform with all sorts of punishing regimens.

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Speaker 1: Some ate nothing but grapefruit, oranges, toast, and eggs for

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Speaker 1: eighteen days straight. Others gave up potatoes, butter and sweets

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Speaker 1: and submitted to regular enemas. A lawless market for reducing

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Speaker 1: aids boomed. Laxative gums, reducing girdles, soaps that promised to

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Speaker 1: dissolve fat away.

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Speaker 5: Wash away double chins, and years of age with lamars

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Speaker 5: fifty cents a bar.

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Speaker 1: Other methods were even more sinister. It was rumored that

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Speaker 1: if you swallowed tapeworms, the parasites would absorb anything you ate.

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00:19:18,570 --> 00:19:23,450
Speaker 1: Then there were over the counterpills like Rido Fat, which

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Speaker 1: contained concentrated thyroid extract. In nineteen twenty six, one dieter

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00:19:29,770 --> 00:19:33,770
Speaker 1: took too many of these and quickly developed heart disease.

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Speaker 1: She died soon afterwards, at the age of thirty three.

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Speaker 1: Whatever solution Molly chose, it didn't work. Twelve weeks after

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Speaker 1: owl Rocket's ultimatum, she still couldn't fit into the dress.

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Speaker 1: She was replaced as the lead in a picture called

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Speaker 1: The Barker, and again suspended. Molly managed to keep herself busy.

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Speaker 1: Recalling how difficult life had been for her mother, she

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00:20:06,170 --> 00:20:09,730
Speaker 1: founded a relief association for women who needed help with

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Speaker 1: childcare but had nowhere else to turn. All the same,

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Speaker 1: this suspension from work, now nearly six months long, must

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00:20:19,970 --> 00:20:24,490
Speaker 1: have been bitterly disappointing for Molly, not to mention humiliating,

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Speaker 1: the question of how to win back her career was

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00:20:29,570 --> 00:20:34,810
Speaker 1: never far from her mind. By July nineteen twenty eight,

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00:20:35,250 --> 00:20:40,490
Speaker 1: Molly's allotted idle time was coming to an end. Al

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00:20:40,570 --> 00:20:43,250
Speaker 1: Rockett sent his boss a memo.

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Speaker 6: Molly all day starts back on salary to day. We

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Speaker 6: had discontinuing her bonus until we find out what condition

244
00:20:50,090 --> 00:20:52,330
Speaker 6: she is in and just where she will fit into

245
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Speaker 6: this year's production.

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Speaker 1: He needn't have worried. When Molly returned to the studio,

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00:20:58,530 --> 00:21:04,170
Speaker 1: she was thoroughly reduced. Triumphant, She donned the costume she

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00:21:04,210 --> 00:21:09,010
Speaker 1: had worn as Curly Callahan, but the ordeal had left

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Speaker 1: its mark. Maybe the studio still didn't think she was

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00:21:13,690 --> 00:21:18,730
Speaker 1: thin enough. Maybe the relentless scrutiny had bred in Molly

251
00:21:18,970 --> 00:21:24,690
Speaker 1: a deep internal panic. Either way, the goalposts had moved,

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Speaker 1: and fitting into the dress no longer represented victory. Maintaining

253
00:21:32,450 --> 00:21:37,490
Speaker 1: a slim silhouette through diet would be a grueling, lifelong battle.

254
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Speaker 1: But what if there was a permanent solution. Everyone in

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00:21:44,610 --> 00:21:48,330
Speaker 1: Hollywood knew that there were doctors who, for a fee,

256
00:21:49,130 --> 00:21:56,490
Speaker 1: would remake the body, surgeons who tightened wrinkles, altered noses,

257
00:21:57,450 --> 00:22:09,530
Speaker 1: and sliced fat clean away. Boston, nineteen ninety six. Yan's

258
00:22:09,650 --> 00:22:15,450
Speaker 1: distressing symptoms continued. She visited her doctor's office to ask

259
00:22:15,570 --> 00:22:18,890
Speaker 1: if the dizziness and shortness of breath could be a

260
00:22:18,930 --> 00:22:22,570
Speaker 1: side effect of her new medication, and was told by

