Hollywood Heartbreak

Hollywood Heartbreak
Author: Laurie Jacobson
Publisher: Touchstone
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1984-01-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780671499983

Recounts the circumstances surrounding the deaths of thirty-one Hollywood celebrities, including D.W. Griffith, Bela Lugosi, Ernie Kovacs, Marilyn Monroe, Freddie Prinze, and John Belushi

Laird Cregar

Laird Cregar
Author: Gregory William Mank
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2018-01-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476628440

In 1944, Laird Cregar played Jack the Ripper in The Lodger, giving one of the most haunting performances in Hollywood history. It was the climax of a strange celebrity that saw the young American actor--who stood 6' 3" and weighed more than 300 pounds--earn distinction as a portrayer of psychopaths and villains. Determined to break free of this typecasting, he desperately desired to become "a beautiful man," embarking on an extreme diet that killed him at 31. This first biography of Cregar tells the heartbreaking story of the brilliant but doomed actor. Appendices cover his film, theatre, and radio work. Many never before published photographs are included.

Carole Landis

Carole Landis
Author: E.J. Fleming
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2015-09-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0786482656

Before she was a glamorous actress, before she was a war-time pin-up star, even before she was Carole Landis, she was Frances Lillian Ridste, an insecure young girl from Wisconsin. She was strikingly beautiful, talented, and on her way to becoming a movie star, yet she spent her entire life searching for love. Though she appeared in more than 60 films during her short career, Landis was better known for her extraordinary beauty and many romantic relationships than for her acting or comedic timing. Like many starlets of the time, Landis worked her way up from uncredited bit parts (and according to rumors, from the casting couch) to leading roles in such films as Topper Returns (1940) and My Gal Sal (1942) over the course of her 11-year career. She spent more time visiting troops during World War II--traveling hundreds of thousands of miles and coming near death twice--than any other Hollywood star. Despite her seemingly glamorous and carefree life, Landis was unable to build a lasting relationship, a fact that contributed to her suicide at 29. This work examines Landis's life and career in Hollywood, focusing on how her movie career affected her short, unhappy life.

Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels
Author: Kirk Crivello
Publisher: Sphere
Total Pages: 282
Release: 1988
Genre: California
ISBN: 9780708848364

An examination of the lives of a collection of famous and beautiful Hollywood actresses who have died in their prime. The author ponders the reasons behind the eventual downfall of actresses such as Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Gail Russell and Sharon Tate.

Tragic Hollywood

Tragic Hollywood
Author: Jackie Valinda Ganiy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2017-07-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781548637835

New for 2017: The highly anticipated sequel to Tragic Hollywood: Beautiful, Glamorous, and Dead: Tragic Hollywood: Beautiful, Glamorous, and Still Dead Dead! Over 475 pages of tragedy with more details, more and better images, all lovingly edited and researched. Have you always been fascinated by the darker side of Hollywood? Did you cut your teeth on books like Hollywood Babylon, and shows like Mysteries And Scandals? This book delivers the most salacious details about the stars you remember not for their films, but for their tragically short lives. What killed William Desmond Taylor? Why did Tyrone power die so young and unhappy? What really happened to the Black Dahlia? Was Fatty Arbuckle a victim or a murderer? Maybe you think you've heard it all? Trust me, you haven't! Chock full of new details, and with an emphasis on why rather than just how. Find out about the murder suicide of Gig Young, what Peter Lawford knew about the night Marilyn Monroe died, what really happened to Thelma Todd. You will not be able to put this book down! These stories are delivered with a wit and poignant observation that will leave you saying "WOW"

Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous And Dead

Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous And Dead
Author: Jackie Ganiy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-12-19
Genre: Motion picture actors and actresses
ISBN: 9781493557370

"Have you always been fascinated by the morbid side of Hollywood? Did you cut your teeth on books like Hollywood Babylon, and shows like Mysteries and Scanddals? This book promises to deliver all the salacious details about the stars you mremember, not for their films, but for their tragic short lives. What really happened to Natalie Wood aboard The Splendor that cold November night? Was Jayne Mansfield really decapitated? Just how decadent were the days of silent movies? Maybe you think you've heard it all? But trust me, you haven't!"--Back cover

Scandals of Classic Hollywood

Scandals of Classic Hollywood
Author: Anne Helen Petersen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2014-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1101635479

