Recommended Old Hollywood Memoirs/Biographies?

I don't recall the titles but I've read very good ones written by Shelley Winters and Shirley McClain. I'm not a fan of country music but liked Loretta Lynn's autobiography.

There is only one Hollywood memoir that you MUST read. Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television.

After you've read this one, the others are much more easily understood. Without this one under your belt, you might believe some of that crap you're being fed in those other books.

Judy by Gerold Frank is a well-researched, thoughtful read that gives a good picture of Judy's complexity. You just have to take into account that it's the family-authorized biography and was written in the 70s, so Judy's 2 gay husbands and gay father are not outed. Also, Sid Luft's incredible shadiness is downplayed. Still a very good bio. If you want the even darker, more tabloid-influenced version of Judy's life, read the first book in tandem with Get Happy by Gerald Clarke.

My favorite is Bette Davis' This 'N That. She was so candid and it's such a great read. Not a thick book either.

Rosalind Russell's Life Is A Banquet is one of the best autobiographies I've read. She was a funny gal and knew how to tell a story.

I read Joan Fontaine's No Be Of Roses as a teenager, and I ended up disliking her. She's so full of shit it permeates the entire book.

More stage than screen, but Ruth Gordon’s memoirs are lots of fun and as she was a playwright and screenwriter in addition to being an actress there’s a strong sense voice. Start with Myself Amonh Others.

Among not Amonh. Sorry.

[quote] I read Joan Fontaine's No Be Of Roses as a teenager, and I ended up disliking her.

Because it was so existentially bleak, I assume, as the title suggests.

David Niven's memoirs are all dining-out tales he stole from other friends. They're well told, but most of the events he recounts in them did not actually happen to him.

"Shirley McClain"

I know you, and I know you cannot spell Shirley MacLaine.

For real dish, I recommend Lora Meredith's SOMETIMES LAUGHTER: A MEMOIR. She settles so many old scores, and really delivers on the details. Who knew Peter Graves was into wearing fishnet stockings to bed?

LITTLE ME is the best book EVER WRITTEN. My mother gave it to me when I was eight. It didn't turn me gay. It turned me straight, and then gay again and I've never looked back.

R2 Why, I prefer to believe the crap, it’s much more fun. Never heard of Little Me before but it’s looks like a hoot, just bought it!

Veronica Lake's autobiography is a good read

Joan Crawford's "Lifestyle" book My Way of Life is hysterical

Bios of Judy Holliday and Jean Arthur were good. I couldn't wait to get and then couldn't drag myself through the under-edited bio of Barbara Stanwyck mentioned by OP; I wish she'd not padded it with evidence of her exhaustive research and instead used the material she fact-checked to tell a story in a compelling way.

I'll check out the ones mentioned above by Gordon and Russell. No fan of Roz's but maybe the gal can win me over with her prose style.

"All That Heaven Allows", a biography of Rock Hudson, is a very good read.

Apparently Mary Astor's autobiography's very good, I haven't read it.

PLEASE SKIP , MY MOTHERS KEEPER BY CUNT BD HYMAN . This bitch sucked Bette's finances for Years . I wish my Mother was so evil , she would work to the bone , to buy me European Vacations , a lavish underage wedding , houses and food for years , boxes of clothes from I Magnin . So, me nor my lazy ass Husband have to work . We ALL know Bette was an alcoholic bitch . What's new ? I hope this bitch is buried where I can visit her .

I'm reading Intermission by Anne Baxter which isn't really a biography so far, it's about how she chased dick to the wilderness of Australia.

BD Hyman is a homophobe, too

Also avoid anything by Charlotte Chandler. A lot of made-up conversations and outright lies.

Hahahahaha

[quote]Who knew Peter Graves was into wearing fishnet stockings to bed?

Was this the inspiration for the Jerry Kennedy character played by Graves on The Golden Girls?

Rose was trying to dig up embarrassing anecdotes about Jerry for a roast, no?

And what about Airplane!?

My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn

r2=Letch Feeley

I read it 30 years ago when it came out, but I loved the biography of gay icon author Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman called Lovely Me. If you don'y know much about Jackie, you'll love her after reading this book.

Honorable mentions: Original Story by that prima donna Arthur Laurents. Personal History autobio by Katherine Graham of the Wash Post. I liked Judy Garland books, Rainbow's End (about her TV series) by Coyne Steven Sanders, and The Secret Life of an American Legend by David Shipman. The latter drives some people crazy, but it's got lots of great dish, and as an eldergay, I heard some of it long long ago.

Letch!

Ecstasy and Me by Hedy Lamarr--an all-time classic....personally I loved Joan Fontaine's No Bed of Roses....Joan Collins' Past Imperfect....the superb Robert Mitchum biography "Baby, I Don't Care"...any biography by William Mann (Liz, Billy Haines)--he's really smart and a good writer....those are a few.

"Been there, Done That" by Eddie Fisher was tasty, trashy, compulsively readable fun, even if he did make-up half the shit he wrote as Connie Stevens and Elizabeth Taylor assert.

