Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway

Book Description

In classic Hollywood tradition, Farley Granger, a high school senior, was discovered by Sam Goldwyn's casting director in an off-Hollywood Boulevard play. Granger describes how he learned his craft as he went on to star in a number of films, giving an insider's view of working with Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train and Rope, Luchino Visconti on Senso, and Nick Ray on They Live by Night.

He is eloquent about his bisexuality and tells of affairs with Patricia Neal, Arthur Laurents, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein and Ava Gardner and his involvement with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Tyrone Power.

Granger recreates his legendary struggle to break his contract with Goldwyn. He had to buy his way out to work on Broadway. He describes the early days of live television and working with Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer, Helen Hayes, and Claire Bloom. He captures the thrill of acting on the stage with Janice Rule, June Havoc, Larry Hagman, Barbara Cook, and the National Repertory Theatre, where his determination paid off with an OBIE for his work in Tally & Son.

Granger's delightful and elegant memoir captures the extravangance of Hollywood's Golden Age-and provides colorful portraits of many of its major players.

Customer Reviews:

GOSSIP, GAYS AND THE GLORY DAZE OF YESTERYEAR.......2007-07-28

There's an aging celebrity in Sondheim's musical Follies whose anthem is "I'm Still Here." Well, Farley Granger is one of those stars who we all thought left the party, but he, too, is still here, and he has a new autobiography---more of a series of reminiscences---called Include Me Out to prove it. Written with his long-time partner, Robert Calhoun, the title refers to a Goldwynism, that is, a malapropism created by the legendary movie producer. In Granger's situation, it refers to a decision to get off the Hollywood merry-go-round and go after life, and a level of happiness, that was simply impossible in his day and age in Tinseltown. Although there may be a degree of ingeniousness here (and a major error recounting Boston history), the book is long on charm, anecdotes and fuzzy warmth. And, frankly, there is such a list of sexual congress with such a variety of genders, that one wonders where he found the time for acting. Two minor masterpieces in America (both directed by Hitchcock), Rope and Strangers on a Train, and the truly magnificent Luchino Visconti's Senso, in Italy, should make for the foundation of a spectacular career. Granger was tall, dark and handsome, groomed by several studios, yet he suggests he walked away from it all. His sexuality at the time may well have been a problem, as after his initial explosion of successes, his career dwindled to some truly rotten films in Europe, a fair amount of television guest shots, a couple of less than successful runs at Broadway, and finally, in the soap As the World Turns. There are great anecdotes here, lovingly told, about the likes of Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner, Count Visconti, Danny Kaye, Sam Goldwyn, Eva Le Gallienne (with whom Granger did two national tours) and our own, Julie Harris. Some of the stories ring truer than others, yet the love he has for Calhoun seems genuine, and his long and eventful life makes for fascinating reading of another time and another place.

Mildly entertaining.......2007-07-01

In ORIGINAL STORY Arthur Laurents describes his homosexual relationship with Farley Granger in a way that indicates that Granger was important to him, but that Granger was very concerned about his public image and was not really willing to live an openly gay life with him. He describes Shelley Winters as Granger's "beard." A decade later, Granger has written his own memoir, but it is a very different kind of book than Laurents's. I suppose that's to be expected since Laurents is a fairly major American playwright of the 20th Century and Granger is a fairly minor movie star of the same period. Granger's book is a rather typical actor's memoir, trying to put a positive spin on a career that must have been frustrating to actually experience. The good thing about Granger's book is that it demonstrates the basic passivity of an actor's life. He never really DOES anything. Things just sort of happen. He starts his career as a movie star in major films like NORTH STAR, ROPE and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and slowly slides to Broadway flops, foreign movies, touring in repertory theatre, episodic television, soap operas and off-Broadway. He has very little control over which direction his career goes. He claims to have had affairs with several screen goddesses along the way, including Ava Gardner, but none of them is alive to refute him. The way he tells it, Shelley Winters was no mere "beard," but a genuinely serious romantic interest who was also a friend. Whatever is true, she comes across as quite a character and I enjoyed all the parts about her. He does mention his affair with Laurents, although his version is somewhat different. He claims that they broke up because he caught Laurents being more than friendly with a delivery boy. I think Laurents's version has more credibility. He also mentions other homosexual relationships, including a fling with Leonard Bernstein. But my feeling here was that there were a lot of omissions and half-truths, not that it really matters. The parts of the book I found most interesting were the sections dealing with making the movie SENSO in Italy with Luchino Visconti and the out-of-town tryout of the ill-fated musical, FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Overall, this is a mildly entertaining memoir and not a bad book for the beach or a long airplane flight.

Rather dull.......2007-06-27

After reading many celebrity bios, this one needed work. He makes rather stupid blunders in his bio. For instance, he mentions movies and stars at the Fox studio when he arrived and what were being being filmed at the time. Some of these titles were filmed at MGM !! When he descibes how much he started to love show music he mentions CAROSEUL in the early 40's. The play and album were done in the late 40'S. A few other errors in time are also noted. Since he is in his 80's, perhaps his memory is failing. I never thought he was all that talented. His ego seems bigger than the talent. He really just skirts his sexual life and one never really knows what his exact relationship is with his so-called partner. He never mentions his parents or what happened to them after he leaves them. Are they still living? Probably not, but he didn't even mention their death. After all, good or bad, they WERE his parents and deserve some kind of note as to their fate. Good thing he turned down THE EGYPTIAN as he would have really made it more of a bore than it was. What I did enjoy were some of his slants on the people he worked with and why and why not he liked them. He states that certain actors/actresses were difficult to work with. Perhaps they could have said the same about him!! There are TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY.

