Talk:Arthur Freed

Whitewashing of Child Abuse
There seems to be a concerted attempt to whitewash a recorded and properly cited incident of child abuse in which Arthur Freed took Shirley Temple into a private interview on the MGM lot, unzipped his trousers and exposed his penis to her.

On 13:55, 11 February 2014 (edit), I added the edit:

"One child star, Shirley Temple, reported that when aged twelve she was interviewed by Freed with a view to transferring her career to MGM, he unzipped his trousers and exposed himself to her "

On 20:30, 11 February 2014 new editorOldmilt16 edited this contribution to read:

"He is also known for eliciting giggles from an adolescent Shirley Temple Black after exposing himself to her. "

This seems to me to be an obvious and in fact egregious attempt to render anodyne a verified and cited incident of child abuse on the part of Arthur Freed by someone motivated to whitewash this unpleasant incident against a twelve-year-old child by making it appear to be some kind of harmless prank. I have reverted this edit and request that any further edits on this specific issue be justified here before they are accepted in the main article Hubertgrove (talk) 22:21, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of a "published" report like this as a "cited incident" of child abuse is to treat that "incident" as fact. Whether it is fact we don't know, but if it isn't we know no man's memory or reputation can survive its being told here. And it's a fact that no respectable newspaper or magazine would present such a damaging story couched in the language being used, with no cushion to account for its having been told in a book written by a much older Shirley Temple Black to describe a single childhood memory of a man she says was trying at the time to recruit her for MGM, It's a strange story to tell so prominently about a man as accomplished as songwriter-movie producer Freed, whose actual accomplishments are listed without noting how remarkable it is that one man wrote so many good songs and good, very successful movie musicals. Add to this that one person pushing the legitimacy of the Shirley Temple story (as published) claims those who dispute its editing want to give child abusers a break. That's how quickly a man becomes a child abuser when a child says so, even retroactively. Arthur Freed isn't a person guilty or innocent in this editor's eyes; he's a guilty child abuser convicted in the court of a Shirley Temple memoir. I'm an old newspaper editor and this is the first time I've found a Wikipedia dispute scary, because it shows what I've often thought must occur in the case of articles not written or edited by professionals working for a centralized hierarchy -- namely that there really are people editing here who shouldn't be allowed to affect mass-circulated media, especially a work of reference. I'm frequently grateful for Wikipedia's articles and find myself wondering how it can be organized as it is and still keep such individuals from editing its product, or at least comfortable with being corrected by another editor of equal rank. It's something I've always expected to encounter; chalk that up to my own discomfort with putting my own words into a mouth shared by so many.96.224.8.148 (talk) 09:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hubertgrove's amended comment has been changed to include the conjunction "when". Without that conjunction the sentence is incomprehensible and an obvious and in fact egregious attempt to flood Wikipedia with horrible sentence structure.  This claim is made with the same amount of evidence as Hubertgrove's charge that the previous description of the "Arthur Freed Incident" was a concerted attempt to whitewash an incident of child abuse.  Both accusations were made after reading a single sentence and thus hold no water whatsoever.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldmilt16


 * Please don't vandalise this page or the article, and please don't harass editors. Hubertgrove (talk) 18:21, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay. And please tone down any future accusations. Leveling such serious charges with such little evidence harms the overall integrity of the website. Oldmilt16 —Preceding undated comment added 22:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

False & Un-substantiated Attacks on Arthur Freed
Dear Wikipedia:

I am writing to request that the biography of my grandfather, Arthur Freed, be edited by removing the false, outrageous and unsubstantiated allegations made first by Shirley Temple in her autobiography and then repeated by Aljean Harmatz in her book on the making of Wizard of Oz about my grandfather conducting a lewd act in the presence of Shirley Temple at the time of his casting Wizard of Oz.

These allegations were made only first 50 years after they allegedly happened when Shirley Temple wrote her autobiography and vented her anger over my grandfather giving the relatively unknown Judy Garland the part of Dorothy over very well known Shirley Temple.

There has never been a shred of evidence including third party statements to substantiate these untrue and hurtful to our family outrageous charges.

Further, I see some idiot has written on Wikipedia about some previous editing of these false statements referring to my grandfather as a child abuser.

Wikipedia -- as one of the Internet's most respected sources of information -- should respect the foundation of American jurisprudence -- "innocent until proven guilty" -- and remove this ridiculous and painful statement.

If you wish to discuss this further with me, please contact me directly.

I would appreciate both the courtesy of a reply and to see that Wikipedia will correct this terrible injustice to my grandfather and our family by removing totally unsubstantiated false allegations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8001:6f40:56:59ea:91db:e588:d3b1 (talk • contribs)


 * Wikipedia is not a publisher of new information, it is an encyclopedia (a tertiary source) that bases its information from secondary sources, such as newspapers, journals, and rarely, primary sources, such as research journals. If the alledged information is defamatory and uncited, you may wp:boldly remove the uncited content. However, if the information is cited, please contact the source of the information to dispute it. Thank you,

BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with BrxBrx ) 23:18, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

New York Times
The alleged exposure incident was published in Shirley Temple's obituary in the New York Times. They recounted it from her autobiography.

That's plenty of reason to include the incident on Wikipedia, whatever reasons Freed's estate (or should I spell it "etate") gives for why it's an invalid account.

Here's the link.

Danwroy (talk) 22:12, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 2 external links on Arthur Freed. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050420161759/http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_bio.asp?exhibitId=63 to http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_bio.asp?exhibitId=63
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050415233841/http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/discog_song_list.asp?exhibitId=63 to http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/discog_song_list.asp?exhibitId=63

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Another actress also said she was abused
Barrie Chase also seems to have said it in an interview.

see "https://artsmeme.com/2017/10/12/sexual-harassment-in-high-hollywood-by-mgm-freed-unit-boss/"

/wiki/Barrie_Chase

Hollywood harassment nothing new, says Barrie Chase

It's pretty detailed.

Any others not mentioned here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.128.245.219 (talk) 05:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)