He's hardest and most revealing about himself, especially his drugs addiction. He writes about how, if he knew entering into his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, how much it was going to break him, humiliate him, cause him searing pain, he STILL would have done it.

It's all very self-serving of course, too, He brags about how he never took shit off Frank Sinatra and never backed down from him, that kind of thing.

R28, The audio book version, which Eddie reads, is even better.

Does Eddie talk about being viciously raped by Richard Burton, just to show him who was boss?

R12 I believe Belle referred to her as “the meanest spic in the business” or “the meanest spic in Hollywood.”

Wow, r29, I had no idea issued an audio recording, and no r30 he didn't mention that.

He did drop the nugget that Taylor aborted hers and Sinatra's embryo and that Sinatra was the single, only person he ever saw Taylor kiss ass to, if you'll pardon my awkward phrasing.

“Final Gig,” the biography of actor Gig Young. Gig won the best supporting actor Oscar for his role as the emcee Rocky in 1969’s “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” Less that 10 years later he shot his new young wife and and the turned the gun on himself. A long time alcoholic, he also blew his chance to star in what became the Gene Wilder role in “Blazing Saddles” when he showed up for the first day of filming while in alcohol withdrawal and was unable to perform.

FWIW, I think “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” was way ahead of its time. Its depiction of the 1930s version of reality TV (a brutal dance marathon) and the false promises of the American dream were prescient.

Is the Jacqueline Susann worth reading if you know the basic stories of her life? What makes it interesting?

It's a good book and the basic story of her life will not get you all the juicy details.

She and her husband revolutionized book marketing.

r30, did that really happened?

R23 You might like this... a first hand memoir of a teenage prostitute who was pimped out by her one-legged prostitute, mother. The two of them on target for the Big Guy. Mother-daughter 3 way, apparently. Absurdly hilarious, salacious... really it must be read with focus and devotion... lectio divina.

"It was warmish and coolish, the way it can be in Southern California...."

Marlene's daughter Maria Riva's book .

Mr. S by Frank Sinatra's valet

The Million Dollar Mermaid by Esther Williams

Girl Singer by Rosemary Clooney

Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball, read in tandem with Desilu by Coyne Steven Sanders

I'd also recommend the group biography Behind the Screen by William Mann

Vanity Will Get You Somewhere by Joseph Cotten

Joan Crawford by Bob Thomas (though the definitive Crawford book is yet to be written)

We Will Always Live in Beverly Hills by Ned Wynn

Debbie My Life by Debbie Reynolds with David Patrick Columbia

All the above go beyond the usual ghostwritten, nice to everyone, quickie books. The worst are the ones with no details (other than what any researcher could dig up) and no dirt. What we want to know is what only the celebrity themself can tell us: what it was like to experience the events of their lives. In the case of a biography, a responsible biographer can weave the threads together to explain what made the person celebrated as well as give an accurate picture of their personal trials.

Some autobiographies that never cut through the gloss: June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ann-Margret.

Slim Keith's memoir is a decent read

A big bs seller a couple of decades ago is “You’ll never eat lunch in this Town again”. The author is an agent who knows everyone in Hollywood. It is very readable.

R39, Mr. S by Frank Sinatra's valet is fun, but most of the non-Sinatra stuff is bullshit.

What makes the Jacqueline Susann bio interested is how she got there - a total self creation and self promoter. Her struggles were many to maintain the facade. Tons of drama. Her bisexuality is not well documented, and the author comes up with excuses for it, but it's there.

R42, The butler revealed in the book that Sinatra complained that Bacall gave lousy head.

Lorna Luft's book, Me and My Shadows, is another good one.

Agree R44 - not only does Lorna give details previously unrevealed but you can sense her own journey in processing everything that had happened to her up to that point, and also wanting to somehow make it (if the reader wanted) useful/helpful for the reader if they were in a family with similar issues, without being didactic or preachy. That's what made me love her book.

“You’ll never eat lunch in this Town again”. The author is an agent who knows everyone in Hollywood. It is very readable."

R41, unless you're talking about another book, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town again was written by FILM PRODUCER Julia Phillips (1944-2002). It's perceptive, dishy, funny and self-serving, over 500 pgs and worth reading. Phillips was a DL icon a decade ago. Former DL regular David Ehrenstein hated her and went nuts whenever she was discussed.

As for fun and sometimes uncomfortable dish:

1) You all know Shaun Considine's Bette & Joan, but did you know the 1985 biography he wrote about Barbra Streisand? It's called BS: The Woman, the Myth, The Music. Considine was at Columbia Records when Babs started, and there's loads and loads of bitchy inside stories. Streisand HATES the book more than any other.

2) Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me, by Stevie Phillips. She's the personal assistant, later agent R41 may have been referring to. Not the same person, not the same book. Some Garland fans cannot handle what's in here about her, but it's all firsthand experiences of the author.