Totally enjoyable.......2007-06-05

This "tell all" book from a truly talented guy is fun, interesting and a really good read. Farley reveals some of the truths of being a star in the 40's and 50's and his rejection of the mainstream for someting more creative.

excellent.......2007-05-26

it was great to read this book,as i have always wanted to know where farley granger went to as all off a sudden he was on broadway

Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens

Average customer rating:

ture love
A Fine Tribute
A 'must' for any holding strong in American arts history
Highly recommended!
Proving there's no 'burly' in burlesque

Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens
Liz Goldwyn
Manufacturer: Collins Design
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060889446
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Book Description

Liz Goldwyn's lifelong fascination with the inimitable glamour of classic burlesque inspired her to spend the past eight years corresponding with, visiting, interviewing, receiving striptease lessons from, and forming close relationships with the last generation of the great American burlesque queeens. Goldwyn invites us to step back into an era when the hourglass figure was in vogue and striptease was a true art form.

Meet Betty "Ball of Fire" Rowland, who was known for her flaming red hair and bump–and–grind routines. (It turns out she once sued the author's grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., for using her stage name and costume in his Hollywood picture, Ball of Fire.)

Meet Sherry Britton, who, with her long black hair and curvy, trim physique, was among the most stunning of the burlesque stars before Mayor LaGuardia outlawed burlesque in New York.

Meet Zorita, whose sexually explicit "Consummation of the Wedding of the Snake" dance (performed with a live snake) and other daring performances earned her legendary status.

Goldwyn draws back the curtain to reveal the personal journeys of yesteryear's icons of female sexuality and power, restoring their legacy to an age that has all but forgotten them–despite today's resurgence of burlesque.

Customer Reviews:

ture love.......2007-03-15

the book is very dazzling ,and it would be my ture love for the passed Age.

A Fine Tribute.......2007-02-28

An artistic design layout provides the reader with lots of photos and scrapbook pages of original costume sketches, fabric swatches, letters, postcards, and lots more. This visual collage is a wonderful piece of film toward understanding the life these women lived. Their attitude and sex appeal as we know it only disguised the reality of their life, tough working conditions and a career contingent of youth and beauty eventually leading these women to fall on hard times and in the end forgotten.

A 'must' for any holding strong in American arts history.......2007-02-03

If the book title sounds familiar, it's because Liz Goldwyn's HBO documentary of the same name aired in July 2005 to much acclaim, covering the history of American burlesque. If you think you've seen it all in the show, think again: the book holds much more! Here are personal stories, career overviews, and biographies of some of the most talented genre stars. Burlesque history comes alive here as in no other collection, making PRETTY THINGS a 'must' for any holding strong in American arts history, from general-interest to college-level libraries.

Highly recommended!.......2007-01-11

An enlightening look at a largely misunderstood/misinterpreted art form, this book combines rigorous scholarship, engaging narrative, rare photos, and well-executed design. Liz Goldwyn's love of the subject matter is clear and infectious. Highly recommended, as is the author's HBO special of the same name.

Proving there's no 'burly' in burlesque.......2007-01-10

"Pretty Things" will make any modernist long for this by-gone era of subtle seduction and skill. The text and incorporated research are as beguiling as the photographs and innovative mix of graphics. A piece to swoon over and share with all.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, Madness, and the Fair that Changed America

Average customer rating:

Intriguing but Very Poorly Written
A method to his madness
History and Mystery in a non-fiction page turner
Fact and Speculation
Great book, though leaves a bit to be desired....

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, Madness, and the Fair that Changed America
Erik Larson
Manufacturer: RH Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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The Glass Castle: A Memoir
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ASIN: 0739323598
Release Date: 2005-05-03

Amazon.com

Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe

Book Description

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

To find out more about this book, go to http://www.DevilInTheWhiteCity.com.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson, author of Isaac's Storm, tells the spellbinding true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were linked by the greatest fair in American history: the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, nicknamed "The White City."

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century.

The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds -- a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.

Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book, the smoke, romance and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

Erik Larson's gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

"Engrossing... exceedingly well documented... utterly fascinating."
   CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"A dynamic, enveloping book.... Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel.... It doesn't hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction."
   THE NEW YORK TIMES

"So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already."
   ESQUIRE

"Another successful exploration of American history.... Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World's Fair."
   USA TODAY

"As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find."
   SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come."
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"A wonderfully unexpected book... Larson is a historian... with a novelist's soul."
   CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

Customer Reviews:

Intriguing but Very Poorly Written.......2007-10-15

I couldn't wait to read this book because it had been recommended by so many people. But until I started reading it myself and talking about it, I didn't realize how many people started it and couldn't finish it.
Yes, I was one of those who finished it - because I like murder mysteries and I wanted to know what happened, but the other parts were so bad that I ended up using the book as my nighttime reading to put me to sleep.
The subject matter is intriguing, not only for the geography of the story, especially since I live in Chicago, but also for the fact that someone so gruesome lived here and murdered untold numbers of people, mostly women and children.
But the writer jumps all over the place - he consistently doesn't finish thoughts before he moves on to the next thing, little "asides" are inserted without any context, and the timeline jumps around in many places.
And there are unanswered questions, not the least of which is whatever happened to Holmes' 2nd wife and his child?
I'm guess I need to go back to all of those people who recommmended it to me to find out if they really liked it as much as they said they did, or were they just interested in the murder mystery. And how many just skipped to those parts to find out what happened.

