Tinseltown
Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Lane
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By:
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William J. Mann
About this listen
The Day of the Locust meets The Devil in the White City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this juicy, untold Hollywood story: an addictive true account of ambition, scandal, intrigue, murder, and the creation of the modern film industry.
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.
In a fiendishly involving narrative, best-selling Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann draws on a rich host of sources, including recently released FBI files, to uncover the story of the enigmatic Taylor and the diverse group of people who surrounded him - including three beautiful, ambitious actresses; a grasping stage mother; a devoted valet; and a gang of two-bit thugs, any of whom might have fired the fatal bullet. And overseeing this entire landscape of intrigue was Adolph Zukor, the brilliant and ruthless founder of Paramount Pictures, locked in a struggle for control of the industry and desperate to conceal the truth about the crime. Along the way, Mann brings to life Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties: a sparkling yet schizophrenic town filled with party girls, drug dealers, religious zealots, newly minted legends, and starlets already past their prime - a dangerous place where the powerful could still run afoul of the desperate.
A true story recreated with the suspense of a novel, Tinseltown is the work of a storyteller at the peak of his powers - and the solution to a crime that has stumped detectives and historians for nearly a century.
©2014 William J. Mann (P)2014 Blackstone AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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They called it Satan's Circus, a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the 20th century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel.
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New York, N.Y
- By Robert on 07-11-07
By: Mike Dash
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Starmaker
- Life as a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, The Rat Pack, & 600 More Stars Who Fired Me
- By: Jay Bernstein
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
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Revealingly candid, this Hollywood memoir is the story of Jay Bernstein, an entertainment industry fixture who helped launch and sustain the careers of many celebrities including Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers. From his childhood in Oklahoma City and his first job in a Hollywood mail room to the ownership of his own public relations firm and his work as a television producer, Bernstein’s life is chronicled in his own words.
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Very Entertaining
- By patrick on 09-27-15
By: Jay Bernstein
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The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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Hellhound on His Trail
- The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Hampton Sides
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man - whose real name was James Earl Ray -drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel.
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History Comes Alive
- By L. Lyter on 06-29-10
By: Hampton Sides
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Bombshell
- The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe
- By: Mike Rothmiller, Douglas Thompson
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe's private diary, and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star's tumultuous personal involvement with him and his brother, President John Kennedy, and how they sought to silence her. The new evidence and testimony is provided by Mike Rothmiller who, as a detective of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division of the LAPD, had direct access to hundreds of secret files on exactly what happened at Monroe's home on August 5, 1962.
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LA Confidential, Assassinations and Hollywood
- By grace on 12-29-22
By: Mike Rothmiller, and others
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A Very English Scandal
- Sex, Lies, and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment
- By: John Preston
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As a member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and 70s, Jeremy Thorpe's bad behavior went under the radar for years. Police and politicians alike colluded to protect one of their own. In 1970, Thorpe was the most popular and charismatic politician in the country, poised to hold the balance of power in a coalition government. But Jeremy Thorpe was a man with a secret.
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Who knew?
- By Dorothy on 10-24-16
By: John Preston
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Almost Paradise
- The East Hampton Murder of Ted Ammon
- By: Kieran Crowley
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On October 22, 2001, handsome multimillionaire financier Ted Ammon was found bludgeoned to death in the magnificent East Hampton mansion he'd built with his beautiful - and volatile - wife, Generosa. She stood to make millions, but it wasn't the money that made Ted's friends suspicious: Generosa Ammon had a history of violent outbursts and bizarre obsessions.
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Wow! This was a fascinating story!
- By Lolly on 01-04-18
By: Kieran Crowley
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Gangster Squad
- Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles
- By: Paul Lieberman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Gangster Squad chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O’Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick....
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Nothing Like the movie
- By KEITH on 02-21-13
By: Paul Lieberman
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Incendiary
- The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling
- By: Michael Cannell
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the specter of terrorism haunted the public imagination, a serial bomber stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling. Grand Central, Penn Station, Radio City Music Hall - for almost two decades, no place was safe from the man who signed his anonymous letters "FP" and left his lethal devices in phone booths, storage lockers, even tucked into the plush seats of movie theaters.
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16 Years NYC Held Hostage
- By in1ear (John Row) on 04-27-17
By: Michael Cannell
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American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
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informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
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A Man of Honor
- The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno
- By: Joseph Bonanno
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Joseph Bonanno found his future amid the whiskey-running, riotous streets of Prohibition America in 1924, when he illegally entered the United States to pursue his dreams. By the age of only 26, Bonanno became a don. He eventually took over the New York underworld, igniting the "Castellammarese War", one of the bloodiest Family battles ever to hit New York City.
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A must read
- By E. Orlando on 05-03-17
By: Joseph Bonanno
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From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over.
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Since 1929, Hollywood’s brightest stars have flocked to the Chateau Marmont as if it were a second home. An apartment building-turned-hotel, the Chateau has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: where director Nicholas Ray slept with his 16-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose; and Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months. Much of what has happened inside the Chateau’s walls has eluded the public eye - until now.
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The award-winning film biographer presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of the greatest movie actor of the 20th century, the elusive Marlon Brando, bringing his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before. The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances - most notably in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront - that are without parallel.
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Psychobabble run amok
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Alienates key demographic by being over-the-top biased against Lauren Bacall
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It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.
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very interesting popular history
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In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.
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In Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman chronicles the remarkable, sprawling history of the Academy Awards and the personal dramas—some iconic, others never-before-revealed—that have played out on the stage and off camera. Unlike other books on the subject, each chapter takes a deep dive into a particular year, conflict, or even category that tells a larger story of cultural change, from Louis B. Mayer to Moonlight. Schulman examines how the red carpet runs through contested turf, and the victors aren't always as clear as the names drawn from envelopes.
