Courtney-Thorne Smith recalls a particularly difficult moment on a film set when she was a young actress.
The Melrose Place alum, 56, explained to her former co-stars Daphne Zuniga and Laura Leighton on Sunday’s September 22 episode of the trio’s podcast Still a place that she had an inappropriate meeting with the director at the beginning of her career.
“One of my first movies, I was 17 and I was in Tahoe. And the story was, I was 17 and I was playing against a guy who was in his late thirties,” Thorne-Smith said. “We slept together on the set and I wore one of his button-down shirts afterwards.”
However, Thorne-Smith recalled arriving on set to find a “really sexy negligee” in her room. Uncomfortable with the costume and feeling “trapped” by the situation, she told the director that underwear was not in the script. “And he said, “Well, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,'” she recalled before noting that it had a “no nudity clause.”
“Then I said, ‘The way it’s cut, you’ll see something,'” she recalled. “And I was also thinking that I was 17 years old with [older] man. It was like I knew it was off in some way, but the shirt made it good.”
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Courtney Thorne-Smith on July 26, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California.
Phillip Faraone/WireImage
But Thorne-Smith was adamant about not wearing underwear and told Zuniga and Leighton that a producer told her the crew talked about her rejection and said she was a “baby”.
She then called her agent, who came to the set in Lake Tahoe and supported her decision, and was “100% on [her] side.” Thorne-Smith noted that she was grateful for that, especially after learning about the MeToo movement and young women being set up by agents to meet with Hollywood executives in hotel rooms.
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She claimed the production put “pressure” on her and was “furious” because she ended up wearing the original script costume of a man’s shirt.
As Thorne-Smith continued, she claimed the producer “lied about the crew”. She said: “Every crew member came up and said, ‘Good for you,'” adding, “Thank God they had my back.”
“I am so grateful that I had the ability to stand up for myself at that age,” she concluded. “I’m actually amazed. I had that ability at that age.”
Thorne-Smith’s first credits include the 1986 cult classic Lucaswhich also starred Winona Ryder, Charlie Sheen and Corey Haim, as well as a drama Welcome to 18where Mariska Hargitay was a guest. She appeared on the small screen According to Jim and Ally McBeal.
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New episodes Still a place podcast drops every Sunday.
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Source: HIS Education