A method to his madness.......2007-10-12

The title of this review pertains not only to Dr. H.H. Holmes, the notorious serial murderer who is the focus of Eric Larsen's attention, but to the author himself. This is my second Larson book (after the wonderful "Thunderstruck") and it's not hard to see Larsen's M.O.. Take a historical event that by itself might not generate mass interest, and graft onto it a grisly story of murder -- plural murders if possible. Keep the tension constantly at the boiling point, and voila! A blockbuster.

Method writing aside, DWC was terrific to listen to. Larsen illuminates a little-known corner of American history, shining a light on fascinating people and different ways of looking at things. We experience Chicago, built on train traffic and malodorous slaughter yards. We learn about the architects, like Burnham and Root, who gave us the 1893 Columbian Exposition, also know as the Chicago World's Fair, and their dreams to outdo the Parisian fair of a few years earlier. We also meet Frederick Olmsted, in his early seventies, the designer of New York's Central Park, obsessed with and protective of his vision for the landscaped walks and peaceful lagoons that he imagined for the fair. We also learn of the desperation of the America architects and engineers associated with the fair to somehow outdo the French engineering achievement that was the Eiffel Tower. He learn about life in Chicago, loud, dangerous and exhilarating. What can you say about a town in which you can step off a sidewalk and get clobbered by a speeding train?

But there is a devil in the White City, as the fair was known. Dr H.H. Holmes, ever calm and with personality magnetic to young women, is also busy building. But this construction has an entirely different end than that of Burnham and Olmsted. For while the fair's designers want to bring pleasure to their customers and glory to their city and professions, Holmes wants pleasure and glory for himself. And no law or threatening angel will stop him from committing the most dastardly of crimes against the most innocent and unsuspecting of victims.

For those who know a little about American history, Larsen's constant cloaking of details might be maddening. I happen to know how the search for an engineering marvel came out. But for the rest of us, Larsen's unending teasers and cliffhangers propel us from chapter to chapter and disk to disk. Not to mention the promise of more lurid exposes in his Holmes sections. Larsen does a pretty good job of sticking to the facts, and he states that any material in quotes (not readily discernible in the audio book) is factual, and taken from extant sources. But he is not above a bit of creative license outside of the boundaries of the quotation marks. His description of the killer's movements and the death throes of his victims may owe more than a little to Larsen's imagination. But no matter. His suppositions are usually plausible and always gripping.

I don't know enough about the Chicago fair to know how close Larsen gets to its essence. Perhaps he magnifies the conflicts and frustrations of the participants. But one can't ignore the fact that the fair made some mad, some fabulously rich, some well known and some prematurely dead. An age in which a forty-year-old can succumb to pneumonia -- a disease we now respect but hardly fear -- is one in which day-to-day stakes are high indeed. I have to confess to a bit of a thrill as I anticipated Larsen's recounting of tale after juicy tale of seduction, betrayal and destruction. And Larsen pleases from the first paragraph. Not a tale for the easily upset, "Devil in the White City" is perfect for readers like me who love history basted with real-life mystery and spiced with drama and just a pinch of mayhem.

History and Mystery in a non-fiction page turner.......2007-10-11

Larsen deftly weaves an intriguing tale of the building of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 with a story about a psychopath who commits several murders without detection during the same period. The book is chock full of information about prominent personages and inventions that changed the way we live today. It is a real page turner.

Fact and Speculation.......2007-10-10

The Devil In the White City raises troublesome questions about what is factual and what is pure authorial speculation. At times the Larson even privaledges his own imagination as being closer to the truth than statements provided by key players in the book. (See the first three paragraphs on page 39 for an example.) Stronger documentation and clear indications of when the text was meandering into the imaginative realm would have helped this book tremendously.

Great book, though leaves a bit to be desired...........2007-10-09

I am not a huge reader (too busy with college) but this book really caught my eye and, let me tell you, I made time for it once I realized how good it was. The book is incredibly informative and it is immediately apparent that the author did an ENORMOUS amount of research. As one of the reviewers says on a page at the front of the book, you will be left wondering how you DIDN'T know these stories already (for example, you learn about the first Ferris wheel.)

All of that said, I was hoping for much more information about the serial killer aspect... the author would devote maybe 4 pages worth of Holmes for every 10 pages worth of the Chicago Fair. I was mistakenly led to believe that the ratio was about equal and throughout the book, kept hoping that the Fair's historical accounts would become less frequent and instead would be replaced with more of the true crime aspect. At the end of the book, I came to find out that there simply wasn't enough information about the crimes to fill the book as most readers might have liked.

In short, this book is excellent and I highly recommend it. Just be forewarned, it is much more about the Chicago World Fair (and in more detail than most people probably prefer) and less about the serial killer and his

Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary: Her Private Letters from Inside the Studios of the 1920s

Average customer rating:

Fascinating Letters for Those Interested in the Period
HOLLYWOOD HISTORY AT ITS BEST
Fascinating... to a point.
A Must Read for Anyone with an Interest in Vintage Hollywood

Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary: Her Private Letters from Inside the Studios of the 1920s
Valeria Belletti
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520247809

Book Description

Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary is an insider's view of the film studios of the 1920s--and the first from a secretary's perspective. Rich in gossip, it is also an eyewitness report of Hollywood in transition. In the summer of 1924, Valeria Belletti and her friend Irma visited California, but instead of returning home to New York, the twenty-six-year-old Valeria decided to stay in Los Angeles. She moved into the YWCA, landed a job as Samuel Goldwyn's personal and social secretary and proceeded to trip over history in the making. As she recounts in her dozens of letters to Irma, Valeria Belletti encountered every type of Hollywood player in the course of her working day: moguls, directors, stars, writers, and hopeful extras. She shares news about Valentino's affairs, Sam Goldwyn's bootlegger, the development of the "talkies," her own role in helping to cast Gary Cooper in his first major part and much more--often in hilarious detail. She writes of her living and working conditions, her active social life, and her hopes for the future--all the everyday concerns of a young working woman during the jazz age. Alternating sophistication with naiveté, Valeria's letters intimately document a personal journey while giving us a unique portrait of a fascinating era.