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00:22:22,610 --> 00:22:28,770
Speaker 1: the office nutritionist to stop taking fenfen. After that, her

262
00:22:28,810 --> 00:22:33,530
Speaker 1: symptoms improved, but a few months later they were back

263
00:22:34,250 --> 00:22:40,970
Speaker 1: and worse. Flights of stairs left Mary totally exhausted. Her

264
00:22:41,090 --> 00:22:45,730
Speaker 1: legs and stomach began to swell with water retention. She

265
00:22:45,770 --> 00:22:50,890
Speaker 1: felt like she was suffocating, and she collapsed at work. Eventually,

266
00:22:51,290 --> 00:22:55,930
Speaker 1: Mary was so unwell that she and Tom were forced

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00:22:55,930 --> 00:23:01,170
Speaker 1: to postpone the wedding. In November, matters came to a head.

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00:23:02,210 --> 00:23:06,330
Speaker 1: Mary was rushed to a Boston emergency room, where doctors

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Speaker 1: threaded a thin catheter into her art to check the

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00:23:10,570 --> 00:23:15,010
Speaker 1: flow of blood around her body. Soon enough, they had

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00:23:15,050 --> 00:23:24,290
Speaker 1: a diagnosis, primary pulmonary hypertension PPH. The delicate capillaries sending

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Speaker 1: oxygen to Mary's lungs were thickening with scar tissue. They

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00:23:29,450 --> 00:23:35,210
Speaker 1: were narrowing closing. Her heart was exhausted from trying to

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00:23:35,290 --> 00:23:40,930
Speaker 1: pump blood to the blocked tissue, and it was failing. Petrified,

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Speaker 1: Mary listened to the grim prognosis. The damage was permanent.

276
00:23:47,810 --> 00:23:53,450
Speaker 1: Most patients with PPH didn't survive more than a few years.

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Speaker 1: Twenty nine year old Mary had taken some pills to

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00:23:57,650 --> 00:24:02,370
Speaker 1: help her lose weight for her wedding. Months later, she

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00:24:02,570 --> 00:24:12,290
Speaker 1: was handed what amounted to a death sentence. In Hollywood, Molly,

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00:24:12,530 --> 00:24:17,130
Speaker 1: or perhaps the studio executives responsible for her contract, got

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00:24:17,170 --> 00:24:21,650
Speaker 1: in touch with surgeon to the Stars, Dr Robert Griffith,

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00:24:22,210 --> 00:24:27,130
Speaker 1: who practiced a procedure known as lipectomy, the removal of

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00:24:27,250 --> 00:24:33,170
Speaker 1: fat such body contouring was in its infancy and it

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00:24:33,290 --> 00:24:38,850
Speaker 1: was dangerous. Anesthesia was rudimentary, penicillin hadn't been developed yet,

285
00:24:39,410 --> 00:24:44,010
Speaker 1: and the procedure created open wounds that left patients vulnerable

286
00:24:44,050 --> 00:24:49,330
Speaker 1: to infection. Two years earlier, a young woman from Paris

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00:24:49,370 --> 00:24:53,330
Speaker 1: had undergone a similar procedure on her calves. It was

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00:24:53,650 --> 00:24:59,650
Speaker 1: more complicated than her surgeon anticipated. He removed too much tissue,

289
00:24:59,890 --> 00:25:04,130
Speaker 1: had trouble suturing the gaping wound, and decided not to

290
00:25:04,210 --> 00:25:10,490
Speaker 1: operate on the second leg. Within days, her condition had deteriorated,

291
00:25:11,330 --> 00:25:16,290
Speaker 1: gangrene set in, and her leg had to be amputated.

