00:00Broadway was poisoning its stars every single night.
00:03Stage makeup in the 1920s contained white lead carbonate,
00:08the same compound later banned from house paint.
00:11Actors wore it directly on their skin.
00:14Eight shows a week.
00:16Decade after decade.
00:18The red lip and cheek color was worse,
00:21made from mercuric sulfide,
00:23pure mercury absorbed through skin.
00:26Night after night, show after show,
00:28the trembling hands that ended careers?
00:31Not stage fright.
00:33Heavy metal poisoning.
00:34Medicine even had a name for it.
00:36They called it actor's palsy.
00:39Here's the wild part.
00:41Safer makeup didn't come from doctors.
00:43Film close-ups made lead grease paint look cakey on camera.
00:48Hollywood economics accidentally saved actors' lives.
00:51Follow for more mind-blowing facts every day.