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating Letters for Those Interested in the Period.......2007-02-07

Valeria Belletti was an energetic, intelligent young woman who came to Los Angeles from New York and worked as a secretary to some of the most powerful and interesting people in Hollywood in the late 1920s. During this period, she wrote dozens of letters to her best friend, describing not only her experiences at the movie studios, but her personal feelings and day-to-day life in southern California and on an extended trip to Europe. These letters make up the bulk of this short book, which left me liking Valeria very much and wishing there had been more. Well-written background notes are provided by editor Cari Beauchamp.

While Beauchamp supplies some valuable padding-out of the events and personalities Valeria described, she tends to give the compilation a modern feminist point of view the author of the letters did not seem to have in mind. In contrast, the letters indicate that rather than being the victim of an "iron ceiling" (Beauchamp's term), Valeria, although a high school dropout, had opportunities to grow professionally beyond being a secretary, but chose not to pursue them. Furthermore, rather than half-heartedly marrying a man she was "only fond of" (Beauchamp again) as a sort of economic expedient in an oppressive patriarchal society, Valeria was an independent woman who went where she wanted to go and did what she wanted to do. She had no trouble supporting herself comfortably, and she enthusiastically married a man of modest economic means, of whom she wrote, "The more I'm with him, the more I love him."

I have the paperback edition and find it odd that the name of Valeria Belletti, the delightful author of the letters comprising this book, does not appear on the front cover or the spine, while Beauchamp's name is displayed in large print. For enthusiasts of early Hollywood or 1920s southern California, Valeria's letters are well worth reading, while taking her editor's feminist leanings with a large chunk of salt.

HOLLYWOOD HISTORY AT ITS BEST.......2006-07-04

Fabulous Book. If you want to know the inner-workings of the star-studded Hollywood Machine in the 1920's then this is the book for you. An insider's account with all the trimmings. Cari Beauchamp does it again. BRAVA!

Fascinating... to a point........2006-06-14

This is a very fascinating book if you're into Hollywood history, specifically of the 20's. Although written as letters to a friend, they a lot like a diary, and as such it's a look at Hollywood of that era from a viewpoint we've never seen: the regular employee. There are plenty of books by and about the stars, directors, executives, etc., but this is the first one from a secretary, and while that may not sound as exciting as, say, a book about Buster Keaton, it really is interesting.

What's great is that these were just casual letters, not something their author (Valieria Belletti) expected anyone but her friend to read, consequently she speaks her mind with an openness and honesty you just won't get from someone who's expecting to be quoted. The letters are full of comments and incidents about major stars and directors, but are presented in a casual way, not jazzed up as they would be upon later reminiscence or if they were being told in an interview.

The only thing I didn't like, and this is to be expected from the private letters of one young woman to another, is that the "search for a husband" stuff gets a bit tiresome. It's still interesting in terms of being a window on the mores and social life of the time, and therefore some readers might find it better than the movie studio parts, but I came at the book through an interest in the movies not an interest in how women dated in the 20's. (As I said though, I did find this stuff interesting, it's just that it started to occupy more space than the studio stuff. And in Valieria's defense, it sounded like she was wearying of it after a while too.)

So I'm glad I read the book and I definitely recommend it, just don't expect wall-to-wall insights and revelations about Hollywood. Not that I expected that, but just be sure you don't either.

A Must Read for Anyone with an Interest in Vintage Hollywood.......2006-05-20

This book is not only for film buffs, it is a window to a world that is long gone. It is a bird's eye view of Hollywood at the end of the silent era and transitioning into the age of the talkies.

Aside from the great Hollywood dish, of which there is plenty, Belletti was remarkably candid and refreshingly not star struck. Although, I must confess that I can totally relate to having a crush on Ronald Colman. In the end it is the delightful, matter of fact, take no prisoners Valeria Belletti that you come so much to admire in reading her letters. She was a wonderful letter writer and these letters are, indeed, treasures. At the turn of each page you are delighted anew with some insight or adventure. She was one spunky girl and wrote letters that are filled with details of her days and nights in Hollywood. We need to bless her beloved friend Irma for saving these letters and presenting them to her many years later.

We must also thank Cari Beauchamp for bringing these letters to light and annotating them carefully with her own delightful and informative prose. As I said before, this is a window to a lost world. More than that, it is a celebration of an independent young woman making her way in a man's world and celebrating her life at the height of the jazz age. This will be a volume I will turn to again and again. Don't miss it, this will brighten the gloomiest and dampest spirits on a rainy day.

Average customer rating:

Extraordinary biography
Thorough, engaging, insightful
Rags to riches
Great bio of a genius's life
Exceptional Hollywood Bio - the best of the bunch

Goldwyn: A Biography
A. Scott Berg
Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Lindbergh
Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius
Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story
A Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler

ASIN: 1573227234

Book Description

Samuel Goldwyn was the premier dream-maker of his era, and in this lavishly-praised biography, the author of Lindbergh and Max Perkins: Editor of Genius offers a life story as rich with drama as anything found on the silver screen...

Customer Reviews:

Extraordinary biography.......2006-06-22

Berg does a great job, and the subject is absolutely a fascinating one.