292
00:25:18,290 --> 00:25:21,610
Speaker 1: Doctor Griffith would likely have known about what had happened

293
00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:25,770
Speaker 1: to this young woman from Paris, although it's unclear whether

294
00:25:25,810 --> 00:25:30,650
Speaker 1: Molly herself did. In late nineteen twenty eight, she checked

295
00:25:30,690 --> 00:25:35,010
Speaker 1: into a Los Angeles hospital where Griffith made long incisions

296
00:25:35,090 --> 00:25:40,090
Speaker 1: across her hips and legs. He carved away around ten

297
00:25:40,410 --> 00:25:45,490
Speaker 1: pounds of fat before pulling her skin tort and sewing

298
00:25:45,530 --> 00:25:53,170
Speaker 1: her back up. Shortly afterwards, Variety reported that Molly had

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00:25:53,210 --> 00:25:57,210
Speaker 1: been spotted at the First National Lot, hoping to see

300
00:25:57,250 --> 00:26:01,610
Speaker 1: her name on the cast sheets soon, and looking sylph

301
00:26:01,850 --> 00:26:08,250
Speaker 1: like and happy. She was also weak and walking with

302
00:26:08,330 --> 00:26:18,810
Speaker 1: a cane cautionary tales will be back shortly. In Boston,

303
00:26:19,370 --> 00:26:24,290
Speaker 1: Mary Lennan's diagnosis pointed to a catastrophic side effect of

304
00:26:24,290 --> 00:26:29,010
Speaker 1: her weight loss medication. Fenfenn caused the brain to release

305
00:26:29,210 --> 00:26:34,490
Speaker 1: extra serotonin, in turn creating a feeling of fullness, But

306
00:26:34,570 --> 00:26:40,130
Speaker 1: that extra serotonin had also seeped into her bloodstream, causing

307
00:26:40,210 --> 00:26:44,490
Speaker 1: the small vessels in her lungs to thicken and close.

308
00:26:45,850 --> 00:26:51,050
Speaker 1: Mary had taken Fenfenn for just twenty three days, but

309
00:26:51,090 --> 00:26:54,850
Speaker 1: that had been enough time to set permanent damage in motion.

310
00:26:56,210 --> 00:27:00,850
Speaker 1: A total heart and lung transplant was deemed too risky

311
00:27:00,930 --> 00:27:05,970
Speaker 1: for Mary. Her only other option was a mechanical pump,

312
00:27:06,650 --> 00:27:11,650
Speaker 1: administering a vital drug via a tube straight into her chest.

313
00:27:12,170 --> 00:27:15,610
Speaker 1: At a cost of up to two hundred thousand dollars

314
00:27:15,650 --> 00:27:20,930
Speaker 1: per year. Mary was hooked up to the unwieldy pump

315
00:27:21,090 --> 00:27:24,330
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours a day. If there were any

316
00:27:24,370 --> 00:27:28,210
Speaker 1: issues with the device, an alarm sounded and she had

317
00:27:28,370 --> 00:27:33,810
Speaker 1: just two minutes to fix it. If she failed, she'd

318
00:27:33,850 --> 00:27:39,170
Speaker 1: most likely go into cardiac arrest. It was a terrifying

319
00:27:39,210 --> 00:27:43,050
Speaker 1: way to live. Mary learned that she would spend the

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00:27:43,090 --> 00:27:46,290
Speaker 1: rest of her life in a wheelchair, and that she

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00:27:46,330 --> 00:27:51,170
Speaker 1: would be unable to safely carry any children. She wept

322
00:27:51,210 --> 00:27:54,650
Speaker 1: at this news. Gone were her hopes for a big

323
00:27:54,730 --> 00:27:59,210
Speaker 1: family with Tom. Now they were focused on getting through

324
00:27:59,370 --> 00:28:03,210
Speaker 1: each day, managing the risk of infection at the wound

325
00:28:03,330 --> 00:28:08,370
Speaker 1: site where the tube passed into her chest. Mary told

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00:28:08,450 --> 00:28:12,610
Speaker 1: her parents that she was afraid to die, and she

327
00:28:12,730 --> 00:28:16,370
Speaker 1: told them something else. She didn't want what had happened

328
00:28:16,450 --> 00:28:21,050
Speaker 1: to her to happen to other women. She was determined

329
00:28:21,130 --> 00:28:26,650
Speaker 1: to get Fenfen off the market, so her parents helped

330
00:28:26,650 --> 00:28:33,090
Speaker 1: her find an attorney. Ambitious personal injury lawyer Alex MacDonald

331
00:28:33,450 --> 00:28:36,810
Speaker 1: took the case on and began sifting through a mountain

332
00:28:36,930 --> 00:28:42,690
Speaker 1: of internal corporate documents from Wyeth Aurst, which manufactured the

333
00:28:42,770 --> 00:28:47,530
Speaker 1: key component of Fenfen, and the American Home Products Corporation,

334
00:28:47,810 --> 00:28:52,090
Speaker 1: its parent company. His goal was to prove that the

335
00:28:52,130 --> 00:28:56,930
Speaker 1: companies had known all along about the drug's lethal effects,

336
00:28:57,450 --> 00:29:01,170
Speaker 1: and that they had hidden them to protect their profits.

