The early to late ’70s saw the flowering of a revolutionary sexual awakening all over…in showbiz circles, in elite professions, in the major urban areas, in upper middle-class neighborhoods. Hell, everywhere.
And especially for rich, powerful, good-looking actors on the prowl. For them every day was a combination of Plato’s Retreat and I, Claudius. It was madness back then.
Even Average Joes tasted the nectar. From a certain perspective they were lucky to be living and frolicking in one of the most breathtaking nookie eras since the days of Ancient Rome.
In our Salem Witch Trial climate there’s nothing to be gained and everything to be lost by being candid about this. I certainly can’t go there but…
The context of the ‘70s was so dramatically different than the climate of today. We’re living in the midst of #MeToo Puritanism — a very conservative and punitive social movement.
That aside, any adult actor who may or may not have had his way with an under-age teenager…such behavior was selfish and cruel. That was then, but this is now. And criminally is criminality. You don’t mess with jailbait.
So many people today have no understanding of how many people in Hollywood and the pop music world diddled around with jailbait back in the day. They think it was just Warren Beatty and Led Zeppelin. Celebrities, or at least many of them, have little sense of morality when it comes to showing restraint or putting the brakes on. They lead wild lives. But no one seems to understand this. The tabloids present banal addiction and divorce dramas as The Truth. They don’t report on most of what actually goes on.