3) I Loved Lucy by Lee Tannen. Just a trifle, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading the firsthand experiences of the author - an obsessed fan of Lucile Ball who spent a lot of time with her.

R43, he also claimed to have seen Garbo and Dietrich naked in the pool making out. Sure, Jan.

Lilli Palmer "Change Lobsters, and Dance"

She had a fascinating life.

Born in Berlin, she escaped the nazis and after a year of struggling in Paris managed to get London. There she had quite a solid career in movies and theater.After the war she went to Hollywood with her first husband Rex Harrison.

She writes about working with Clark Gable, partying with Gary Cooper, hosting Greta Garbo, entertaining Noël Coward, meeting Helen Keller and summering with Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward.

Regarding You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town, what is the dirt Phillips has on Director Steven Spielberg?

Heartbreaker, by John Meyer. Published in 1983, he was a songwriter who was Judy Garland's boyfriend for a few months - right before Mickey Deans took over. Meyer contacted the Hong Kong Flu (1968-69 pandemic) and could not meet Judy's needy needs, so she left him. The book is a friendly inside look at Judy in 1968. Some of it is completely pathetic, some of it is completely fascinating. Garland fans, especially ones born after her death, hate Meyer because he didn't keep this stuff to himself like a gentleman.

R47, In a 1971 interview, Dietrich claimed that she had never even met Garbo.

The Hollywood Studios by Ethan Morddan Hedda and Louella by George Eells Lion of Hollywood (LB Mayer) by Scott Emmanuel Behind the Screen by William J Mann I also agree that Little Me by Patrick Dennis is a must read; I’m also partial to Rex Reed’s various books of celebrity interviews.

My favorites are:

1. Memoirs of an Amnesiac by Oscar Levant

2. Ecstasy and Me by Hedy Lamarr

R32, Eddie reads it as if he were seeing the words for the first time, complete with chuckles, sighs and odd inflections.

R52, I still have the hardcover edition of "Do You Sleep in the Nude?" I purchased as a teenager over 50 years ago.

r39 I agree that Ned Wynn's book is worth reading. He has all the dish on Van Johnson. Ned turned into a bitter old man, and his half-sister Schuyler was pathetically yearning for her father Van's love. Ned's brother Tracy was an acclaimed screenwriter in the 1970s and 1980s, but eventually lost his mojo, and he was a part of a class-action lawsuit by older writers who sued in the late 1990s/early aughts for age discrimination.

I'm currently enjoying Salka Viertel's 'The Kindness of Strangers', though I've only progressed thus far to 1930s Berlin. It's fascinating if you find early 20th century German and Polish theater and culture interesting, which I do. Then I want to read the recent book about her and the other European WWII refugees in Hollywood. They all fled because of Hitler, then she had to flee America in the 1950s because of HUAC.

[quote]My favorite is Bette Davis' This 'N That. She was so candid and it's such a great read. Not a thick book either.

You can hear Bette Davis's voice narrating the book as you read it. She typed exactly the same way she talked.

Parts of it are unintentionally hilarious. After her cancer surgery and three strokes, Bette stopped smoking and drinking for an entire month, in an effort to get better. When she resumed smoking and drinking (after that whole month of abstaining) she switched from non-filtered to filtered cigarettes and straight scotch to white wine. This was Bette's way of getting healthier.

LOL r18 you summed up BD Hyman's entire story. What a cunt. Bette supported her and her lazy-ass husband (they both refused to work) for many years, paid for everything and then BD turned around and wrote that book. Horrible. There's nothing scandalous in it either, Bette was not an abusive mother she just drank too much and had a big mouth.

"You can hear Bette Davis's voice narrating the book as you read it. She typed exactly the same way she talked."

Yes, I'm sure Bette TYPED THE BOOK HERSELF.

[quote]Is the Jacqueline Susann worth reading if you know the basic stories of her life? What makes it interesting?

It's as much of a page-turner as one of Susann's own novels. She lived a ball-to-the-wall life full of drama. Highly recommended. And like the above poster said, you love her and respect her after reading the book. She went through tons of shit.

r59 of course Bette didn't type the book herself, it was a figure of speech.

Ingrid Bergman’s My Story. Irene Selznik’s A Private View.

[quote]he also claimed to have seen Garbo and Dietrich naked in the pool making out. Sure, Jan.

According to Maria Riva, Dietrich and Garbo never even met one another.

r57, I got you. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed reading it so much. I could definitely hear Ms. Bette's glorious voice in my head as I was reading it. She kept it real. I also remember that around the time she wrote that book, as elderly as she was, she was making talk show appearances and that Queen would dress to the nines. She was serving classic classy old school Hollywood and damn could she work a hat and a cigarette.

R63, that was my point. George Jacobs, "Mr S, My Life with Frank Sinatra," was full of fabricated stories. Jacobs also claimed that the Lena Horne - Sinatra feud started because he made a pass and was turned down. The more salacious, more likely story that everyone is familiar with, is that Sinatra thought Lena had been a lover of Ava Gardner's, and their feud continued from there.

