Hollywood Babylon (1975)

A very interesting and moving tale about the not-so-humane Hollywood in the early days. A must-read for film enthusiasts, and aficionados of gossip, in the days when stars were interesting and really stars. ( )

It's like Kenneth Anger wrote a tabloid magazine just for me and fed-exed it to the future!! I don't care if half of this is untrue or blown out of proportion, it's a lot of fun to read on the bus. I love you, Frances Farmer. ( )

A sensational book that blows the lid off Old Hollywood and its Golden Age. All the news that wasn't fit to print. If you're looking for a book to keep you up late at night reading, this is it! ( )

I still can't believe how much I loved this book when I first bought it. Such scandalous behaviour by actors whose names meant nothing to me then (and only slightly more now) somehow caught my attention like few other books had before or since. Weird.

Anyhoo, "Hollywood Babylon" is a couple hundred pages of gossip on Hollywood stars of the past. For many years I took what Kenneth Anger wrote on people like Charlie Chaplin, Paul Bern and Thomas Ince here as gospel and while I was saddened to read that in many cases there was very little link between much of the contents of "Hollywood Babylon" and reality, it still hasn't reduced my enjoyment of the book. ( )

Things I Learned: Rich and famous people are crazy, too! Maybe even more so ...

Comments: Anger's style is perplexing, but perhaps well-suit to his subject: celebrities of the silver screen, those well-known and the infamous. It's all here, and he names names. There were several volumes of this book published through the 1970's and 80's, all dealing with the tawdry aspects of Tinseltown. One volume that gave me bad dreams I encountered at my friends Carol's house. It was the volume dealing with the Black Dahlia murder, with crime scene photos and Elizabeth Short herself that were quite frightening. It's the kind of book that makes you glad you're just a regular Jane or Joe. ( )