Thorough, engaging, insightful.......2006-05-16

I picked this book up at the library not knowing what to expect and was amazed! Although it is indeed a biography of Sam Goldwyn, it is also a very well told piece about the studio system and Hollywood in the first half of the century (with an emphasis on the 20's) Not only insightful but entertaining; it makes for a read more gossipy than the trashiest celeb autobiography while maintaining class and style.

I recommend this book to anyone the least bit interested in the classic hollywood days. It is the best book I've read thus far on the era, and it will get you down to the video store hunting down old movies just to see the actors and actresses you've read about.

Rags to riches.......2002-03-18

What a story! A remarkably easy to read account of Sam Goldwyn's rags-to-riches life. Did you know "Goldwyn" was not his real name? Did you know he was thrown out of the MGM company after a few years?! Goldwyn worked at some stage or other with just about every famous name in the business, and also fell out with just about everybody he ever met. A cantankerous and perverse character who loved contradicting people. When people quit because he made their lives intolerable, he sometimes felt personally attacked and betrayed. The book is full of colourful characters, and Scott Berg has done a wonderful job of using quotations and dialogues to really bring these people alive: Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Lillian Hellman, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, and the remarkable Hilda Berl. It reads like a movie! By tracing Goldwyn's history, the book also covers the story of many of the other famous movie companies that are still famous today: United Artists, Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO and of course MGM. Goldwyn also came across many young actors and actresses before they were stars: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, etc. And of course the famous Goldwyn malapropisms are here, though limited to the ones actually traceable (as far as possible) to Goldwyn himself: "Anyone who sees a psychiatrist should have their head examined! Include me out! A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on," to pick just a few.

A remarkably well-written and well-researched biography that brings this vigorous, infuriating, yet oddly attractive ugly duckling to vibrant life. This must rank amongst the best biographies, up there with Ron Chernow's book about the Morgans. Anyone at all interested in movies and movie history will enjoy this.

Great bio of a genius's life.......2000-08-26

Great book! I enjoyed reading about a man who literally came from poverty to be on of Hollywood's pioneer filmmakers. He was a rough man to work with no doubt, but knew what worked and lasted in an industry that is hard to last in! A. Scott Berg did a wonderful job of writing a respectful book about this man!

Exceptional Hollywood Bio - the best of the bunch.......1999-01-07

A most compelling, intricate, mesmerizing, passionate, heartfelt and respectful account of Goldwyn's life! A. Scott Berg has created a profound work as equal an opus to any of Goldwyn's best stuff. The neat thing is that you feel as if you were there - the birth, growing pains and maturity of Hollywood - brutally recreated for our pleasure. Bravo!!

Average customer rating:

Thoroughly Enjoyable if Not as 'Tight' as the first two books
Fascinating
Quite good, but I hope Larson doesn't get too formulaic.
Not up to Par...
The Roll of Disparate Thunder

Thunderstruck
Erik Larson
Manufacturer: RH Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel

ASIN: 073933963X
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Book Description

A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush”

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect crime.

With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Thoroughly Enjoyable if Not as 'Tight' as the first two books.......2007-10-15

As in his first two books, Larson takes two subjects that are tangential to each other and tells each story in alternating chapters until they intersect. Guglielmo Marconi (half-Italian, half-English) is the inventor of wireless telegraphy; while Dr. Hawley Crippen is an American ex-pat in England making his money by making and selling 'patent' medicine.

The men could not be more different, though they had the same overall appearance (not tall for even that generation and thin). Marconi was a driven single minded man who craved recognition and laurels. Crippen was a 'casper milktoast' type who for many years supported a wife whose life was wrapped up in the pursuit of a 'theatrical career'. Whereas Marconi spent extravagantly on himself, Crippen's wife spent extravagantly on clothing and jewelry for herself.

Larson weaves the story of Marconi's 'invention' and commercialization of 'wireless' telegraphy (which led to Radio and Television transmission), and Crippen's flight from his wife and her murder (whose guilt Larson leaves as the quandary for the reader). They intersect when Crippen tries to escape justice by sailing to Canada, only to be identified by the captain of his ship who notifies Scotland Yard by 'Marconigram'. Just like in a 'forties' Sherlock Holmes movie, Chief Inspector Dew sails (unbeknown) after Crippen on a faster ship, and is waiting for him as his comes into Canada. Ta Da!

It's a (rousing) good story but just not as tightly woven as his first two books.

Fascinating.......2007-10-11

I recently read Devil in the White City, so I was eager to read Thunderstruck as well. For the most part, I wasn't disappointed. Like its predecessor, Thunderstruck follows the stories of two men: Marconi, a young and hotheaded inventor, and Crippen, an unassuming middle-aged man who murdered his wife Belle and took off with his mistress, Ethel, to escape detection by the police. She clearly had no knowledge of the murder and regarded their flight aboard the ship Montrose (with her dressed as a boy) as a great adventure. Using the Marconi wireless system, the ship's captain was able to notify the police of their presence on board his ship.

As with his previous book, Larson writes this one as though it's fiction, deftly interweaving the two stories together. I found the murder mystery to be especially intriguing. However, I thought Larson could have toned down all the scientific stuff in the parts about Marconi. And there could have been less focus on him and more on the Crippen case. It only so happened that Marconi's invention occurred around the same time that this case did, and it only so happened that the ship he and Ethel were on had the Marconi wireless system.

But in all I thought this book was well-written and, as evidenced by the Notes section in the back of the book, well-researched. Also, I thought it was interesting that Alfred Hitchcock used elements of of the Crippen case in Rear Window.

