Behind The Door: the Real Story of Loretta Young


Edward J Funk - 2015
    Then, in 2012, Linda Lewis, Loretta Young’s daughter-in-law, called, urging me to finally bring this book to full life. I’ll be forever grateful to Loretta Young, a guarded woman by nature, who finally decided to tell a very personal story. In doing so, she enlisted the help of her three sisters and life-long friends. These people have all passed on, but their voices remain vividly in the present.Excerpts pertaining to Loretta’s relationship with Clark GableGable arrived at Loretta’s train compartment uninvited. She recalled,” I allowed him in as I would have any member of the crew, thinking he was there for a visit. He had other intentions. Very persistent intentions. He wasn’t rough, but I kept saying no, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Loretta received a phone call from Ria Gable a few weeks later. Loretta recalled, "I was in Mama's room and I picked up the phone. Mrs. Gable said, 'This is very presumptuous of me, but you may or may not know that there are rumors flying around town about you and my husband.'”In 1998, when Loretta was eighty-five, she was watching television with Edward Funk. There was the mention of date-rape on the news, and she asked him what exactly did that mean. He explained to the best of his ability. The following day, Loretta called her daughter-in-law, Linda and said. “I know now that there was a word for what happened to me with Clark.”Clark Gable arrived on the set of THE CRUSADES. Loretta recalled, “He waited until I was through and then offered to take me home. We went for a drive up in the Hollywood Hills. He didn’t say much, but it was apparent that he was agitated. With the long silences, I felt very uncomfortable and finally felt the pressure to say something. I blurted out, ‘Would it make any difference if I told you that I wasn’t pregnant?’ He turned and looked at me and then asked, ‘Well, are you or aren’t you?’ I felt like such a fool. I didn’t know why I had said that except that I had tried to think of something to say he wanted to hear, my inherent need to please taken to an illogical length. I had to tell him that I was pregnant. His look toward me was one of total exasperation, and very little was said as he drove me home.” There would be some phone calls in the interim, but it would be more than a year before Loretta would see Clark Gable again. Loretta’s sister, Sally, "I remember taking an odd route to get there (the house in Westwood where Loretta and the baby were in hiding). My mother didn't approve that I was going at all because of all the secrecy, but I was dying to see the baby. She was very big by the time I did. I just loved her looks and kept saying, ‘Oh Loretta, I hope I have a baby that looks just like this.' In response to my enthusiasm about Judy, Loretta referred to Gable’s visit earlier in the week, the first time he had seen his daughter, and said, 'Yes, and do you know after all that has gone on, all that we've gone through, instead of having any interest in his daughter, he tried to knock me down on the bed! Can you imagine, Sally? That bastard! Who the hell does he think he is?' And I thought, 'With all that's happened, she thinks he's a bastard. He didn't understand that Loretta was a human being that had suffered very much.”Loretta acted like she couldn’t have been more flattered that MGM’s two biggest male stars (Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy) would come to see her (on the set of UNGUARDED HOUR). Under her smile she thought differently. She reflected, “I thought how different these two men were.

The Best of Vanity Fair ELIZABETH TAYLOR: Eight Remarkable Stories About Hollywood's Most Beautiful, Most Controversial Star


Dominick DunneGraydon Carter - 2011
    In a moving tribute to the big screen’s grande dame, the editors of Vanity Fair have published the magazine’s first e-book, a star-studded collection of classic stories from the likes of Dominick Dunne and George Hamilton—taken from the pages of Vanity Fair, Hollywood’s acknowledged arbiter of talent, glamour, and power. This e-book lifts the veil on the real Elizabeth Taylor—the child star and cinematic beauty, the seductress and consummate diva—through her more than 50 films and seven husbands, through her torrid affairs and countless illnesses, meltdowns, and triumphs. Here is a behind-the-scenes portrait of La Liz—in all her dazzling, madcap glory.

