I recently discovered that the great Hollywood studio MGM was afraid that popular actress June Allyson would steal from them.
It was 1952 and the great studio was having financial problems. To cut costs they decided to let go a roster of their erstwhile top stars who were no longer box office gold. Among them, Clark Gable, Greer Garson, June Allyson, Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Deborah Kerr, Kathryn Grayson, George Murphy and Lionel Barrymore.
These layoffs were done in a quite cut-throat way, no pleasantries in some cases. Just goodbye, don’t let the gate hit you on he way out. Even though these stars helped create MGM.
June Allyson was told that she was one of the stars leaving. When she turned up at her last day of work she found an executive waiting for her. He held an itemised list of everything that was in her changing room that belonged to MGM and it was his job to make sure the they were still there now, and when she left. Everything had to be ticked off.
She reported later that he was so embarrassed by this that he handed her the sheet and let her tick off off all the items.