The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others - Softcover

Wayne, Jane Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786713038 ISBN 13: 9780786713035

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004

Synopsis

Garbo and Crawford. Ava, Hedy, Judy, Liz epitomized Hollywood's golden era. With a trembling lip or sultry eye, with a tear or song or husky whisper, these women held moviegoers across America in their sway from the hard times of the 1930s through the booming postwar years to the early sixties. They were royalty and box office, and led pampered public lives—furs, jewels, designer gowns; limousines, flash bulbs, handsome escorts—that captured the national imagination. They also signed seven-year contracts with a morals clause, and the more they slipped, the more the secret abortions, efficient cover-ups, legal legerdemain, and dropped charges bound them to the wizard in their Oz, Louis B. Mayer. The slips are here along with the successes. Here, too, are the Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow, Million-Dollar Mermaid Esther Williams, Sweater Girl Lana Turner, and bad girl Ava Gardner ("She can't act. She can't talk. She's terrific," declared Mayer after her screen test). From Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer to Princess Grace and Dame Elizabeth Taylor, the sixteen portraits in this lively, photograph-filled volume, each accompanied by the star's filmography, tell the tales that have long lay hidden behind the gossip and the glories of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's glamorous golden girls.

About this title

About the Author:

Author, broadcaster and show business journalist Ellen Jane Wayne is the author of fourteen other books, and regularly appears on television in the US. She lives in Los Angeles.

From Publishers Weekly:

Wayne, a seasoned biographer of studio-era stars (Eva's Men; Gable's Women; etc.), serves up fun dish on the gals from the studio that once billed itself as having more stars than there are in the heavens. She presents them all-Jeanette, Joan, Judy, Ava, Liz and more-in breathless style, paying equal attention to the undergarments they didn't wear and to the men they loved most. With the adeptness of someone familiar with her subjects and not afraid to read minds, Wayne eases in and out of the stars' thinking as they love, drink, act, divorce and attempt suicide. Throughout all these goings-on, there is the overwhelming presence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) complained it was the pictures that got small, but this book makes the case that it was the studios that died and ruined movies. All Wayne's subjects appear to be controlled by studio head Louis B. Mayer, through both his direct actions and the influence of his thinking. As Wayne tells it, he kept lovers from marrying and dictated roles his stars resented. Yet generally, the stars remembered him fondly, e.g., Jeanette MacDonald, who said after his death, "One of the greatest sadnesses of life is to realise [sic] how much you owe someone when it's too late...." For diehard fans, there's not much new here, but what is, is choice. 16 pages of b&w photos.-- how much you owe someone when it's too late...." For diehard fans, there's not much new here, but what is, is choice. 16 pages of b&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786713038
• ISBN 13: 9780786713035
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 412