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A review by imyourmausoleum
The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s by Joseph Egan
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Mary Astor, born Lucille Vasconcellos Langhanke in 1906, was an actress from 1921 to 1964. Her most notable role was in The Maltese Falcon. She had an affair with playwright George S. Kaufman and was branded an adulterous wife by her former husband, Franklyn Thorpe, during a custody fight over their daughter. The lawyers made many references to the diaries of Astor, who eventually admitted that they existed. Thorpe had removed pages and added content; thus, the diaries were deemed inadmissible in court. There were morality clauses, which caused concern for her career, but she was able to bounce back and continue working.
If you are into old Hollywood Gossip, this is a book for you. This book gave me some ill feelings. It was immoral for HER to have an affair or salacious relationship, but you can rest assured that the men who did the same thing weren't even blinked at. I don't like that. I do not like that people drag celebrities' personal business out in the news and speculate on it. I used to be super into TMZ and reading the gossip magazines at the grocery counter, but now I find it to be gross and I feel a bit ashamed of doing that. These are people, and, beyond that, these are children who have to read the nonsense that people write and say about them and their family members. It's just weird, the focus on celebrities' sex lives. At any rate, the book was interesting. I did enjoy learning about Astor, because I am not very familiar with film stars from this era and learning about her career was neat.
If you are into old Hollywood Gossip, this is a book for you. This book gave me some ill feelings. It was immoral for HER to have an affair or salacious relationship, but you can rest assured that the men who did the same thing weren't even blinked at. I don't like that. I do not like that people drag celebrities' personal business out in the news and speculate on it. I used to be super into TMZ and reading the gossip magazines at the grocery counter, but now I find it to be gross and I feel a bit ashamed of doing that. These are people, and, beyond that, these are children who have to read the nonsense that people write and say about them and their family members. It's just weird, the focus on celebrities' sex lives. At any rate, the book was interesting. I did enjoy learning about Astor, because I am not very familiar with film stars from this era and learning about her career was neat.