Quite good, but I hope Larson doesn't get too formulaic........2007-10-01

No doubt about it, Thunderstruck is a good book. Erik Larson introduces you to Marconi, the Italian tinkerer/entrepreneur who took the budding technology of wireless and turned it into a commercially viable endeavor. It's a good story; Marconi has bitter and active rivals in the scientific and business communities, he has his own white whale (sending a signal all the way across the Atlantic Ocean) and he has trouble with normal human relations which makes for some engaging misadventures on the personal front. Not only is the story interesting and fun to read, it's also well-researched and well-written and you learn some history along the way with absolutely no pain. So far, so good.

Then, Larson introduces you to a kindly American doctor who marries a woman who is an unkind, duplicitous user of people. He takes you on a journey through their troubled relationship which eventually carries them to London where both seem to have inappropriate extra-marital relationships while trying to keep up appearances in public of a solid marriage. Things continue along until one night the wife pushes the timid doctor just a little too far and... you'll have to read the book.

Not a bad story either, and the two stories eventually come together as they always do in Larson's books, which brings me to a concern: I hope Larson doesn't limit himself to a single formula where a crime story and a more traditional historic tale come together in the end. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just starting to feel forced in this book, especially after Devil in the White City. Larson is a very strong researcher and a great writer and story-teller. He could easily do a more traditional history book and make it come alive without the help of a crime tale.

Still highly recommended, just hoping Larson's next book doesn't feel compelled to be just like its two fore bearers.

Not up to Par..........2007-08-18

Larson is going down hill. Isaac's Storm was fabulous... his other titles pale in comparison.

The Roll of Disparate Thunder.......2007-08-17

THUNDERSTRUCK is a splendid work of non-fiction that engages the reader as well as any novel. The author deftly combines the stories of two disparate lives -- Gugliemo Marconi, inventor of the wireless, and Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, milquetoast doctor, husband, and murderer. The latter would become the first criminal tracked and captured with the assistance of wireless communication.

Erik Larsen, whose DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY engaging recounts murder in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair, this time turns his attention to the late 1890s and 1900s in London. He possesses a singular gift for both storytelling and for weaving plotlines to a thrilling climax. Both stories are engaging in their own right; together, they are retold in a strikingly refreshing way. Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

Ms. Wayne's Faulty Research
Shoddy research . . . salacious details
Jane Ellen Wayne should be sued!!!!
Terrible Book
What a dump !!!

The Leading Men of MGM
Jane Ellen Wayne
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Hollywood Book of Scandals : The Shocking, Often Disgraceful Deeds and Affairs of Over 100 American Movie and TV Idols
Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood

ASIN: 0786714751

Book Description

Gable, Tracy, Stewart, Ol’ Blue Eyes, the King. They were Hollywood gods; men wanted to be them, women just plain wanted them. As celluloid royalty and soldiers in Louis B. Mayer’s box office army, the men of The Leading Men of MGM captured the hearts and imaginations of the movie-going public during a thirty-year stretch encompassing three wars and the ultimate downfall of a studio empire. And while their roles onscreen are some of cinema’s most memorable, they often pale in comparison to the lives these men lived behind the scenes. The Leading Men of MGM exposes these legendary figures in all of their salacious glory—from Clark Gable’s clandestine homosexual encounters in bistro bathrooms to Elvis’s pill-popping and Sinatra and Lawford’s icy post-Kennedy jousts. Also profiling such stars as Ramon Novarro, Billy Haines, and Van Johnson, the collection offers complete filmographies, photographs, and insightful looks at the nature of stardom during an era when the phenomenon was being minted. Offering a warts-and-all look at fifteen-plus legendary Tinseltown stars in addition to exploring their successes as genuine Hollywood talent, author Jane Wayne has written a must-have volume for film buffs of all stripes.

Customer Reviews:

Ms. Wayne's Faulty Research.......2006-09-22

I am very disappointed in Ms. Wayne's lack of research and/or the lack of research by her editor. On page xvi, in the Introduction to THE LEADING MEN OF MGM, Ms. Wayne writes that Clark Gable's fifth wife was Loretta Young, who gave birth to Gable's son after Clark Gable had died. Mr. Gable was never married to Loretta Young, although they had an affair during the filming of "Call of the Wild". Miss Young gave birth to Gable's daughter, Judy Lewis, in 1935. Gable's last wife was Kay Williams Spreckels and she did, indeed, give birth to John Clark Gable after Mr. Gable's untimely death. In my opinion, this error at the beginning of the book does not bode well for the rest of it. Ms. Wayne's topic is fascinating to anyone who loves "old" Hollywood, her writing style is good, but the mistaken statement about Gable and Young leads me to dislike the book for its lack of integrity.

Shoddy research . . . salacious details.......2006-09-17

Just like some of the other reviewers, I DID NOT buy this book. Instead, I made use of my public library. And although it is an easy read, the book is a major hodge-podge of innuendo, rehashed rumors, and facts that may or MAY NOT be true! The latter is due to the simple reason that Ms. Wayne can't get her facts straight. She seems to be hung up on certain personalities (i.e, Robert Taylor), and certain themes (is he/she straight or gay?). Also, why the need to REPEAT anecdotes in overlapping fashion?!

