Overlooked No More: Patricia Douglas, Who Challenged Hollywood’s Culture of Abuse

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.

In May 1937, a 20-year-old extra and dancer named Patricia Douglas was invited to appear in a movie produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the biggest movie studio in Hollywood.

When she showed up on location at the ranch of the producer Hal Roach in Culver City, Calif., she discovered that there was no film shoot. Instead, she later said, she and more than 100 other young women — many of whom were minors — had been summoned to entertain men attending MGM’s annual sales convention.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/obituaries/patricia-douglas-overlooked.html