337
00:29:01,850 --> 00:29:06,450
Speaker 1: At home, Alex told his wife about the case. She

338
00:29:06,530 --> 00:29:10,850
Speaker 1: was a pediatric cardiologist. She had heard offen. In fact,

339
00:29:11,250 --> 00:29:14,930
Speaker 1: a national weight loss franchise had offered her thousands of

340
00:29:15,050 --> 00:29:19,250
Speaker 1: dollars to prescribe it to her patients, but her speciality

341
00:29:19,370 --> 00:29:23,890
Speaker 1: was children's hearts, not weight loss or nutrition, and she

342
00:29:23,930 --> 00:29:29,690
Speaker 1: flatly refused. Alex soon learned that other doctors had done

343
00:29:29,930 --> 00:29:34,370
Speaker 1: just the opposite. As he trawled the pharmaceutical data, he

344
00:29:34,450 --> 00:29:39,730
Speaker 1: discovered that millions of Fenfen prescriptions were being written each year,

345
00:29:40,610 --> 00:29:44,610
Speaker 1: meaning that millions of people, mostly women, were sitting on

346
00:29:44,650 --> 00:29:54,810
Speaker 1: a medical time bomb, completely unaware. In December nineteen twenty eight,

347
00:29:55,570 --> 00:30:02,170
Speaker 1: Molly was still idle. First National had sidelined her entirely.

348
00:30:02,970 --> 00:30:06,730
Speaker 1: Whether it was because she was still too weak, still

349
00:30:06,850 --> 00:30:11,490
Speaker 1: not thin enough, or because public gossip had tarnished her

350
00:30:11,610 --> 00:30:18,010
Speaker 1: star power, the studio kept her on the shelf. Molly's boyfriend,

351
00:30:18,170 --> 00:30:23,210
Speaker 1: George Raft, blamed her unemployment on the angry scars that

352
00:30:23,410 --> 00:30:27,530
Speaker 1: now wrapped around her body. He was furious with her

353
00:30:27,730 --> 00:30:33,050
Speaker 1: quack surgeon, who he said had not only ended her career,

354
00:30:33,890 --> 00:30:41,290
Speaker 1: but nearly killed her. Here lay the bitter irony of

355
00:30:41,450 --> 00:30:46,690
Speaker 1: Molly's sacrifice. She had submitted to a violent medical procedure

356
00:30:46,930 --> 00:30:52,130
Speaker 1: and had her flesh carved away to satisfy the studio's demands,

357
00:30:52,690 --> 00:30:56,810
Speaker 1: and now in the eyes of the studio, she was unusable,

358
00:30:57,450 --> 00:31:03,210
Speaker 1: A broken product. In nineteen ninety nine, a newspaper reported

359
00:31:03,290 --> 00:31:07,690
Speaker 1: that she had gained the pounds back. When her contract

360
00:31:07,810 --> 00:31:13,210
Speaker 1: came up for renewal, First National quietly let it expire.

361
00:31:14,810 --> 00:31:18,610
Speaker 1: The following year, Molly swapped the movies for a touring

362
00:31:18,850 --> 00:31:23,530
Speaker 1: vaudeville act. It was a disaster, panned by the critics.

