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lanaerae 's review for:
The scandals that appear in this book:
- Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks have an affair
- Roscoe "fatty" Arbuckle is accused of a rape that killed a woman
- Wallace Reid did drugs
- Rudolph Valentino had an unusual personal life
- Clara Bow was too flapper like in her real life
- Jean Harlow was the original blonde bombshell with a husband who died under mysterious circumstances
- Mae West wasn't quite as scandalous as her characters
- Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's affair
- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's romance
- Judy Garland the girl who no one thought looked like a star but who did sing like one
- Dorothy Dandridge a black actress / singer struggling to break through stereotypes
- Montgomery Clift with his apparently non-existent love life and life altering accident
- Marlon Brando with his ego, bad relationships, and dislike of the Hollywood machine
- James Dean died before he'd even truly become a star
The book does a good job of explaining the moral issues that existed in Hollywood, especially during the reign of Will Hays as the head of the MPPDA (now MPAA). It also does a good job of explaining the relationships between the studios, actors, and the gossip columnists -- there were definitely working toward the TMZ era but there was also some sense of privacy and protectionism. What it does less well is go into details about each actor / scandal it is revisiting.
I’m a Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle fan and a James Dean mega fan (as in I have been to his hometown during the annual festival celebrating him) so maybe I went into this at a disadvantage as I already knew their stories way better than they could be told in a chapter. To a lesser extent had stumbled across most of the other stories in enough detail to find little new here. I suppose I’d hoped if you were still including them in a book (on scandals, no less) there would be little known information or a new take on them and there simply wasn’t. Not that I hated this book, I didn’t. I actually like the writer’s style and have stumbled into her “Scandals of Classic Hollywood” series online more than once. The book would be excellent for those who, somehow, have not heard most of these stories or who have no clue what “Old Hollywood” was like.
I do worry that the book has given itself a shelf life for feeling current when it compares some of these actors and phenomena to Robert Pattinson and Twilight as our modern versions of these stories.
For people who know and love Old Hollywood already, this book offer nothing new and could be a let down. For those who are just starting to get into the subject this is probably a good starting point.
* Disclaimer: I received this book at no cost in order to review it. I offered no guarantee of a positive review, though I only request books I think I'll like because why read a book you think you’ll hate?
- Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks have an affair
- Roscoe "fatty" Arbuckle is accused of a rape that killed a woman
- Wallace Reid did drugs
- Rudolph Valentino had an unusual personal life
- Clara Bow was too flapper like in her real life
- Jean Harlow was the original blonde bombshell with a husband who died under mysterious circumstances
- Mae West wasn't quite as scandalous as her characters
- Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's affair
- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's romance
- Judy Garland the girl who no one thought looked like a star but who did sing like one
- Dorothy Dandridge a black actress / singer struggling to break through stereotypes
- Montgomery Clift with his apparently non-existent love life and life altering accident
- Marlon Brando with his ego, bad relationships, and dislike of the Hollywood machine
- James Dean died before he'd even truly become a star
The book does a good job of explaining the moral issues that existed in Hollywood, especially during the reign of Will Hays as the head of the MPPDA (now MPAA). It also does a good job of explaining the relationships between the studios, actors, and the gossip columnists -- there were definitely working toward the TMZ era but there was also some sense of privacy and protectionism. What it does less well is go into details about each actor / scandal it is revisiting.
I’m a Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle fan and a James Dean mega fan (as in I have been to his hometown during the annual festival celebrating him) so maybe I went into this at a disadvantage as I already knew their stories way better than they could be told in a chapter. To a lesser extent had stumbled across most of the other stories in enough detail to find little new here. I suppose I’d hoped if you were still including them in a book (on scandals, no less) there would be little known information or a new take on them and there simply wasn’t. Not that I hated this book, I didn’t. I actually like the writer’s style and have stumbled into her “Scandals of Classic Hollywood” series online more than once. The book would be excellent for those who, somehow, have not heard most of these stories or who have no clue what “Old Hollywood” was like.
I do worry that the book has given itself a shelf life for feeling current when it compares some of these actors and phenomena to Robert Pattinson and Twilight as our modern versions of these stories.
For people who know and love Old Hollywood already, this book offer nothing new and could be a let down. For those who are just starting to get into the subject this is probably a good starting point.
* Disclaimer: I received this book at no cost in order to review it. I offered no guarantee of a positive review, though I only request books I think I'll like because why read a book you think you’ll hate?