Jacobs' book is co-written, probably ghost written by some times screenwriter named William Stadiem.

I love the DL Classic Hollywood threads. Frau-proof and Woke-proof. Just good fun.

Don't be too sure, R66.

R63, Won't you please give a warm hello to R51?

The best bio of Judy Garland I ever read is "Rainbow: the stormy life of Judy Garland" by Christopher Finch. The writer really gets a handle on Judy's tortured psyche and rights a lot of untruths and misconceptions about her life, many of which were invented by Judy herself.

One of my favorite books about anything, movies or otherwise, is Otto Friedrich's City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s. It's been a couple years, but I remember there being at least one good laugh on every page. My most vivid recollection was Raymond Chandler's "collaboration" with Billy Wilder on "Double Indemnity". But there's other funny stuff as well, like all the predictions of failure for "Gone with the Wind". You can get all of that elsewhere, but it's better here. I guess one distinctive angle is the attention paid to German exiles, but that's other places too.

r68 those are two different statements.

[quote] Apparently Mary Astor's autobiography's very good, I haven't read it.

R17, she wrote two: "My Story" in 1959 and "A Life On Film" in 1967. They are both very good (not ghost-written).

She also wrote five novels, listed by Wikipedia per the link below. Not my style, but not amateurish either.

Mary Astor's memoirs were pretty tame, considering how tawdry her life was; parents who used her and disliked her, her time as mistress to a middle aged John Barrymore while she was still a teenager, awful marriages, alcoholism, suicide attempts, shoddy parenting of her children, and of course her infamous "purple diary" which contained details about her affair with the brilliant playwright George S. Kaufman. Witty, charming, and fun Kaufman may have been, but he was also homely, misanthropic, had a germ phobia and was married. But Astor fell for him in a big way, and her diary supposedly contained passages that described their trysts in explicit terms. She tells of "feeling up" Kaufman while they're in an audience watching a play and goes on to say: "his powers of recuperation are amazing and we made love all night long...we shared our fourth climax at dawn...he fucked the living daylights out of me...George is just hard all the time...it was wonderful to fuck the entire sweet afternoon away...ah, desert night, George's naked body plunging into mine, naked under the stars." And so on and so on.

Astor's husband (she and Kaufman was both married) found the diary and used it against her in a custody battle for their child. It was quite the scandal. But amazingly it didn't destroy Astor's career, probably because she was portrayed by her backers as a poor mother who just wanted her child instead of a wanton adulteress.

There are two books about Mary Astor and her dopey diary: "Mary Astor's Purple Diary" by Edward Sorel and "The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the most sensational scandal of the 1930s" by Joseph Egan. Joseph Egan is a Mary Astor apologist; despite her frequently selfish, bad behavior he nonetheless tries to present her in a favorable light, as the wronged one. He glibly dismisses the x-rated talk in the diary as "forged (he doesn't name the forger)" or "made up." Sorel's book is a lot better; fun to read and containing delightful illustrations by the author. And although a fan of Astor's, Sorel doesn't gloss over the fact that she was truly fucked up and that despite her fight to have custody of her daughter she was far from an exemplary mother.

George Kaufman, seemingly Astor's great true love experience if you believe her diary, was mortified by the publicity during the scandal and did his best to hide out so as not to have to testify in court. Despite Astor's believing that her affair with him would go on for the rest of their lives they never saw each other again after the custody trial and thereafter whenever anyone would mention her name in his presence he would clam up and scowl. I loved what Kaufman's wife Beatrice (they had an open marriage and they both had affairs) said about the whole mess when she was finally cornered by reporters. She blew the whole thing off by saying: "George is a good husband. I love him very much, and he is in love with me. Please do not ask me to discuss Miss Astor. She is a film actress who kept a diary. Very stupid, that."

"Louise Brooks" by Barry Paris. Although her movie career was very brief Brooks eventually became a cult figure much later in life and reinvented herself as a writer. Paris creates a very thorough retelling of her life. She was an interesting character; a dancer with the Denishawn dance company, a Ziegfeld Follies girl, Charlie Chaplin's teenage mistress for two months, an American silent film star whose best movies were German films. Her face was stunning and her severe bob became her trademark. She was also irresponsible, uncooperative, a drunk and an uberslut. Someone who knew her when she was an old lady remarked that she understood why Louise Brooks never had a big film career. It was her disposition: "if she couldn't have it her way, forget it."

Also "Garbo" by Barry Paris. It's probably the best biography of Greta Garbo that's out there. Very well written and researched.

Damn! Louise Brooks looked AMAZING.

More

Third times the charm

Plus one for good luck. I’ll stop now — just had to share her striking, deep, shaded beauty. I would call her look “dark romantic”.

R78, She inspired Liza's look.

Take away the haircut and she was cute at best

r80, I posted those, and I totally agree with you — that’s why I admire those photos even more! Do you not realize the talent it takes to execute a transformation on that level? You are seeing the work of unnamed Michelangelos of hair, makeup, fashion, photography, lighting, and so on. I admire her look because she transcended her true self into a goddess.