David Niven: The Man Behind the Balloon


Michael Munn - 2009
    Despite his on-screen persona, Niven wasn’t always the perfect gentleman. He was insecure both privately and professionally and used people to get ahead. But he did, he said, ‘at least try to be a decent man.’ He knew he often failed, although it isn’t easy to find people who ever had a bad word to say about him. In this fascinating biography of the star, Munn looks at the funny stories and the sad underlying truth, from his outrageous days with Errol Flynn and their irrevocable split –‘You always know where you are with Flynn. He always lets you down’ – and numerous affairs with stars and prostitutes, to an attempted suicide, his horrific experiences in war-torn France and the breakdown and blame of his second marriage. This compelling text includes interviews with his second wife, Hjordis, John Huston, Rex Harrison, Laurence Olivier, Loretta Young (they discussed marriage once), Niven’s long-time friend Michael Trubshawe, Peter Ustinov, Ava Gardner and many more.

Chasing Salomé: A Novel of 1920s Hollywood


Martin Turnbull - 2019
    She is the highest-paid actress in town, with a luxurious estate, the respect of her peers, adoration of her fans, and a series of lovers that has included the first wife of her protégé, Rudolph Valentino. But reaching the top is one thing. Staying there is an entirely different matter. Nazimova dreams of producing a motion picture of Oscar Wilde’s infamous “Salomé.” It will be a new form of moviemaking: the world’s first art film. But the same executives at Metro Pictures who hailed Nazimova as a genius when she was churning out hit after hit now turn their backs because her last few movies have flopped. Taking matters into her own hands, Nazimova decides to shoot “Salomé” herself. But it means risking everything she has: her reputation, her fortune, her beautiful home, and even her lavender marriage. But will it be enough to turn her fortunes around? Or will Hollywood cut her out of the picture? From the author of the Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels and based on a true story, “Chasing Salomé” takes us inside Nazimova’s struggle to achieve a new level of stardom by raising the flickers to an art form.

Conversations with Marilyn: Portrait of Marilyn Monroe


Marilyn Monroe - 1977
    

The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties


Sam Kashner - 2002
    "[S]urprisingly vivid accounts" (People) of such public icons as Lana Turner, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Mae West explore the private scandals exploited by tabloids such as Confidential. Highlighting Hollywood's curious religious revival with The Robe, the film industry's exploitation of the potboiler Peyton Place, and the life of anarchic director Nick Ray of the enduring classic Rebel without a Cause, the authors "[give] a compelling sense" (Kirkus Reviews) of the unique obsessions of the era and the city's attempts to reinvent the magic and mystery of its past glories. Guided by the authors' historical savvy and intimate storytelling, we discover a city at a crossroads, attempting to reinvent the magic and mystery of its past glories. Tragic, irreverent, and always entertaining, The Bad and the Beautiful reveals the underground history of this turbulent decade in American film.

Film Noir Reader


Alain Silver - 1996
    The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

Moviola


Garson Kanin - 1979
    You heard nothing. Unless you heard it from Farber. B.J. Farber was there with them all - from the start with Edison right up to today. He saw it. He lived it. he made a lot of it happen. Wait 'til you hear.

The Dark Side Of The Screen: Film Noir


Foster Hirsch - 1981
    From Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Robert Aldrich, and Howard Hawkes to Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, and Paul Schrader, the noir themes of dread, paranoia, steamy sex, double-crossing women, and menacing cityscapes have held a fascination. The features that make Burt Lancaster, Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum, and Humphrey Bogart into noir heroes and heroines are carefully detailed here, as well as those camera angles, lighting effects, and story lines that characterize Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, and Orson Welles as noir directors.For the current rediscovery of film noir, this comprehensive history with its list of credits to 112 outstanding films and its many illustrations will be a valuable reference and a source of inspiration for further research.

All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader


Yona Zeldis McDonough - 2002
    This thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of essays examines the undiminished incandescence of Marilyn Monroe -- the impact she has had on our culture, the evolution of her legend since her death, and what she tells us now about our lives and times -- and includes previously unpublished work from some of America's best writers, such as: Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Elliot Dark, Albert Mobilo, Marge Piercy, Lore Segal, Lisa Shea, and many more. From her troubled family beginnings to the infamous $13 million auction held at Christie's in New York City, All the Available Light paints an unforgettable portrait of Marilyn as you've never seen her before. This extremely rare cover photo was taken c. 1954, on the set of The Seven Year Itch.