Jane Ellen Wayne should be sued!!!!.......2006-07-07

No, I did not buy this book!! I spent two hours at "Borders" yesterday perusing it. This woman is all about "trashy gossip" and has no authentic sources to back up her claims. Because most of the principals of her "dish" are dead it is safe to assume that no one can sue the pants off of her. But it is an insult to the memory of the stars....especially Robert Taylor. What is it with this woman's fixation with him???? It is quite obvious she was totally obssessed with him to the point of "stalking". She lambasts Barbara Stanwyck at every turn and claims ridiculously that Stanwyck was bisexual. She seems jealous that Stanwyck had Taylor and she did not. Of course, Wayne wrote a "Taylor" biography many years ago so much of what was written about him in this book came from that one. What she says about Gable, Ramon Novarro and William Haines is no less stupid. Do not support this woman and her tabloid style of writing. This book isn't worth one penny! The author is emotionally disturbed, I know that!!

Terrible Book .......2006-04-02

This is another one of Jane Ellen Wayne's ridiculous collections of lurid gossip which when it is sourced it's usually not a credible source (ie: other book authors of her kind). Practically the only person spared is her pet Robert Taylor who she gushes over like a schoolgirl (she really goes after his wife of over a decade, Barbara Stanwyck, with some lewd episodes that are just ridiculous.) Avoid this book like the plague and look for better books on the various actors profiled here.

What a dump !!!.......2006-01-20

The first part of this book takes about Loretta Young marrying Clark Gable. Please. Never happened. It goes down hill. The audacity of her quoting conversations that celebrities in the privacy of their bedrooms. Was she the fly on the wall? I am so disappointed, I can't stand the money that I wasted on this junk. To the novice, it reads well. To anyone who knows anything about Hollywood, skip this !

Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, M.G.M., and the Secret Hollywood

Average customer rating:

Is This Book Accurate?
Long on gossip, short on facts
rich in detail

Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, M.G.M., and the Secret Hollywood
Charles Higham
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer
A Private View
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ASIN: 1556113455

Customer Reviews:

Is This Book Accurate?.......2006-07-05

Like the previous reviewer, I also have some questions/concerns about Higham's accuracy. I've read at least 5 other books about Thalberg, Shearer & MGM, & several things here are new to me including allegations that the Thalberg Shearer marriage was shaky (I've always read the exact opposite previously), & that Thalberg had a tendency to scream at people when he was angry (I've previously read that his persona tended to be quite mild mannered). I'd be very interested to hear other Mayer/Thalberg/Shearer biographer's opinion of this book's accuracy. I also question the allegations that Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathizer amongst others. My 2 star rating is with the assumption that the book is factually inaccurate.

To me it pretty much reads as one scandal after another..... there may be SOME truth in that!

Long on gossip, short on facts.......2004-05-12

Being a huge fan of classic Hollywood, I snapped this book up and devoured it quickly, thoroughly enjoying all the juicy bits and behind the scene information. Once I got over the initial excitement of so much gossip all at once, I took a closer look, and found that in many, many instances, Higham gets the most basic information completely wrong. Information that is laughably easy to verify. For example:

1. Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg's daughter is named Katherine, not Barbara. She was born in 1935, not 1936.
2. Ted Healy died from injuries suffered in a bar brawl, kidney failure, and alcoholism, not from a heart attack brought on by Mayer. He was 41, not 45, when he died.
3. Jean Harlow never had an affair with her stepfather, Marino Bello; in fact, she hated him. And she didn't encourage her friends and colleagues to invest in his "gold mines," either.
4. John Gilbert didn't die of a heart attack. He was given a sedative by his nurse, had an adverse reaction, and choked to death while unattended.

And so on...

In addition, Higham is very partial to some stars and absolutely hates others; these attitudes come across in Mayer's biography so strongly that they are often distracting from the story itself. Garbo is a monster of selfishness. Crawford is a bed-hopping tramp. Shearer is a terrible snob. Some of which may be true, but I'm sure these people had their good sides, too, but you won't find such balance here.

At first glance, there is quite a bit of fascinating, never-before-known "information" in this book. After realizing how little the author checks his facts, though, I have to wonder if any of these incredible tales are true, or even close to true.

rich in detail.......2000-11-21

In his prologue, Higham tells us that much of the information he discloses has been drawn from hitherto sealed government files. Its more believable that he had long conversations with Howard Strickling, since Strickling was head of MGM's publicity department during the reign of Louis B Mayer, and the one responsible for the covering up of the secret lives of the stars. I guess the fun about gossip is in the discovery of the sordid details. Perhaps it's then only fair that I drop some of the names mentioned and let you discover the particulars. There's actually not a lot that was previously unknown to me. There's the death of Jean Harlow's husband Paul Bern, and then later the death of Harlow herself. The day of the lamentable shortage of knockworst in the commissary when no jockstraps could be worn under tights. The not too surprising inclination of Garbo's mentor Mauritz Stiller. Garbo's repeated no-shows for marriage to John Gilbert, and Mayer's dislike of Gilbert stemming from behaviour long before Garbo came into the scene. Why Garbo never bore a child. The fate of the footage of extras being drowned in Ben-Hur. The men killed by both Clark Gable and John Huston. Lee Tracy's forced retirement. How George Cukor nearly lost the job of directing Camille, as well. The supplier of drugs to Judy Garland. And Leni Riefenstahl's attempts to join MGM. The scandals seem to dissipate once we hit World War 2, or is that Higham's focus is more on Mayer's infidelities, and eventually his clashes with Nicholas Schenck and Dore Schary? Higham also presents a filmic history of the studio and it's output. I wish he'd only given us more dirt, because I get the impression that these scandals are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine

Average customer rating:

Mediocre at best - a missed opportunity!
Learned a Lesson
fascinating but factually suspect
Flatly Written Hearsay
Mistake after mistake

The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine
E. J. Fleming
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786420278

Book Description

Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood's golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s—including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them—solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets. They were "the Fixers." At a time when image meant everything and the stars were worth millions to the studios that owned them, Mannix and Strickling were the most important men at MGM. Through a complex web of contacts in every arena, from reporters and doctors to corrupt police and district attorneys, they covered up some of the most notorious crimes and scandals in Hollywood history, keeping stars out of jail and, more importantly, their names out of the papers. They handled problems as diverse as the murder of Paul Bern (husband of MGM's biggest star, Jean Harlow), the studio-directed drug addictions of Judy Garland, the murder of Ted Healy (creator of The Three Stooges) at the hands of Wallace Beery, and arranging for an unmarried Loretta Young to adopt her own child—a child fathered by a married Clark Gable.

