Savor the inside scoop on over-the-top superstars “I’m not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. . . . I’m a billionaire!” “Acting is an empty and useless profession.” “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere else.” “I’m interested in being provocative and pushing people’s buttons.” Which screen icons gave us the quotes above? How do stars get away with self-indulgent, unrestrained behaviors-or do they? In The Hollywood Book of Extravagance, longtime industry insider and Hollywood historian James Robert Parish gives you a provocative look behind the scenes at the lavish indulgences and larger-than-life egos of Tinseltown’s rich and famous. The featured celebrities range from heartthrobs to industry tycoons, [Read More...]
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Prolific Hollywood author and biographer, James Robert Parish, has just published a fascinating gallery of sketches of the great and near-great Hollywood celebrities from the past 70 years through today in his latest book, THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF EXTRAVAGANCE. Let’s be honest: there were many great stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age who were quite sensible and level-headed (Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne, Ray Milland and Fred MacMurray easily come to mind) but really, who wants to read about THEM? Far more entertaining are the celebs whose lives and careers flared brightly and often briefly though fate, but more often through mismanagement and by their own personal demons. Such circumstances may have ultimately made for a hellish life to live, but these are the stuff of the biographer’s dream - and the reader’s delight.
Parish reviews the familiar names such as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, and Joan Crawford, but for the true film aficionado are the cautionary tales of Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, Oscar Levant, Macaulay Culkin, Burt Reynolds, and many other celebs - some quite forgotten today but celebrated (or notorious) in their own day. A highly recommended book that will make the actors you see on Turner Classic Movies become three dimensional for their follies and foibles.
This is a fun-to-read book. Cleverly and clearly written, it includes fascinating details about Hollywood celebrities; their antics are guaranteed to make you feel like maybe you’re not such a nut job after all. Not only does it include profiles on better known stars like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Clara Bow, Mary Pickford, Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson, Errol Flynn, and Warren Beatty, but it also has sections on near-forgotten celebs like Oscar Levant, Gale Storm, Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, Jean Arthur, and Al Jolson.
James Robert Parish, one of filmdom’s leading historians, offers a thoroughly engaging account, star by star, of the excesses, larger-than-life personalities, and pecadilloes of these Hollywood greats of the past and present. From Clara Bow, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton to Warren Beatty, Julia Roberts, and Drew Barrymore, Parish provides biographical overviews connecting the accomplishments and personal lives of each star to the addictions, tribulations, and indulgences that marked, and in many cases, marred their lives. Parish is unfailingly knowledgeable on all aspects of Hollywood (and television) history and his prose is lively, funny, and wisely reasoned in positing the psychological drives that fed the stars’ behaviors. The text is well-illustrated and includes a useful bibliography, but film lovers will devour this chronicle of Hollywood’s most compelling excesses. This is a must read!