363
00:31:24,210 --> 00:31:29,330
Speaker 1: They thought she moved clumsily, as though she was uncomfortable

364
00:31:29,570 --> 00:31:34,850
Speaker 1: in her own body. In November nineteen thirty, after the

365
00:31:34,890 --> 00:31:44,530
Speaker 1: failure of her vaudeville show, Molly filed for bankruptcy. By

366
00:31:44,610 --> 00:31:50,490
Speaker 1: winter nineteen ninety six, Mary Lennon's life revolved around the

367
00:31:50,570 --> 00:31:54,530
Speaker 1: heavy pump, but one day she managed to get out

368
00:31:54,570 --> 00:31:57,930
Speaker 1: of the house to see a movie. In the darkness

369
00:31:58,010 --> 00:32:02,610
Speaker 1: of the cinema, the tube came loose. She rushed to

370
00:32:02,650 --> 00:32:06,370
Speaker 1: the lobby and scrabbled to fix it, keenly aware that

371
00:32:06,410 --> 00:32:10,770
Speaker 1: the two minute clock was ticking down. When she managed

372
00:32:10,810 --> 00:32:17,050
Speaker 1: to reconnect the device, she broke down in tears. Mary's

373
00:32:17,090 --> 00:32:22,530
Speaker 1: condition was deteriorating rapidly. There was so little oxygen flowing

374
00:32:22,610 --> 00:32:25,330
Speaker 1: through her body that she began to lose the sight

375
00:32:25,490 --> 00:32:31,330
Speaker 1: in one eye. Then, in February nineteen ninety seven, her

376
00:32:31,370 --> 00:32:36,330
Speaker 1: heart and lungs gave out completely. Paramedics rushed to the scene.

377
00:32:36,690 --> 00:32:39,770
Speaker 1: As they loaded her into the ambulance, she begged them

378
00:32:39,850 --> 00:32:45,570
Speaker 1: to save her life. They couldn't. Mary Lynnon died in

379
00:32:45,690 --> 00:32:49,770
Speaker 1: hospital at the age of thirty, less than a year

380
00:32:50,090 --> 00:32:58,810
Speaker 1: after taking her very first dose of fenfen. Lawyer Alex

381
00:32:58,890 --> 00:33:04,850
Speaker 1: MacDonald went to Mary's funeral. He watched her fiancee, whose

382
00:33:04,930 --> 00:33:08,370
Speaker 1: eyes were so puffy from crying that he could barely

383
00:33:08,450 --> 00:33:13,770
Speaker 1: open them. He watched her parents, who seemed simply dazed.

384
00:33:15,130 --> 00:33:19,410
Speaker 1: Instead of walking down the aisle before a bride, I

385
00:33:19,530 --> 00:33:25,690
Speaker 1: walked behind a casket, said her mother. Five months after

386
00:33:25,770 --> 00:33:32,610
Speaker 1: Mary's death, the medical establishment formally connected the DOTS. Doctors

387
00:33:32,650 --> 00:33:36,450
Speaker 1: at the Mayo Clinic announced that they'd found dozens of

388
00:33:36,610 --> 00:33:41,530
Speaker 1: rare heart disease cases in otherwise healthy young women, the

389
00:33:41,610 --> 00:33:47,410
Speaker 1: link between them. These women had all been prescribed fenfhn.

390
00:33:48,730 --> 00:33:54,570
Speaker 1: In September, under immense pressure, the FDA forced the drugs

391
00:33:54,730 --> 00:33:59,330
Speaker 1: off the market. Fenvhn was finally off the shelves, just

392
00:33:59,530 --> 00:34:03,810
Speaker 1: as Mary had wanted, but the legal battle was only

393
00:34:04,010 --> 00:34:09,050
Speaker 1: just beginning. Equipped with this new medical data, Alex McDonald

394
00:34:09,770 --> 00:34:17,570
Speaker 1: pressed on with the Linen family's suit from the nineteen

395
00:34:17,650 --> 00:34:22,810
Speaker 1: twenties flapper to nineteen nineties heroine chic women have faced

396
00:34:22,810 --> 00:34:27,090
Speaker 1: a merry go round of impossible physical standards, many of

397
00:34:27,130 --> 00:34:32,930
Speaker 1: them biologically unachievable for the average human body. And whenever

398
00:34:32,930 --> 00:34:37,610
Speaker 1: there's an impossible physical standard, a market emerges to sell

399
00:34:37,690 --> 00:34:42,690
Speaker 1: a technical hack, a miracle soap, a surgeon's scalpel, a

400
00:34:42,730 --> 00:34:47,090
Speaker 1: cocktail of drugs. In the rush for these fixes, the