Renee Taylor's autobiography is genuinely funny all the way through. It's called My Life on a Diet. She also is touring in a one-woman show based on the book.

I know she's not Old Hollywood, but it's a great read about show biz.

Gavin Lambert's biography on Norma Shearer is fascinating mainly because so little is remembered about MGM's Queen of the Lot in the 1930s. He dishes some dirt but was a fan, and explains why she was so important in Old Hollywood.

Spencer Tracy by James Curtis is you are looking for an exhaustingly researched, academic-esque look into his life. Not much gossip. Straight facts. I'm a huge Kate Hepburn fan and appreciate he didn't romanticize their relationship.

I second Lorna Luft's memoir. It's the rawest look at Judy. Sid and Liza stopped speaking to her after its publication. What I love about it is that Lorna's personality shines through for better or worse.

I did not like Heartbreaker by John Meyer. It's boring and cringey. Sid Luft's autobiography is another piece of the Judy puzzle but it's nothing new if you've read other Garland books.

Me by Kate Hepburn is similar to Lorna's in that you get a relatively unfiltered look into the personality and mind of the author.

I highly recommend Lion of Hollywood about Louis B Mayer. Lots of info on just about everyone.

Anything written by William Mann is trash.

I think my favorite would be Ecstasy and Me by Hedy Lamarr.

Does anyone know when Vol. 2 of the Barbara Stanwyck bio by Victoria Wilson is coming out -- if ever. I know Vol. 1 was enormous and didn't do to well financially. It may have scared publishers away.

Lorenzo Lamas "Renegade at Heart: An Autobiography"

R86 I've also been waiting, I heard she found Stanwyck's adopted son Dion and interviewed him over several years for this book. After reading the 1st volume, I wouldn't say she's a Stanwyck apologist, so that's the part of her life I'm most eager to read about. Somewhere else, can't remember where, I read that when teenage Dion was still a virgin, and an awkward one at that, Barbara lost patience and sent him to a prostitue, Could you be a more embarrassing mom than that?? Also, I wonder if she discovered anything in her research about Barbara's female lovers over the years. I refuse to believe she wasn't into women as well. Did anyone here read Anthony Quinn autobiography One Man Tango? I understand that in it he writes about an incident while filming Blowing Wild, where Gary Cooper tried to comfort Stanwyck after her divorce from Robert Taylor by feeling her up on set, sort of in public. Of course, it's possible I'm mixing things up. Can anyone confirm? I adore outrageous behavior of any kind, love reading about it when it comes to notable people from the past, but I also judge a book by its cover, and I simply cannot read this one, the cover is a cringefest

I can't believe that Barbara Stanwyck didn't dip into the lady pond. She was quite dykey. She was never linked to anyone after the divorce from Taylor.

Stanwyck lived with her secretary/assistant (female, of course) for the last decades of her life.

Lorenzo Lamas is "old Hollywood?" Well, I guess if he covers his parents ...

[quote][R78], She inspired Liza's look.

No, she copied ME, actually.

[quote]The only one I couldn't finish was David Niven's "The Moon's A Balloon". Too much army tales.

I hated that highly rated book too.

This thread is going to get me through the epidemic...Bravo everyone! What a great reading list.

Diana Ross biography, Call Her Miss Ross is pretty juicy. I love the story when she made her assistant crawl across the floor in a meeting to fix a broken tape recorder. True or not? I don't care, I can imagine Miss Ross doing that

Mia's book What Falls Away is a gay bible.

The Dietrich bio by her daughter is one of the best biographies I have ever read. Amazing book, you can picture everything so clearly in your mind.

Studio Affairs is a beautifully written and engrossing memoir by Vincent Sherman, who was one of Hollywood's last surviving Golden Age directors who was at Warner Brothers during the 1940s and had affairs with Davis, Crawford and Hayworth. His son is documentary film producer Eric Sherman.

R86/R88, the author, Victoria Wilson, is an senior editor at Knopf. Most likely she has a contract for both Stanwyck volumes and doesn't have to sell the next book. As of 2020 she says she still working on Vol 2. As far as Stanwyck's lesbianism/bisexuality, Wilson (a lesbian herself) has stated that she'll only include first hand info on it, which probably means zero because everyone's dead.

"I second Lorna Luft's memoir. It's the rawest look at Judy. Sid and Liza stopped speaking to her after its publication. What I love about it is that Lorna's personality shines through for better or worse."

Lorna's book was amusing to me because not two-three years earlier, she was on the Today Show trying to re-write history. She claimed that all the stories of Judy's drinking and drugging were fabricated or embellished. I assume she was trying to influence those who weren't around when Judy was a public wreck in the 1960s, and revitalize her image. I was appalled.

r10 Do you? and I don't care how I spelled it. This is a message board, not an English Composition class.

The grammar/spelling trolls are beyond tedious. We're not writing academic dissertations here, we're typing quick messages in a conversational manner on a fun forum. They can all fuck off.

