Overview

The name “Hollywood” conjures up fantastical images of bright lights, glamorous dreams, and impossible riches. From its humble beginnings as a ranch sprawling northwest of Los Angeles in the late 1800s, Hollywood has spanned lifetimes as a factory of dreams, a dazzling place where all things are possible. This collection of stories takes you on a journey into the golden age, illuminating the space between the airy fantasy and the gritty reality of life in Hollywood. In a transient city where nothing lasts, thousands of stories have taken place in their time here. From the offscreen debauchery of the silent era, to countless dramatic and mysterious deaths, to the sinister past lives of world-famous LA landmarks, vestiges of Hollywood’s checkered past can still be found all over the city. With generations of Tinseltown’s luminaries living and working under the sunny guise of paradisal prosperity, their real stories reveal the sordid underbelly lurking directly beneath the surface. A dangerous collusion between the studios, the press, the mob, and the LAPD forms an impenetrable behind-the-scenes network of corruption, power and control, where the truth is always up for sale. A network in which the most glamorous and well-known figures are merely players in this elaborate charade. It’s magical and gritty, it’s ugly and dirty, it’s the land of dreams...it’s Hollywood.

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9781493060078

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This is a serious and well-researched look at the history of Hollywood. It chronicles the growth of the town from the 1880s, its film studios and the development of the star system, the growth and involvement of organized crime, and major scandals and murders featuring some of its major players. It describes the development of the Hays Code in the 1930s in the attempt to make movie content more wholesome and behind the scenes work of the studios to cover up any news of scandals that would bring the glamour of Holywood into public disrepute. 4.5 big stars!!-- Goodreads

This is a serious and well-researched look at the history of Hollywood. It chronicles the growth of the town from the 1880s, its film studios and the development of the star system, the growth and involvement of organized crime, and major scandals and murders featuring some of its major players. It describes the development of the Hays Code in the 1930s in the attempt to make movie content more wholesome and behind the scenes work of the studios to cover up any news of scandals that would bring the glamour of Holywood into public disrepute. 4.5 big stars!!

Author Information

A native of sun-bleached Los Angeles, Andrea Van Landingham grew up surrounded by LA stories. Her professional background began in the beauty industry after she became licensed in 2012. In 2015 she returned to college, finishing a degree in Film & Media Studies in 2019. She has worked as a set designer in music videos and theatre, and she currently manages a photography studio. Her fondest memory is riding the metro into Hollywood on weekends, exploring the locations where her old favorite stars had long before worked and played.

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