The Purple Diaries
Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s
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Narrated by:
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Bernadette Dunne
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By:
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Joseph Egan
About this listen
1936 was a great year for the movie industry - the financial setbacks of the Great Depression were subsiding, so theater attendance was up. Americans everywhere were watching the stars, and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor.
But Astor's personal story wasn't a happy one. Born poor and widowed at 24, Mary Astor had spent years looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.
The marriage had been rocky from the start and both were unfaithful, but they did not divorce before Mary Astor gave birth to little Marylyn Thorpe.
What followed was a custody battle that pushed the Spanish Civil War and Hitler's 1936 Olympics off the front page all over America. Although Astor and Thorpe were both ruthless fighters, Thorpe held a trump card: the two diaries Mary Astor had been keeping for years. In these diaries, Astor detailed her own affairs as well as the myriad dalliances of some of Hollywood's biggest names. The studio heads, longtime controllers of public perception, were desperate to keep such juicy details from leaking. At risk from the information in those diaries was an entire fledgling industry. With the support of the Astor family, including unlimited access to the photographs and memorabilia of Mary Astor's estate, Joseph Egan presents a portrait of a great film actress in her most challenging role - a determined mother battling for her daughter, regardless of the harm that her affairs and her most intimate secrets could do to her career, the careers of her friends, or even Hollywood itself.
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By: Casey Cep
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The Woman They Could Not Silence
- One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
- By: Kate Moore
- Narrated by: Kate Moore
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of 21 years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
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Everyone should read this!
- By Lana S on 12-22-21
By: Kate Moore
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The Family Roe
- An American Story
- By: Joshua Prager
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Despite her famous pseudonym, no one knows the truth about “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1970 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent years with Norma, discovered her personal papers, a previously unseen trove, and witnessed her final moments. With an explosive revelation at the core of the case, he tells her full story for the first time.
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Just wow.
- By Schmulie on 05-15-22
By: Joshua Prager
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Possessed
- The Life of Joan Crawford
- By: Donald Spoto
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
New York Times best-selling author Donald Spoto has brilliantly explored the lives and careers of numerous Hollywood stars and entertainment icons. In Possessed, his subject is the inimitable Joan Crawford, one of the most electrifying divas of the Golden Age of American film. A more thorough, revealing, and sympathetic portrait of the often maligned movie star - most notably lambasted, perhaps, in the scandalous best seller, Mommie Dearest - Possessed is a fascinating study of the real Joan Crawford, a remarkable actress, businesswoman, mother, and lover.
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An concise assessment of Joan's life
- By Walter Solley on 10-17-20
By: Donald Spoto
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The Real Lolita
- The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World
- By: Sarah Weinman
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved novels ever. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of 11-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the first time. Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.
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Meandering and tedious while never delivering the promised story.
- By Timothy McCarthy on 09-15-18
By: Sarah Weinman
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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America's Queen
- The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
- By: Sarah Bradford
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Using remarkable new sources, Sarah Bradford has written a timely celebration of a life that was more private than commonly supposed. Revealing new testimony from many of the couple's friends shows the complexities of this apparently very public relationship and of her controversial marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Here is the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.
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American Royalty
- By Kindle Customer on 06-10-16
By: Sarah Bradford
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The Bettencourt Affair
- The World's Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris
- By: Tom Sancton
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Heiress to the nearly 40-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the 14th wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At 94, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city - and involving the most glamorous industry - in the world.
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A Juicy Chronicle
- By Jean on 10-24-17
By: Tom Sancton
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Love Me to Death
- The Chilling True Story of WIlliam “Wild Bill Cody” Neal—The Vicious Denver Lady-Killer
- By: Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
William Neal, who called himself "Wild Bill Cody," was seductive and skillful at separating love-struck women from their money, and ultimately, their lives. Apprehended by police, Neal, who proclaimed himself “better than Ted Bundy,” pleaded guilty to three murders then insisted on representing himself at his death penalty trial. But the psychopathic killer found himself up against the incredible courage of his one surviving victim.
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Disappointed
- By donald on 02-09-23
By: Steve Jackson
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Sex with Presidents
- The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House
- By: Eleanor Herman
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Eleanor Herman revisits some of the sex scandals that have rocked the nation's capital and shocked the public, while asking the provocative questions: does rampant adultery show a lack of character or the stamina needed to run the country? Or perhaps both? While Americans have judged their leaders' affairs harshly compared to other nations, did they mostly just hate being lied to? And do they now clearly care more about issues other than a politician’s sex life?