Is Shelley Winters' autobiography any good?

I remember liking this oldie when I read it decades ago . . .

R12 re Little Me” Great musical too. Several different versions however. Patrick Dennis wrote Auntie Mame. Pen name of Everette Tanner who eventually went to work for Mr. and Mrs. Ray Kroc as their butler.

Elizabeth Taylor by David Bret.

Salacious trash, enjoyable read if you can get your hands on it. Liz's first husband Conrad Hilton Jr was a violent bisexual thug, he beat her so badly she miscarried. Stuff like that. And a few of her husband's were either gay or bi.

Bette Davis The Lonely Life

Originally published in 1962

R103 . . .

Patricia Bosworth died on April 2, 2020, at Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York City, due to pneumonia and complications from COVID-19, at the age of 86.

"My Life as a Carpet Muncher" by Nancy Kulp.

R107 - Wow, I missed that bit of info. That's too bad. Thanks for letting me know.

[quote] had affairs with Davis, Crawford and Hayworth. His son is documentary film producer Eric Sherman.

Does he know which one of them was his mother?

"As I Am" by Patricia Neal. She's very honest about her messy, full of tragedy life; doomed affair with Gary Cooper, the abortion of his baby, her first child dying of measles, her baby son hit by a taxi and rendered brain damaged, suffering a series of strokes that totally disabled her, her recovery from the strokes, her marriage to the detestable writer Roald Dahl, who eventually left her for a woman who had been a close family friend. Whew! What a life. She was a real survivor.

Roald Dahl was a well-known asshole. In the book that Bette Davis's assistant wrote a few years ago, she recounted a visit that she and Bette made to Patricia Neal and Dahl's home in England and he was obnoxious the whole time.

The book written by Marlo Thomas's butler is a DL classic. "DESSSSSSSSMOND!!! WHERE ARE THE COOKIES?!!!"

r111, what does she say about Dahl?

I recommend the infamous, deliciously trashy "Hollywood Babylon." Oh sure, it's full of bullshit but it's so fun to read! I read it when I was 12 or 13 years old; it introduced me to all those long ago era Hollywood stars. It's where I first heard of Fatty Arbuckle, Wallace Reid, Mabel Normand, Olive Thomas, Clara Bow, Frances Farmer, Louise Brooks. And it features a lot of great, bad taste photos; the cover photo is unforgettable, an image of Jayne Mansfield in that infamous gown that pretty much showed ALL of her giant jugs. I would say to anyone who reads it not to take it very seriously; it's truth mixed with fiction, as all gossip tends to be.

R115, I read it before dinner when I was 16. I could barely eat...my stomach couldn't handle food.

How is the biography of Sue Mengers, Can I Go Now by Brian Kellow? I found a copy someone gave to me three years ago, haven't read it yet. I know Sue was a trip, but you never know how shitty a bio can be even of a fab diva agent.

A fun quick read I enjoyed, A Paper Life by Tatum O'Neal. This was the first book. I know there are Tatum haters/Ryan apologists here, I don't care. This is Tatum's version.

OP, I think that's the gayest and archest DL thread title & picture combo I've ever seen.

And I mean it with love.

I think we're getting away from "Old Hollywood," at least to my mind. Tatum O'Neal? Marlo Thomas? Sue Mengers?

David Stenn's biographies on Clara Bow and Jean Harlow are excellent and Jackie Onassis was his editor for both.

R118, Tatum O'Neal and Sue Mengers are 1970s. That's FORTY+ YEARS AGO. To 65% of the people here, that's ancient history. And I'd rather hear about Sue Mengers than Clara Bow.

I guess so, but my perception of "old Hollywood" is from the beginning until around 1960 -- more or less while the old studio system was still dominant.

Getting back to Bette Davis, the two best bios of her are More Than A Woman by James Spada and Dark Victory by Ed Sikov. Both are excellent. Davis had a lot of issues, esp. as she got older, but she was a very interesting individual.

R115 - I take it you also read Anger's follow-up book as well. . .

" Tatum O'Neal and Sue Mengers are 1970s. That's FORTY+ YEARS AGO."

That may have been long ago but it still doesn't constitute "Old Hollywood." And Tatum O'Neal and Sue Mengers (I doubt many people even know who Sue Mengers was) are nothing in comparison to legends like Clara Bow and Jean Harlow and Clara Bow.

" I take it you also read Anger's follow-up book as well."

Indeed I did. It was interesting but not nearly as good as the first one. There was supposed to be a Hollywood Babylon III, but it never happened. Too bad; I would have liked to have seen it.

Excuse me, I meant Clara Bow and Jean Harlow and Garbo. At any rate, I don't think a lot of people realize how it was back then; in those days to be a movie star was to live a life of unimaginable wealth and luxury; the stars were worshipped and adored and movies were THE form of entertainment. Gloria Swanson said it like this: "Oh, the parties we used to have! In those days the public wanted us to live like kings and queens. So we did, and why not? We were in love with life. We were making more money than we ever dreamed existed and there was no reason to believe it would ever stop." There was GLAMOUR in those heady days. There's no glamour anymore.

