Arrested development

Now as then, celebrity scandals make for splashy news.

Nothing feeds our schadenfreude more than a good celebrity scandal. To watch the mighty, glamorous and rich stumble is a reality soap opera unparalleled by anything that the studios can dream up. Since Hollywood's birth, the peril of potential pitfalls has added an effervescent thrill to celebrity. After all, early Hollywood megastar Fatty Arbuckle was destroyed by the allegation that he raped a woman at a debauched party. And he was acquitted! Today, the public has shown increasing fickleness about what scandal might actually succeed in alienating its affections.

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER HIM
Frank Sinatra appeared in Beverly Hills Municipal Court in 1947 after being arrested for slugging New York columnist Lee Mortimer, who alleged the singer may have had ties to a known mobster. Sinatra said the writer called him an ethnic epithet for Italian Americans. The incident took place at Ciro's nightclub in Hollywood.

SHE'S NO ANGEL
Jailed in New York for her play "Sex" and up against censors again with the play "Drag," Mae West defends herself in 1930 in one of many cases brought against her for obscenity.

THE GRASS IS GREENER
Robert Mitchum, left, who served 50 days in jail on a marijuana conviction, talks with attorney Jerry Geisler about his release in 1949.

THE ADVENTURES OF ERROL FLYNN
Flynn at the West Los Angeles police station in 1957 where he was booked for being drunk. Left is jailer Leonard Sagehorn, and behind Flynn is arresting officer William Friedman.

ABOUT A BAD BOY
Hugh Grant pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of lewd contact with a prostitute in 1995.

ERR AMERICA
Robert Downey Jr. was sentenced to six months for violating parole on a drug conviction in 1997.

AGE OF NOT INNOCENT
Winona Ryder was found guilty of grand theft after her 2001 shoplifting arrest.

OVER THE EDGE
Nick Nolte was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in Malibu in 2002.

THE PEOPLE VS. HER
Courtney Love was arraigned on two felony counts of drug possession in 2003.

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