Through exhaustive research and interviews with contemporaries, this is the never-before-told story of Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling. The dual biography describes how a mob-related New Jersey laborer and the quiet son of a grocer became the most powerful men at the biggest studio in the world.

Customer Reviews:

Mediocre at best - a missed opportunity!.......2007-07-12

Initially I enjoyed reading the book although I did find the author's style of writing a little annoying. However I quickly became concerned about the level of research the author had conducted for each scandal that was discussed. In some cases it seemed to be fine and quite well thought out, for example his take on Clark Gable's involvement in a couple of road accidents and then at other times he seemed to rely solely on another persons' book for his research. The worst example I came across which really irritated me was his take on the death of Thelma Todd, the extent of his research seems to have been that he read Hot Toddy and has taken it as Gospel. I have read Hot Toddy and it had no list of references to help prove that Thelma Todd was murdered in fact it read like a completely fictionalised biography. From this point on I noticed just how often the author made reference to other people's books for his research and I began to think that this book was little more than a cobbling together of all the racy and interesting gossip from lots of other books. To be honest this wouldn't have bothered me as I quite enjoy reading a real hatchet job of a book about film stars, reading all the gossip and comparing books about the same person. However I don't think that this was what the author set out to do and I feel cheated that he didn't look more closely at each story and assess them properly which is what I thought he was going to do, comparing different takes on a scandal or piece of gossip and then giving his own opinion and research.

Considering the book is about Strickling and Mannix they do not really come across as the main focus of the book. I don't feel that I know much more about them than I did from reading other Hollywood books. There are very few pictures of them, in fact the best one of each of them is on the cover. There are no personal pictures of them with their families or of their wives. There are quite a few pictures in the book but they are all standard black and white pictures and seem to be stock photos of the big Hollywood stars. I know what they look like! I would have liked to have seen photos of the other people that were involved in the scandals or pictures taken at the time the scandal occurred. For example why talk about Lila Leeds' beauty and not bother to include a photo?

The book was very expensive for what it was.

Learned a Lesson.......2007-03-15

I have been purchasing hard to find books from another company for several years...this time around I used Amazon, found the book, found it cheaper and got it faster. This book, which is hard to find and came to my attention while researching some other issues, was a great read and loaded with facts which were well documented and sourced. In other words, very little gossip. It was an easy and enjoyable experience to take in this book.

fascinating but factually suspect.......2006-09-16

Potentially fascinating stuff about the MGM guys who covered up Hollywood scandals but too much hearsay and out-and-out misinformation to be taken seriously. Author claims Rex Harrison's US career was "doomed" by his affiliation with the 1948 suicide of actress Carole Landis. Actually, Rex' best career years were yet to come--Broadway stardom in My Fair Lady (and Best Actor Oscar for subsequent film version), Oscar nomination for Cleopatra, a co-starring role opposite Doris Day at height of her popularity, lead in multi-million dollar musical Dr Dolittle. . .so much for career disaster. And fact-checking. Fix this!

Flatly Written Hearsay.......2006-07-04

This is little more than a mediocre laundry list of scandals that MGM studios was confronted with during the height of the studio system, and is far more concerned with juicy details of sex and intrigue (whether they be accurately confirmed or not) than with the role Mannix and Strickling played in them. Fleming gives anecdotes with creditable facts supporting them the same weight as fanciful rumors that have found their way into public lore (such as the "affair" between Laurence Olivier and Danny Kaye, which Fleming refers to blithely as "going on for fourteen years" despite the lack of any evidencery support to suggest that it ever actually happened at all), so that the entire book lacks credibility.

That might be forgivable, of course, if the book were a good read; but Fleming's prose style is flat and seems to lack any point. By mid-way through the book, after the umpteenth gossipy reference to scandals that may have taken place but very likely did not, the reader begins to wonder why Fleming felt the need to dig up old rumors to begin with.

There are a few occasions when Fleming does actually analyze the facts that he is laying out and questions the conclusions that contemporary authorities reached, such as in the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and the mysterious death of George Reeves, when the book starts to take off and becomes interesting. But those cases are few and far between, and the journey between them is filled with nothing but flatly written hearsay.

Mistake after mistake.......2006-06-01

It's hard to trust Fleming's "new" information about the situations Mannix and Strickling "fixed" when he can't handle basic facts such as the location of Hearst's Wyntoon property (Northern California, not Oregon as Fleming says) or which trains brought the early film pioneers to Los Angeles (not the 20th Century Ltd., as he says since it only ran between NYC and Chicago). Some of his gossipy details have been supported by the stars themselves or by people close to them, but far too many are just rank speculation he presents as fact. If I'd paid the very high cost for this book, I'd be irate. God bless Interlibrary Loan. Save your own money, readers.

Average customer rating:

The Search for Sam Goldwyn: A Biography
Carol Easton
Manufacturer: Quill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0688086667

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