R84: I agree. Nothing by William Mann is worth reading. Very superficial even fro the celebrity bio genre.

The bios by minor leaguers like Yvonne DeCarlo are fun. She had "one date" with just about everyone. She had no trouble making soft porn in the 80s, but couldn't just come out and tell us what a slut she was.

The Bette Davis books are good---yes, they are "mannered" but she she saw a lot.

"More Than A Woman by James Spada"

James "Streisand Lovin Bitch" Spada was a fucking HACK

I haven't read his biographies, but the book William J. Mann did on Gays in Hollywood was really good

The Good The Bad, And The Very Ugly by Sondra Locke is great.

“Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be” by Simone Signoret. She had one hell of a life.

I am not Ashamed

R117 You'll be in for quite a surprise if you discovered my age, gender, nationality, everything about me really. But it's the biggest compliment, thank you darling :)

R132 "She jolly well ought to be!"

Hopefully there will be a vol 2 for Barbara Stanwyck. The second half of her life was notoriously private. What was she up to? Vol 1 definitely needed editing as the above poster said, but if you just skimmed the boring parts it was a decent read.

R135, What was the true nature of her relationship with Nancy Sinatra, Sr.?

Barbara and Nancy were very close friends, seems like they could've been more than friends. Nancy was only in her early 30s when she divorced Frank and apparently never had another relationship with a man. Barbara never had a relationship (at least a public one) after she divorced Robert Taylor in the early 50s.

William Mann is superficial? I've never read any of his books and don't intend to, but Mann did write a 600 plus pg book about that ol lez, Katharine Hepburn.

R138 one of the stupidest biography titles ever. the research is flimsy at best. honestly the closest thing to a quality kate hepburn biography is probably found in Spencer Tracy by James Curtis. There is a huge opportunity for someone to write a definitive bio on her, but last I heard her estate is prohibiting full access to her papers and diaries, so that is why all the currently available bios suck and are full of conjecture.

I haven't read the William Mann bio of Hebburn. Did he present her relationship with Spencer Tracy as a great love affair, even though that was most likely bullshit?

Is William Mann's biography of Bill Haines reliable? I enjoyed it.

R140, Mann called Hepburn and dyke and tried to prove it convincingly. I read that part!

R44, Lorna exposes Danny Thomas for the asshole he was in her book. During an engagement, he would trash her to the audience both before and after she sang. Lorna wrote that "Catholic family man Danny" had girls crawling all over him every night in his dressing room.

Lorna should've gotten back at Danny when she went on stage after he introduced her: "I'm sorry that Danny Thomas is in such a bad mood tonight. You see, the hooker he hired to take a shit on the glass coffee table was constipated, so he couldn't jerk off."

I’ve ordered Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye on amazon and I’m excited about reading it

For salacious dirt on Old Hollywood, you should read Scotty Bowers' memoirs Full Service. It's a firsthand account of how gay many of the old stars were, and talks about their other sexual practices.

It's far more credible than Hollywood Babylon, but still draws critics about its accuracy. Much of this is because he outs many beloved stars, such as Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Walter Pidgeon, Tyrone Power and more, whose fans still want to dream of them as being straight. Some of his other critics are just plain homophobic in general.

The only part of the book I found distasteful (ahem!) was Charles Laughton's choice of sandwiches.

Here's Scotty in his youth.

This is the first of twelve parts on the history of early Hollywood, some great old interviews.

R146, there isn't really any more evidence to back up Scotty's claims than there is to back up most of the claims in Hollywood Babylon. And I believe most of the people you mentioned were bi or gay, so it's not just homophobic fangirls/fan boys who are questioning him.

He doesn't even look that attractive in the picture you posted. Not quite the Adonis he made himself out to be

“Drinking From The Toilet” by Lassie

r148 He does have his haters, I admit.

"It's far more credible than Hollywood Babylon, but still draws critics about its accuracy. Much of this is because he outs many beloved stars, such as Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Walter Pidgeon, Tyrone Power and more, whose fans still want to dream of them as being straight. Some of his other critics are just plain homophobic in general."

"Accuracy?" What accuracy? Old Scotty could not produce one shred of evidence to corroborate anything he said. ALL of his tales have to be taken "on faith." That is, to believe old Scotty you have to believe everything you read, and that's pretty stupid.

I mean, really...threesomes with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor? Calling them "Eddie and Wally?" Poor old Scotty must have been hallucinating that he was Jimmy Donahue. Jimmy Donahue was the wild gay cousin of the crazy Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. He and Wallis SImpson DID have an, ahem, CLOSE relationship for a while. But Scotty Bowers? The Duke and Duchess of Windsor would never have had anything to do with the lowly gas station attendant. They didn't even know he was alive.

Katherine Hepburn's ME was a good read. Nothing shocking or juicy, just a good read about a wealthy person who had a good life and a good attitude towards it.