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Wisecracker
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In 1930, William Haines was Hollywood's #1 box-office draw - a talented, handsome, and wisecracking romantic lead. Off screen, however, protected by a careful collaboration between studio and press, he was openly gay with reporters and studio chiefs alike. Here is Haines's virtually unknown story - rich with detail, revelations, and scandal - about silent movies and talkies; his lover Jimmie Shields, and their fifty-year relationship.
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Juicy, Thoughtful and One of a Kind!
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Hitchcock's Blondes
- The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director's Dark Obsession
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Alfred Hitchcock was fixated—not just on the dark, twisty stories that became his hallmark, but also by the blond actresses who starred in many of his iconic movies. The director of North by Northwest, Rear Window, and other classic films didn’t much care if they wore wigs, got their hair coloring out of a bottle, or were the rarest human specimen—a natural blonde—as long as they shone with a golden veneer on camera. The lengths he went to in order to showcase (and often manipulate) these women would become the stuff of movie legend.
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Probably Most Effective If You’ve Never Seen a Hitchcock Film
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Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard
- Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream
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Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It’s also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great - and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the 20th century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent-star Gloria Swanson’s comeback picture.
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ABRIDGED VERSION BADLY NEEDED!
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The Fixers
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Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood’s golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s—including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them—solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets. They were “the Fixers.”
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What listeners say about Tinseltown
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Liz
- 02-26-18
Proof of truly bad behavior at the very beginning
What made the experience of listening to Tinseltown the most enjoyable?
The information in this book was fascinating and very sad. That such a place who creates such dreams can also be the origin of such nightmares makes me torn. Torn because I love movies, but the people who are involved with the, both then and now seem to pay an awful price.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
I would change nothing, truth is what it is and it needed to be said.
Which character – as performed by Christopher Lane – was your favorite?
I enjoyed his performance of all of them.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
When the actress whose mother was so desperate to keep her virginal subjected her to an abortion. It disgusted me that a mother could be so very greeded as to do that to her own daughter.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Antoinette
- 01-01-22
Like Hollywood, TINSELTOWN has everything!
It includes the history of an era and the people whose lives exemplified the American Dream that created it, Adolf Zuchor, Marcus Loew and Will Hays to name just three. It includes legends of the Silver Screen, with their triumphs and tragedies, mayhem and unsolved mystery murder. A great book for listening!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Catherine M Costello
- 03-05-15
Fattie Arbuckle downfall told
I never knew any of this real history about so many silent film actresses and actors. Very intriguing real story. Amazing
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- J.C.D.
- 08-20-16
A HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
It's a good book if someone is a history buff and especially a Hollywood history buff. I wouldn't recommend it to the average person who wants to be entertained.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Fatty Arbuckle. He was the only sympathetic character in the whole story. His life and career were totally ruined self-righteous groups. The studio hung him out to dry to mollify the "church ladies."
Have you listened to any of Christopher Lane’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I don't believe so. He does an excellent job.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Early Hollywood seemed to be made up of liars, thieves and bunco artists. Everybody had secrets and a past.
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- LMcL
- 03-07-15
lots of details about early hollywood
Any additional comments?
interesting perspective on early life in los angeles.....nothing earth shattering though. well put together narrative using some real people's lives to illustrate the way the world was back then. not worth full price unless you are into this era. but a good listen if discounted.
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- Admiralu
- 06-12-20
Murder, Madness and Mayhem Indeed
This is an excellent book about the murder of an early Hollywood director named William Desmond Taylor. It is thrilling page turner about the early film era, the film community, and criminal enterprises. It follows several individuals, from movie execs, actors, directors and those looking for fame and fortune. Unfortunately, others chose victimize others. I listened to most of this book on audio and Christopher Lane was superb as usual. Just the right inflections of emotions. You are drawn in and want to know what happens to the characters involved. A number of theories are presented regarding the murder and how the case developed was fascinating. A very enjoyable book that was far more entertaining than I expected it to be. It really gave you a sense of the era and how the fledgling movie industry was impacting the nation and how the moralists tried to shut it down.
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- RLFire
- 03-23-15
Interesting, but...
If you could sum up Tinseltown in three words, what would they be?
Interesting, but drags
Any additional comments?
I really wanted to like this story. I'm interested in the early movers & shakers that built Hollywood. I also figured the story would be a perfect companion to my daily commute when I didn't need anything too heavy to go with the aggravation of traffic. However, about half-way through, I found my mind wandering as the story dragged on & on. I know I'm in trouble when I start skipping chapters to just get to the end. The story is well-researched & does have interesting points, but it really could have been covered in about half the time. If you are more patient than I am, I'd say it is worth a try, just expect some lulls. The performance was well-done.
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- Andrew Darlow
- 03-18-24
What a fascinating look at early Hollywood!
I liked a lot about this book, including:
-The narrater was excellent, and well matched to the subject matter.
-Even though there was one major theme, the book covered many people who helped build LA into the movie making place it has been for over 100 years.
-It is not sensationalist, but instead tries to present the facts based on first hand testimony, and the author calls out people if it’s pretty clear that they are lying.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-29-24
Very interesting read!
Very in-depth analysis of a mysterious crime! The real-life figures take life both as fascinating characters in a story but you also get a sense of who they might have been in their real lives
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- Ray
- 03-09-15
WELL DONE
This book covers some history with which I was not very familiar. Although I could not see the footnotes, it seems to be very well researched. After listening to the book, I have been wondering how Hollywood has changed since its earlier days. I enjoyed the book enough that I plan to listen to the author's biography of Elizabeth Taylor.
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3 people found this helpful