401
00:34:47,130 --> 00:34:53,770
Speaker 1: possibility of collateral damage is all too often minimized. When

402
00:34:53,850 --> 00:34:59,890
Speaker 1: Molly O'Day's teenage body did exactly what normal healthy bodies do,

403
00:35:00,890 --> 00:35:04,810
Speaker 1: she was shamed and punished, so much so that she

404
00:35:05,010 --> 00:35:10,530
Speaker 1: submitted to the surgeon's knife. Decades later, Mary Linnon was

405
00:35:10,690 --> 00:35:14,770
Speaker 1: handed a different fix, little blue and white pills that

406
00:35:14,930 --> 00:35:20,130
Speaker 1: promised weight loss as they quietly mutilated her body from within.

407
00:35:21,730 --> 00:35:25,370
Speaker 1: It might be tempting to dismiss Molly and Mary as

408
00:35:25,610 --> 00:35:30,970
Speaker 1: simply vain or naive. I think their decisions are entirely understandable.

409
00:35:31,890 --> 00:35:35,810
Speaker 1: A glowing career was being dangled in front of Molly.

410
00:35:36,450 --> 00:35:40,130
Speaker 1: It was her employers, the people responsible for her income,

411
00:35:40,530 --> 00:35:44,290
Speaker 1: who asked her to shrink. Mary, on the other hand,

412
00:35:44,410 --> 00:35:48,290
Speaker 1: wasn't being ordered to lose weight by a studio executive.

413
00:35:48,730 --> 00:35:52,370
Speaker 1: No one was writing about her in national magazines. She

414
00:35:52,490 --> 00:35:56,650
Speaker 1: was a bride to be navigating the visual demands of

415
00:35:56,690 --> 00:36:02,090
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. She was also a patient navigating her health.

416
00:36:02,930 --> 00:36:07,810
Speaker 1: When she sought guidance, a specialist doctor offered her Fenfenn

417
00:36:08,290 --> 00:36:14,410
Speaker 1: as a safe medical solution. Both women placed their trust

418
00:36:14,850 --> 00:36:17,770
Speaker 1: in people who seem to know what they were doing,

419
00:36:18,490 --> 00:36:26,210
Speaker 1: and met with a brutal commercial logic. Technical hacks are

420
00:36:26,250 --> 00:36:31,130
Speaker 1: still with us. Some, like GLP one weight loss drugs,

421
00:36:31,570 --> 00:36:37,090
Speaker 1: promise genuine health benefits. Others, like the Brazilian butt lift,

422
00:36:37,610 --> 00:36:42,330
Speaker 1: carry a real risk of death for a purely esthetic payoff.

423
00:36:43,330 --> 00:36:48,450
Speaker 1: These hacks have very different utilities, but their popularity points

424
00:36:48,490 --> 00:36:54,130
Speaker 1: to an enduring cultural truth. We treat physical variety not

425
00:36:54,250 --> 00:36:59,010
Speaker 1: as the feature of human experience, but a bug to

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00:36:59,090 --> 00:37:05,650
Speaker 1: be patched, and we reward rapid, visible change, whatever the cost.

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Speaker 1: In January two thousand, the Linen family's civil suit finally

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00:37:13,050 --> 00:37:18,490
Speaker 1: went to trial. World renowned cardiologist Dr Stewart Rich took

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Speaker 1: the stand and explained how Fenfenn had rewritten the biology

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00:37:23,650 --> 00:37:28,930
Speaker 1: of Mary's lungs. Her death, he said, was akin to

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00:37:29,130 --> 00:37:36,690
Speaker 1: slow strangulation or drowning. Attorney Alex MacDonald argued that company

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00:37:36,770 --> 00:37:41,170
Speaker 1: executives had received clear reports about the danger to fenfen

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00:37:41,370 --> 00:37:45,650
Speaker 1: users of heart and lung damage, and that they'd hidden

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00:37:45,890 --> 00:37:51,770
Speaker 1: those reports fearing their profits would suffer. Exhausted by the

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00:37:51,810 --> 00:37:56,730
Speaker 1: trial and weary of the potential for a protracted appeals process,

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00:37:57,530 --> 00:38:02,050
Speaker 1: the Linens ultimately agreed to a settlement of fifteen point

