BBC Scotland – BBC Scotland – The man who tried to prevent exploitation in the entertainment industry a century before the #MeToo movement

Women working on the chorus line were treated particularly poorly. Some were so badly paid that they would supplement their income by working as prostitutes, plying their trade in front of the predominantly male audience.

Glaswegian Fred Collins had toured the country’s theatres as a performer and agent and had seen the industry’s wrong-doings for himself.

He felt compelled to act and founded the Collins Variety Agency – Scotland’s first theatrical agency – not just to protect the artists from mistreatment, but to provide them with proper representation and pay them decent wages, too.