But the book itself is recklessly trashy, poorly written, especially the segments after 1940, which feel nearly stream of consciousness, with an assumption that the reader knows whom he’s describing. As the both feared and respected head of the Warner Brothers film studio, Jack had intimate knowledge of the dark underbelly of Golden Age Hollywood, the place where most dreams don’t come true at all, but come to perish in ignominy instead. Ulysses and 100 Years of Solitude were killing me, so I just needed some well-written trash; something that I could actually FINISH.

Sadly, the tragic "Chords of Fame" have continued to play on for far too many in and out of Hollywood in subsequent years, despite the cautionary tales of their forebears.Whether this was to avoid the sort of lawsuits the first book generated or for another reason, it made for an interesting read. The book details alleged scandals of Hollywood stars from the silent era through to the 1960s, including Charles Chaplin, Lupe Vélez, Mary Nolan, Rudolph Valentino, Marie Prevost, Mary Astor, Wallace Reid, Olive Thomas, Jeanne Eagels, Thelma Todd, Errol Flynn, Frances Farmer, Juanita Hansen, Mae Murray, Alma Rubens, John Gilbert, Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, Jean Harlow, Carole Landis, Lana Turner, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. I was in a silent film, scratchy, jumpy and dirty as hell – in it Albert Dekker was preparing his noose in ladies’ lingerie as Ramon Navarro looked on, William Ince was feeding bits of Marie Prevost to her dogs, and Fatty Arbuckle was tossing Jayne Mansfield’s head to Frances Farmer.

Many years ago I lived in the courtyard apartments Charlie Chaplin built for his crew across the street from his studio on La Brea Avenue. Charles Boyer's tragic end, when I first read of it in Jeanne Basinger's 'The Star Machine', left me near tears, frankly. sleepover-cum-orgy and Lillian Gish had no idea that Dorothy Gish was the other girl in the bed with Griffiths. Finally, here was an acknowledgement, a mea culpa , yet simultaneously also a morbid, almost pathetic celebration of what Hollywood once was. It's hard to tell what's bogus here and what's not, like, there's absolutely no way "Rosebud" refers to Marion Davies' clit, but that bit about Bill Tilden making a cameo in "Lolita" is incredible.

I guess I read this for the same reason one cranes one's head to see the details of a traffic accident. The book details alleged scandals of Hollywood stars from the silent era through to the 1960s, including Charles Chaplin, Lupe Vélez, Mary Nolan, Rudolph Valentino, Marie Prevost, Mary Astor, Wallace Reid, Olive Thomas, Jeanne Eagels, Thelma Todd, Errol Flynn, Frances Farmer, Juanita Hansen, Mae Murray, Alma Rubens, John Gilbert, Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, Jean Harlow, Carole Landis, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, and Marilyn Monroe. Un Novella 2000 sotto acidi scritto da uno dei più importanti registi underground del cinema statunitense. The concluding chapter on Ronald Reagan is a fittingly sobering end to the trajectory of the two volumes' tales. I really appreciated, for example, the extended coverage of the seedy life of that Kennedy clan patriarch and wannabe film producer, the sinister Joseph Kennedy.

La veracidad de las historias relatadas no puede probarse y el carácter de rumores debe resaltarse para evitar el tomar al pie de la letra lo que a fin de cuentas no es más que un retorcido, morboso y entretenido resumen de chismes de otra época y otro lugar que no es perpetuamente ajeno por mucho que hayamos consumido o idealizado sus rostros a través de la pantalla. The fallacies, myths, and exaggerations of Hollywood Babylon were the focus of season 10 of Karina Longworth's podcast You Must Remember This: "Fake News: Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon". En Hollywood Babilonia el autor se encarga de ofrecernos una visión más aguda de ese mundo desconocido a través de un despliegue morboso de los más jugosos rumores de las estrellas de comienzos del siglo XX. In 1939 when George Cukor was replaced by Victor Fleming to direct the epic film, “Gone with the wind,” it was widely reported that the “macho” Gable did not like to work with the gay director because of his dislike for that lifestyle.

It really doesn't matter if the stories here are true or not - and some people get upset about this.

This is TRULY FUCKING AMAZING and naturally being prone to interest in scandal and hearsay, I was salivating over how these long dead, "America's sweetheart" "deus ex machina" stars of the old Hollywood had such fucked up, mysterious and Lynchian lives, both in front of and behind the curtains of the film industry.

Hollywood itself officially started in 1912 - the evolution is more complex than that, but no matter. Later on her deathbed, Eunice confessed that it was a frame set by Joe Kennedy, bootlegger to the film colony and head of FBO pictures who wanted to destroy Pantages theater circuit. Hollywood Babylon covers a time period from the 1920s to the 1950s so don't think that human catastrophes like Britney Spears or Anna Nicole Smith are anything but different versions of the same song.