Women in Film Noir


E. Ann Kaplan - 1978
    This edition is expanded to include essays which explore "neo-noir", postmodernism and other trends.

Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir


Eddie Muller - 2001
    Sinister and sexy, it forged a new icon: the tough, independent, take-no-guff dame. Determined, desirable, dangerous when cornered, she could handle trouble -- or deal out some of her own.If you thought these women were something special onscreen, wait till you meet the genuine articles. In "Dark City Dames, acclaimed film historian Eddie Muller profiles six women who made a lasting impression in this cinematic terrain -- from veteran "bad girls" Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor, and Jane Greer to unexpected genre fixtures Evelyn Keyes, Coleen Gray, and Ann Savage. The book surveys the lives of these formidable women during the height of their careers circa 1950, as they balanced love and career, struggled against typecasting, and sought fulfillment in a ruthless business. Their personal stories -- teeming with larger-than-life characters like Howard Hughes, L.B. Mayer, Robert Mitchum, Otto Preminger, and John Huston -- offer an illuminating counterpoint to their movies, such as "Out of the Past, Detour, The Lady in the Lake, and "The Killing. Then "Dark City Dames revisits each one of these women today, fifty years on, to witness their hard-won -- and triumphant -- survival. On every page their own voices ring through, reflecting on their lives with as much passion, pain, intelligence, energy, and humor as any movie script."Dark City Dames re-creates the excitement and glamour of a group of gifted performers who lived out their youthful fantasies -- and, along the way, remade the image of the American woman.

Marilyn Monroe


Maurice Zolotow - 1990
    Originally published in 1960, Zolotow's book was the first to take Marilyn seriously as an actress at a time when she was thought to be just an eccentric, gorgeous blonde. 16 pages of photographs.

L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times


John Gilmore - 2005
    Gilmore obsesses on a relentless panorama of sex, violence and death in five new chronicles of So Cal sickness: *the sex-and-drug soaked Wonderland murders featuring porn legend John Holmes *Sexpot Starlet Barbara Payton's hellbent descent into the gutters of Tinseltown *the Hollywood Hooker who landed in San Quentin's gas chamber, the Ice Blonde Murderess Barbara Graham For those already steeped in the canon of John Gilmore's work, this is the long-awaited true-crime capstone to a celebrated collection of works, a blood-and-semen-soaked noir trail of all-night diners, nightclubs and cheap motels.

Into the Dark: The Hidden World of Film Noir, 1941-1950


Mark A. Vieira - 2016
    Into the Dark captures this alluring genre with a cavalcade of compelling photographs and a guide to 82 of its best films.Into the Dark is the first book to tell the story of film noir in its own voice. Author Mark A. Vieira quotes the artists who made these movies and the journalists and critics who wrote about them, taking readers on a year-by-year tour of the exciting nights when movies like Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Sunset Boulevard were sprung on an unsuspecting public. For the first time, we hear the voices of film noir artists speak from the sets and offices of the studios, explaining the dark genre, even before it had a name. Those voices tell how the genre was born and how it thrived in an industry devoted to sweetness and light.Into the Dark is a ticket to a smoky, glamorous world. You enter a story conference with Raymond Chandler, visit the set of Laura, and watch Detour with a Midwest audience. This volume recreates the environment that spawned film noir. It also displays the wit and warmth of the genre's artists. Hedda Hopper reports on Citizen Kane, calling Orson Welles "Little Orson Annie." Lauren Bacall says she enjoys playing a bad girl in To Have and Have Not. Bosley Crowther calls Joan Crawford in Possessed a "ghost wailing for a demon lover beneath a waning moon." An Indiana exhibitor rates the classic Murder, My Sweet a "passable program picture." Illustrated by hundreds of rare still photographs, Into the Dark conveys the mystery, glamour, and irony that make film noir surpassingly popular.About TCM:Turner Classic Movies is the definitive resource for the greatest movies of all time. It engages, entertains, and enlightens to show how the entire spectrum of classic movies, movie history, and movie-making touches us all and influences how we think and live today.