Celebrity gossip meets history in this compulsively readable collection from Buzzfeed reporter Anne Helen Peterson. This guide to film stars and their deepest secrets is sure to top your list for movie gifts and appeal to fans of classic cinema and hollywood history alike. Believe it or not, America’s fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Cardi B, Kanye's tweets, and the #metoo allegations that have gripped Hollywood. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren’t always the saints that we make them out to be. BuzzFeed's Anne Helen Petersen, author of Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, is here to set the record straight. Pulling little-known gems from the archives of film history, Petersen reveals eyebrow-raising information, including: • The smear campaign against the original It Girl, Clara Bow, started by her best friend • The heartbreaking story of Montgomery Clift’s rapid rise to fame, the car accident that destroyed his face, and the “long suicide” that followed • Fatty Arbuckle's descent from Hollywood royalty, fueled by allegations of a boozy orgy turned violent assault • Why Mae West was arrested and jailed for "indecency charges" • And much more Part biography, part cultural history, these stories cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups. But it's not all just tawdry gossip in the pages of this book. The stories are all contextualized within the boundaries of film, cultural, political, and gender history, making for a read that will inform as it entertains. Based on Petersen's beloved column on the Hairpin, but featuring 100% new content, Scandals of Classic Hollywood is sensationalism made smart.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace
Author: Jeff Hobbs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2014-09-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 147673190X

A biography of a young African-American man who escaped the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets when he returned home.

Jayne Mansfield Biography: The Tragic Life of the Hollywood’s Blonde Bombshell, Inside Rumors and More

Jayne Mansfield Biography: The Tragic Life of the Hollywood’s Blonde Bombshell, Inside Rumors and More
Author: Chris Dicker
Publisher: Chris Dicker
Total Pages: 24
Release:
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

Jayne Mansfield, most people would consider her as the Marilyn Monroe successor. In fact, Jayne has played some of the Monroe's films "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Bus Stop." Many fans would compare her to Monroe in so many ways, mostly due to her physical appearance, singing and dancing abilities. However, she was quite different. Jayne had a style and often made statements with her pink Cadillac and the "pink palace" she lived in for so many years. Jayne Mansfield received more press coverage than anyone else in Hollywood at that time. In fact, she was the grand master of publicity stunts due to so many affairs, divorces, nudity, work-related enigma and more. Mansfield embraced both motherhood and being a sex symbol, setting a precedent for other leading women to follow her lead. As a result, it started to become acceptable in Hollywood to be both a mom and sexy. Jayne was one of the first of her kind regarding being sexually liberated in an era that still saw certain things as being taboo. She also proved her acting ability in movies and plays. In this biography you'll learn into some depth about the personal and professional life of Jayne Mansfield. Who she was as a person? How she succeeded in Hollywood? Why she divorced so many times? We'll also explore some of the tragedies in her life. We'll also reveal the truth about her many lovers, her three unsuccessful marriages, her love affair with Mickey Hargitay that lasted to the end and her battle against and her surrender to alcohol and drugs. Did success spoil Jayne Mansfield? Jayne was just 34 when she died, but her life was filled with adventures, struggles and determinations to break the social norms related to sexual liberation, freedom, and showcase the woman's sex powers in order to get what she wants out of life. You'll also learn into some detail about Jayne's death, reasons, causality and more. There's more than just blonde hair, seductive smile and eye-popping hourglass figure. If you want to learn more about Jayne Mansfield, grab your copy now!

Hollywood Beauty

Hollywood Beauty
Author: Ronald L. Davis
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2014-12-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0806173521

At fifteen, Linda Darnell left her Texas home and normal adolescence to live the Hollywood dream promoted by fan magazine and studio publicity offices. She appeared in dozens of films and won international acclaim for Blood and Sand (playing opposite Tyrone Power), Forever Amber, A Letter to Three Wives, and the original version of Unfaithfully Yours. Driven by a stage mother to become rich and Famous, but unable to cope with the career she had longed for as a child, Darnell soon was caught in a downward spiral of drinking, failed marriages, and exploitive relationships. By her early twenties she was an alcoholic, hardened by a life in which beautiful women were chattel, and by the time of her death at age forty- one, she was struggling for recognition in the industry that once had called her its "glory girl.” Hollywood Beauty begins in the Southwest during the Depression, when Pearl Darnell became obsessed by the glitter of the movie world that would dominate her children’s lives. We follow Linda’s path from her Texas childhood and first public success–during the state centennial, in 1936–through her contract work with Twentieth Century-Fox in the heyday of the big-studio system. Film historian Ronald L. Davis documents Darnell’s discovery and marriages, the adoption of her daughter, the marking of many well-known films, and her emotional difficulties, leading up to her tragic death by fire. This is the story of a native teenager from a dysfunctional middle-class family thrust into the golden age of Hollywood. Hollywood Beauty examines America’s public worship of movie stars and superficial success–its motives and consequences–and the addiction to escapism that this worship represents.