On the evening of May 5, 1937, the 20-year-old Douglas, with more than 120 other young women, most of them dancers, was taken to work at an MGM party, which was part of a convention held to reward MGM sales executives for a new sales formula which had proved very lucrative. The young women hired that night were led to believe that they would be working on a film. At the party, Douglas was targeted by Ross and was forced to drink. When she ran outside to vomit, Ross followed her, dragged her into a car in a nearby field, and raped her. '', featuring the Douglas case After the rape, a parking attendant heard Douglas screaming and saw her staggering as Ross ran away. Douglas was brought to Culver City Community Hospital, where she was
douched, thus destroying evidence of the rape, before being examined by Edward Lindquist, who co-owned the hospital. His practice was largely dependent on MGM, and he testified later that he believed there had been no intercourse. When the grand jury refused to indict Ross, Douglas filed a
civil suit against studio personnel and the other party attendees. For unknown reasons, Brown failed to appear in court and the case was dismissed for want of prosecution. David Stenn, in a 2003 article about the case in
Vanity Fair, theorized that, because Brown was running against Fitts for the office of
district attorney, he may have feared that litigating the case would undermine his campaign. == Later life ==