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Speaker 1: five million dollars. At the time, it was the largest

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Speaker 1: wrongful death recovery in Massachusetts history. They planned to use

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00:38:12,570 --> 00:38:15,330
Speaker 1: some of the money to start a foundation in Mary's

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00:38:15,450 --> 00:38:21,970
Speaker 1: name dedicated to the study of primary pulmonary hypertension. In

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00:38:22,010 --> 00:38:25,290
Speaker 1: the years that followed, the company had to set aside

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00:38:25,330 --> 00:38:30,330
Speaker 1: at least twenty one billion dollars to address the growing

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00:38:30,730 --> 00:38:36,650
Speaker 1: national fallout of fenfen. It has consistently denied that it

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00:38:36,810 --> 00:38:46,130
Speaker 1: acted improperly. After Molly O'Day lost her leading lady status,

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00:38:46,730 --> 00:38:51,130
Speaker 1: she secured a few supporting roles in b movies. In

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00:38:51,170 --> 00:38:56,170
Speaker 1: her mid twenties, she walked away from acting altogether. She

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00:38:56,250 --> 00:39:00,770
Speaker 1: got married, had four children, and found success as a

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00:39:00,770 --> 00:39:05,050
Speaker 1: real estate agent. In her spare time, she worked with

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00:39:05,090 --> 00:39:09,930
Speaker 1: the homeless. In nineteen ninety seven, the year that Mary

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00:39:10,010 --> 00:39:15,530
Speaker 1: Lenen passed away. Molly was living peacefully in California, a

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00:39:15,530 --> 00:39:22,170
Speaker 1: matriarch in her eighties with eight grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren.

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Speaker 1: Shortly before her death in nineteen ninety eight, she gave

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00:39:28,210 --> 00:39:34,410
Speaker 1: a final interview. Asked about her years in Hollywood, Molly

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00:39:34,490 --> 00:39:38,930
Speaker 1: explained that she was still bothered and saddened by what

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00:39:39,010 --> 00:39:43,450
Speaker 1: had happened to her there. She also reflected that she'd

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Speaker 1: been a good actress.

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Speaker 2: I was a natural.

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Speaker 1: If only natural had been enough. The key source for

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00:40:07,090 --> 00:40:11,170
Speaker 1: the story of Mary Lenen was Dispensing with the Truth,

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00:40:11,730 --> 00:40:15,770
Speaker 1: the victims, the drug companies, and the dramatic story behind

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00:40:15,850 --> 00:40:20,530
Speaker 1: the Battle over Fenfen by Alicia Mundy. For a full

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00:40:20,570 --> 00:40:27,010
Speaker 1: list of sources, see the show notes at Timharford dot com.

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Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright,

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00:40:31,010 --> 00:40:35,490
Speaker 1: Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills

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00:40:35,530 --> 00:40:39,410
Speaker 1: and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are

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Speaker 1: the work of Pascal Wise. Bend A. Dafhaffrey edited the scripts.

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Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge,

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00:40:50,890 --> 00:40:56,530
Speaker 1: ed Gochen Stella, Harford, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The

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00:40:56,570 --> 00:40:59,370
Speaker 1: show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of

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Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohne, Corin Gilliard Fisher, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan,

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00:41:05,770 --> 00:41:11,770
Speaker 1: Kira Posey, and Owen Milleres is a production of Pushkin Industries.

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Speaker 1: If you like the show, please remember to share, rate,

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00:41:15,890 --> 00:41:18,530
Speaker 1: and review. It really does make a difference to us

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00:41:19,170 --> 00:41:22,450
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear it, add free and

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00:41:22,530 --> 00:41:27,410
Speaker 1: receive a bonus audio episode, video episode, and members only

476
00:41:27,490 --> 00:41:31,850
Speaker 1: newsletter every month. Why not join the Cautionary Club. To

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00:41:31,970 --> 00:41:36,210
Speaker 1: sign up, head to patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club.

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00:41:36,330 --> 00:41:40,290
Speaker 1: That's Patreon, p A, t R e o N dot

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00:41:40,330 --> 00:41:43,050
Speaker 1: com Slash Cautionary Club