Patricia Neal's AS I AM gets a vote from me, too. It's been around a while but I was blown away by it when I first read it years ago.

Not 'Old Hollywood' but you should read Coleen Dewhurst's autobiography. It actually was completed after her death but she comes across as such a great fun person that you want to be her friend immediately. Also from the theatre side of things and not Old Hollywood: Maureen Stapleton and Zoe Caldwell autobios.

Where's the Strickling Files guy? Is he still posting here?

I hate to go off topic but I always think the best book about (old) Hollywood with lots of information about lots of different stars is "Flesh & Fantasy" by Penny Stallings. It's good background for a lot of the autobiographies you'll read as well as the biographies. Entertaining and attractively illustrated. A great companion piece to many of the titles above.

^ I own Flesh and Fantasy. It's a good read.

I liked Searching For My Father Tyrone Powerby hisdaughter Romina Power. He was an interesting man.

Old Hollywood writer Harriet Frank Jr. and family by nephew.Michael Frank, The Mighty Franks

Lucky Me by Shirley MacLain’s daughter

Shirley Jones’ autobiography

I found the most memorable story in Frank Sinatra’s butler’s book was what a whore Peggy Lee was

Autobios that should have been:

"I Never Wore Polka Dots," by Jeff Chandler

"I Actually Prefer Red," by Joseph Luft

"Those Reasons Weren't So Well-Known," by Christina Crawford

As mentioned upthread: "As I Am", Patricia Neal's autobiography, read it with a box of tissues. Also, a very good read but not too gossipy is Candice Bergen's autobiography, "Knock Wood".

My favorite part from "Call Her Miss Ross":

Diana, relaxing in a steam room where she had just done a photo shoot, bellowed to two women sitting near her, "Hey, you. Get me a glass of water." To which the women--who were patrons of the spa, not employees--replied, "Get it yourself, you black bitch!"

R37, And that's Errol Flynn on the cover, no?

R160 Yes.

I've recommended this on a similar thread in the past--"Haywire," by Brooke Hayward. Classic Hollywood, well written, heartbreaking...

Esther William’s autobiography is delicious.

[quote]Esther William’s

Oh, dear.

Fuck off r164. God, the typo queens are so useless.

R164 is right.

Patricia Neal's As I Am, of course.

Louise Brooks's LuLu in Hollywood. She was actually a talented writer.

Old Hollywood memoir I enjoyed, The Memory of All That by actress Betsy Blair. Subtitled, Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood and Paris. Betsy was Gene Kelly's teenage wife for 10+ years during his MGM heyday. She was blacklisted, Kelly moved to Europe and ruined his career. Lots of drama. I recommend reading this and Arthur Laurents' book after.

Same here, R67.

Two books that were recommended on a different DL thread:

Just tell me When to Cry, a memoir written by veteran director Richard Fleischer, very frank and funny.

The Season, a detailed look at the 1967-1968 Broadway season by William Goldman. Another very frank and very funny book, he takes no prisoners and speaks some plain truths, even though his writing is very, what would be considered today, homophobic, but at least he is not squeamish about gays and discusses us with the same frankness and candor he applies to the rest of his subjects. (I was lucky to get this out of my local library before it shut down during the current crisis.)

R88 I have Quinn's auto, I WOULDN'T recommend it, the man comes across as a serious narcissistic, misogynistic asshole. He thought Stanwyck was a boss bitch and didn't like her very much (probably preferred his women to be gentle and submissive). Anyway, here's the part you've mentioned : "We began the evening with dinner. Suzan was with me on this shoot, and Coop was keeping company with his current leading lady, Barbara Stanwyck. In fact, he had another girl waiting for him up in his room, but he thought Stanwyck was a lot more fun to be around, so he asked her to join us for dinner. Coop was like that, he had different girls for different moods. I was never entirely comfortable around Barbara, but I could tolerate her well enough. To Coop, she was a ball of fire, and I did not want to argue. After dinner, we went for a stroll on the lovely grounds around the hotel, and the four of us wound up lying on the grass, on a hill overlooking the lake, gazing up at the heavens. it was a spectacular night - the air crisp, the sky clear enough to make out the constellations. Coop did the talking, while the girls dozed. We had all been drinking, and they were quickly lulled by the deep melody of Coop's voice to where sleep could find them. He talked about the women he had known in Montana, and in Hollywood, from Patricia Neal to Lupe Velez, how they taught him to dress, to carry himself, to show his emotions. At one point, I looked over and noticed that Coop's left arm appeared to be missing. It was a very strange thing. The moonlight had left him silhouetted in an unusual way, but as my eyes adjusted to the shadows I could place his hand under Barbara Stanwyck's skirt. Suzan was sound asleep on my arm, and Barbara had her eyes closed and was feigning sleep. Coop was working his hand quite diligently between her thighs, and she moved with him. He kept up with his talking, going on and on about women, all the while diddling the famous lady that lay on his side."