The Chateau Marmont has never been one of Hollywood’s splashiest hotels. For a long while it was noted more for its infamy, being the place where comic John Belushi died. … Continue Reading The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont
Howard Hughes is one of the most enigmatic and, to this day, mysterious figures in Hollywood history. Much of his life remains mired in mystery and rumor, stories told in … Continue Reading Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood
It’s amazing how many interviews with classic era stars are finally being given the opportunity to engage with fans. It’s hard not to be jealous upon reading David Fantle and … Continue Reading Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends
It’s amazing to go to your local library and discover a biography you never knew existed; so it was that I pulled out Frank Castellucio and Alvin Walker’s The Other … Continue Reading The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance
If you read my extensive interview with Michael Curtiz biographer, Alan K. Rode, then you know Curtiz was a director with a mania for filmmaking. The famed Hungarian helmer of … Continue Reading Book Review: Michael Curtiz – A Life in Film
I’ve been fortunate to visit at least two movie studios in my life: Universal (where I’ve been in the theme park, on the backlot, and in a screening room) and … Continue Reading Warner Bros: Hollywood’s Ultimate Backlot
With a wealth of biographies out there it’s often difficult to differentiate yourself from the herd by finding someone new to say. A figure like Alfred Hitchcock, outside of being … Continue Reading Alfred Hitchcock
Natalie Wood was like looking at the sun. Just staring at her in photographs the luminosity burns out of her. Her daughter Natasha has described her as tough when necessary, … Continue Reading Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life
Part of the reason I read film books is to have an outsider entice me to check out a movie. Where some of you come here to have me tell … Continue Reading High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
Whether you’ve watched it once or countless times there’s no getting Casablanca out of your blood. “As Time Goes By,” the La Marseillaise sequence, Bogie and Bergman, Casablanca is the … Continue Reading We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie
Tippi Hedren says in the introduction to her autobiography that so much has been written about her that it’s high time she set the record straight. Tippi is as succinct … Continue Reading Tippi: A Memoir
When I started reading Stephen Michael Shearer’s biography, Beautiful, on actress Hedy Lamarr I had no idea a documentary about the raven-haired starlet was being produced. Bombshell: The Life of Hedy … Continue Reading Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr
I’m kicking off a new year of classic film biographies and you can’t start with an author better than Donald Spoto. The acclaimed Hitchcock biographer has covered nearly every facet … Continue Reading A Girl’s Got to Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright
J. Randy Taraborelli’s biography of Marilyn Monroe has made a home on my bookshelf for at least three years. After the airing of Lifetime’s surprisingly exemplary adaptation of it – which … Continue Reading The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
Synonymous with infamy, Roscoe Arbuckle, otherwise known as “Fatty” Arbuckle, is a figurehead for the ushering in of the Hollywood Production Code and the perils of fame. Several books have … Continue Reading Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood
Doris Day is an interesting figure in classic cinema. Appointed as the personification of the 1950s cult of domesticity, Day’s career and work as an actress has her labeled as … Continue Reading Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door
