HOLLYWOOD BABBLE ON

BY: Michael Arkin

Wandering through the bookstore this week, I happened upon the newly released Letters From Hollywood by Rocky Lang and Barbara Hall. An epistolary history of the movie business from 1921 through 1976, the book sheds light on a bygone era through the dying art of letter writing. Told through 137 letters, notes, memos and telegrams, the book features correspondence from screen legends including Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn and Jane Fonda, and, according to Hall, reveals what it was like to live and work in Hollywood.

There are letters on contract negotiations, thank you notes, appeals for work from both established and unknown actors and much more. The stories that I liked best tended to be those with a bite. Like Joan Crawford’s 1956 letter to biographer Jane Kesner Ardmore in which she describes a royal premiere in London:

“I was presented to the Queen last night — nearly died of excitement and fear. Of course, I was not too happy about being presented with that group of people representing the Motion Picture Industry, such as Marilyn you-know-who, and Anita Ekberg. Incidentally, Marilyn and Anita were howled at because of their tight dresses — they could not walk off the stage. It was most embarrassing.”

 

Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nicholas Meyer may have best described the feeling you get when you read the book, “It’s such a forbidden pleasure to read other people’s mail.” Especially when the correspondence delivers dish from some of the industry’s biggest stars. But why stop at letters? Bookstores are full of Hollywood exposés that go beyond the pale while informing, titillating and in some cases, shocking readers.

For decades I listened to my neighbor, Scotty Bowers’ stories about his years as a procurer of carnal thrills to the stars. When he finally penned his book, Full Service, it became an instant New York Times bestseller. The book, detailing Scotty’s transition from pumping gas to pumping some of the biggest names in the business, is a delicious diversion and prompted filmmaker, Matt Tyrnauer, to make his documentary Scotty and the Secret Life of Hollywood.

Cole Porter wants to orally service 9 young Marines? No problem. Katherine Hepburn likes dark-haired girls with no make-up? Noted. Tyrone Power likes barely legal young girls? Scotty has him covered. Charles Laughton’s favorite sandwich can’t be found at the deli counter? Scotty’ll figure it out. The cavalcade of stars (and their penchants) that Scotty catered to include the likes of Spencer Tracy, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Walter Pidgeon, George Cukor, Rock Hudson, Cary Grant, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Vincent Price.

One of the juiciest exposés ever written about Hollywood is Julia Phillips’ You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. The first woman to win an Academy Award for producing, Phillips, along with her husband Michael, produced some of the biggest films to come out of the 70s including Taxi Driver, The Sting and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. With the 1991 publication of the book that The New York Times called “the stuff of a Hollywood publicity agent’s nightmare”, she went from being A-list to persona non grata overnight.

The prophetically titled book, which took Random House lawyers fourteen months to approve for publication, was both scandalous and career-ending. In its pages, Phillips, who died at the age of 57 in 2003, took Hollywood to task. She said pal Goldie Hawn “had a heart of stone” and was “borderline dirty, with stringy hair.” She quoted David Geffen saying that Steven Spielberg was “selfish, self-centered, ego-maniacal and worst of all – greedy.” As if that wasn’t enough, she claimed that Geffen was “the most money-obsessed person she knew” and was “the Donald Trump of show business”.

In her obituary in The New York Times, Bernie Weinraub wrote that when asked if her book was cruel, Ms. Phillips replied, “People behaved in an ugly and despicable fashion towards me. I felt no constraints. Nothing I did in my book is as mean as any of the people I wrote about.”

Playing off the title of Phillips’ exposé, Robert Randolph’s 2012 book, You’ll Never Spa In This Town Again is equally titillating, although it was mired in controversy and lawsuits. The book begins with an independent polygraph examiner’s test results attempting to verify the veracity of the author’s claims chronicling John Travolta’s alleged predatory sexual behavior at a number of Los Angeles spas. According to the book, during the years 1993-2008 , the Grease star frequented a number of spas for hot steam room action and massages from loose-lipped masseurs who were all too happy to provide the Travolta-obsessed author with advice, which included loosing 75 pounds so that Randolph could garner the actor’s attention and eventually have sex with him. Ultimately, Travolta prevailed when the judge hearing the libel case brought against him by Randolph threw the case out and ruled that the author had to pay Travolta’s six figure legal fees.

More memoir than exposé, Drew Barrymore’s Little Girl Lost is a story of excess and what can happen when fame comes too early. The actress, who became a star at the age of 7 after appearing in E.T. The Extraterrestrial, says that stardom at such a young age “Is a recipe for disaster”. So much so, that by the age of 14 she had written her memoir. Currently out of print, the book details the young star’s adventures in Hollywoodland, which included smoking her first cigarette by the age of 9 and taking her first hit of cocaine before she was 12.

Ms. Barrymore, whose theatrical lineage is one of legend, wanted to tell her own story to oppose an ignoble piece that ran in the National Enquirer. As Amos Barshad wrote in the New York Times, “Reading the National Enquirer headline, you’re scandalized. Reading her book, you’re heartbroken.”

 

Perhaps the granddaddy of all tell-all’s is Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. Banned In America in 1965, the book, that many claimed is an out-and-out work of fiction, catered to the public’s Schadenfreude-fueled appetite for mean-spirited gossip about the rich and famous. In today’s Kardashianed TMZ world, Anger’s stories seem tame, but when first published, images like Jayne Mansfield’s deadly car crash and items about silent film legend Ramon Navarro dying with a dildo shoved down his throat, both scandalized and horrified the reader.

Interested readers may also consider Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, Christina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest, and 1950s screen idol, Tab Hunter’s Tab Hunter Confidential. Beyond the printed page, check out You Must Remember This, Katrina Longsworth’s podcast series that looks at the secret and forgotten stories of Hollywood’s first century.