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lots of speculation no facts
- By John Pyle on 11-30-20
By: Eleanor Herman
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Nemesis
- The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle that Brought Down the Kennedys
- By: Peter Evans
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Through extensive interviews with the closest friends, lovers, and relatives of Onassis and the Kennedys, longtime journalist Evans has uncovered the shocking culmination of the Kennedy-Onassis-Kennedy love triangle: Aristotle Onassis was at the heart of the plot to kill Bobby Kennedy. Meticulously tracing Onassis's connections in the world of terrorism, Nemesis presents compelling evidence that he financed the assassination - including a startling confession that has gone unreported for nearly three decades.
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Surprising revelations!
- By Paul MacPherson on 05-09-24
By: Peter Evans
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She Made Me Laugh
- My Friend Nora Ephron
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, wrote this about his "third-person memoir": "I call this book a third-person memoir. It is about my closest friend, Nora Ephron, and the lives we lived together and how her life got to be bigger until, finally, she wrote her last work, the play, Lucky Guy, about a newspaper columnist dying of cancer while she herself was dying of cancer. I have interviewed many of her other friends - Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington.
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Loved it!
- By Leigh Lerro on 10-27-17
By: Richard Cohen
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Narration needs improving!
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not much of interest
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Review
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The Mailroom
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Overall
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Great for naps
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Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For twenty years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. Diamonds and Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism”.
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Wonderful biography of forgotten gilded age publishing icon
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Tinseltown
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By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.
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Everybody's a dreamer...
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Capote's Women
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Overall
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Performance
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New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans."
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You need to know a bit about the players
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Hollywood: The Oral History
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From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a listener “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen.
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Picky, Picky!
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What listeners say about The Purple Diaries
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- judy manno
- 06-10-17
Great fror fans of Old Hollywood
Where does The Purple Diaries rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I would place this book in the top third of all of the books I have listened to.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Purple Diaries?
Listen to lawyers fight was amusing. The sounded like 2 blowhards in the audio version. I bet they must have been quite a spectacle at the time of the trial.
Which scene was your favorite?
Not really a scene, rather just the final chapters. the author does a really nice job of answering the reader's logic question, "...and then what happened?"
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I had a strong reaction to Dr. Thorpe and Mary Astor. They both came across as childish and somewhat unlikable.
Any additional comments?
This author does a very good job of wrapping up loose ends and letting the reader know what happened to everyone mentioned in the book long after the trial ended.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-26-21
Great read.
A story I knew nothing about but a a real page turner. Terrific narrator. Give it a go ....you'll enjoy.
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- Virginia Gilroy
- 11-19-19
Very Good!
Totally interesting and very descriptive. made me wanna read what she wrote after she became an author.
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- Salui
- 01-08-17
Fascinating
This is a very well-written book about actress Mary Astor's front-page sensational legal battle with her physician husband in 1936. At the heart was the custody of their only child, and Astor's diary which her husband stole from her in the hope of using it against her. It is a fascinating tale of Hollywood royalty put on display in the courtroom and the papers as each parent fought frantically for custody. The performance is also quite excellent.
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6 people found this helpful
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- ZacharyKindle Customer
- 03-21-18
Purple Diaries: Mary Astor
Loved the book, gives not only the info of the trial, but also an interesting look at the background of Ms Astor. Two things: WATCH THE MOVIE "DODSWORTH FIRST!" The movie seems to correlate with the way Mary carries herself throughout the trial, and last, this book left me thinking of the old saying, "Don't judge a person until you've walked in their shoes!" (It's black and white)
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1 person found this helpful
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- C. Barrera
- 02-11-18
court room drama
It's not as interesting as I imagined. It's mostly a back and forth between jaded lovers.
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- Janet S Mallory
- 05-31-22
Mary Astor
Who knew? Mary Astor is just a name Assoc many lives in the past. We know of their celebrity but rarely know the person. I love biographies!
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- Jerry Goldwater
- 12-07-16
very well read and seemingly well researched but .
What made the experience of listening to The Purple Diaries the most enjoyable?
Fascinating re-hash of a true Hollywood scandel . But why no mention of two of Mary Astor most enjoyable films Midnight with John Barrymore in one of his finest late performances.... he had been very important to Mary in the 1920s and Preston Sturges The Palm Beach Story , two wildly funny gems .
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9 people found this helpful
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- Roger Perrault
- 02-17-17
Gripping court room drama
The book relates Mary Astor's life but focuses on her custody battle for her daughter. The lead up and the trial itself are a gripping read. Highly recommended.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Dr. Judith Frith
- 10-04-17
Extremely detailed - perhaps too detailed
While I enjoyed the first half of this book, it gets very, very slow-moving when it comes to the notorious child custody trial Mary Astor is mostly remembered for (as well as her appearance in "The Maltese Falcon.") I tend to use audiobooks for listening to during workouts and meal preparation, and I found I was dreading turning this one on again. It is very, very, detailed when it comes to the trial. Perhaps too detailed for my taste.
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