What do you think?
Rate this book
Hollywood Babylon #2
Hollywood Babylon II
Hollywood Babylon was originally published in Paris, and quickly became an underground legend. Not a word has been changed. Not a story omitted. Here is the hot, luscious plum of sizzling scandal that continues to shock the world.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
About the author
Kenneth Anger
22 books93 followersKenneth Anger (born as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer) was an American underground avant-garde film-maker and author. He gained fame and notoriety from the publication of the French version of Hollywood Babylon in Paris in 1959, a tell-all book of the scandals of Hollywood's rich and famous. A pirated (and incomplete) version was first published in the U.S. in 1965. The official U.S. version was not published until 1974.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
March 11, 2011
This was a book I used to stealthily pick up and thumb through back in the 80s when it could be found in 'cult' bookstores, all shiny and new. Poverty struck as I was then, I never actually BOUGHT it, or indeed, READ it. I just gasped at the pictures - and there were plenty to gasp at. Now that the subject of Old Hollywood is truly obsessing me, I finally purchased a copy. Time hasn't been kind. Kenneth Anger was a trail blazer in the 60s with his bitter brand of celebrity reportage - Perez Hilton owes a debt to him - but the truth is that Anger's photo library is the best thing about this book, his sequel to the original bestseller. The pictures promise SO much in 'Hollywood Babylon II' - a promise I had clung to since the 80s - but the text doesn't quite deliver. The most tantalising snapshots, with their accompanying barbed captions, suggest gob-smacking tales of disillusion and tragedy. But in too many cases this is all we get: suggestion. Too few of the photographs are backed up with any actual story. What text that is provided at least starts out terrifically with the chapters on killer Paul Kelly, the Pantages frame up, and Joe Kennedy's disgusting skulduggery - all of which are fascinatingly sordid tales I confess I knew nothing about. But after that, much of the book is devoted to a catalogue of celebrity suicides. To call this depressing reading barely touches the sides. It was here I realised that Anger loathes his subjects. There's no humanity to this section. There isn't even any humour. He celebrates the self-destruction of people whose only crimes, truth be told, was that they possessed the aspiration to make something of themselves, however deluded that might have made them. Several of these stories I had encountered before in other books. Charles Boyer's tragic end, when I first read of it in Jeanne Basinger's 'The Star Machine', left me near tears, frankly. He was an actor I've always loved and I had no idea of how life had played out for him. None of that for 'Hollywood Babylon II'. I guess I've moved on. I can appreciate Old Hollywood camp as much as the next man, but I've come to love these people and their legacy too much to share Anger's callousness.
November 18, 2007
What makes the subject mattter of old Hollywood is not the subject itself, but how Kenneth Anger tells the tales. Are they true? Is this history? Are they made up? Maybe a combination of all above, but who cares? It's Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" and in a sense it is a life-blood to an art form and culture that he loves and hates.
Without a doubt, Anger is probably the greatest living American filmmaker alive. It's film history filtered through his sensibility via his film work and the Hollywood Bablylon series.
Vol 1 is the masterpiece, and vol.2 sort of picks up the missing pieces - but both are essential for the personal film library.
Without a doubt, Anger is probably the greatest living American filmmaker alive. It's film history filtered through his sensibility via his film work and the Hollywood Bablylon series.
Vol 1 is the masterpiece, and vol.2 sort of picks up the missing pieces - but both are essential for the personal film library.
November 26, 2008
Obsession, sex, all the chemical dependencies ever thought of in the place you expect them to be...Hollywood. It seemed to be somewhat of a voyeuristic look into the dreams and ambitions of vibrant people who fall into these seedy alley nightmares of Hollywood Babylon. Even though it does not glamorize Hollywood in the least, I wanted to see that the people that are idolized in society so much are just as troubled, maybe even more than everyone else. It was good reading for those who like a little disgust in their Hollywood news!
March 23, 2016
27/100
Das zweite Buch besteht zu 25% aus Wiederholungen aus dem ersten Teil, wirklich neu ist das Gejammer über das heruntergekommene verkokste Hollywood der 1980er und männliche Stars, die nach zu viel Schnee keinen mehr hochkriegen. Ja, früher war alles stilvoller und die Stars natürlich schöner. Ein humpelnder Nachklapp zu ersten Teil.
Das zweite Buch besteht zu 25% aus Wiederholungen aus dem ersten Teil, wirklich neu ist das Gejammer über das heruntergekommene verkokste Hollywood der 1980er und männliche Stars, die nach zu viel Schnee keinen mehr hochkriegen. Ja, früher war alles stilvoller und die Stars natürlich schöner. Ein humpelnder Nachklapp zu ersten Teil.
January 10, 2024
Holly Baby II— more of the same, but different. Rather than writing a sequel that picks up where the first left off chronologically, Anger fills in gaps in roughly the middle of the same era, covering stories he missed the first time around, or that hadn’t yet been exposed, with some newer rumors mixed in. He also, intriguingly, writes in a more journalistic style for some chapters of this book, taking a relatively reasoned perspective on certain characters that implies he did research of his own. Whether this was to avoid the sort of lawsuits the first book generated or for another reason, it made for an interesting read. But don’t worry, ghoulish gossipmongering still abounds, especially in an encyclopedic stretch of about 60 pages wherein Anger lists every celebrity he can find who ended their own life (and how). It feels almost surreal when Anger makes reference to then-contemporary films like The Outsiders or The Blues Brothers (he doesn’t like either, for the record), because this book lingers so predominantly in Hollywood’s past. One other thing to mention is the clever way Anger uses photos in Holly Baby II. While pics were an important part of part I, here there are some actual photo essays presented entirely without words. It might be to avoid claims of libel or slander (such as a chapter about gay movie stars; he never once SAYS Cary Grant is gay, but shows a half dozen photos of Cary and a close male friend in that chapter, leaving the reader to draw the obvious conclusion), but it’s also part of the aesthetic unity of this book. After all, wasn’t Hollywood itself first built on pictures without words? So, while Holly Baby II isn’t as important or elegant as the first, it’s a worthy sequel.
May 27, 2014
The sequel to my 2013 naughty cruise read for my 2014 cruise :) More of the best in Old Hollywood gossip, in Anger's inimitable style. The concluding chapter on Ronald Reagan is a fittingly sobering end to the trajectory of the two volumes' tales. That should be required reading for anyone nostalgic for the political icons of the 1980s. Sadly, the tragic "Chords of Fame" have continued to play on for far too many in and out of Hollywood in subsequent years, despite the cautionary tales of their forebears.
August 31, 2009
Meh. After the excellent first book, this one comes off as a less interesting cash-in. Anger even re-tells some stories he mentioned or told in detail in the first book! There's still a lot of great information and awesome photos, but the meat of the book is considerably weaker than the original Holly Baby.
August 12, 2016
Perhaps Anger need money. I did not see the interest to write a suite to Hollywood Babylone.I found this concentrate of gossip boring. Curiously, here, the choice of each history clarifies the brittleness of these artists. It is better than than I feared. But it is not upsetting.
If you do not have anything to read on the beach…
If you do not have anything to read on the beach…
October 18, 2022
Bueno bueno bueno. Menudo viaje de libro(s).
A ver, creo que entre libros y cómics, llevaba una temporada muy centrado en la fantasía, el terror y la ci-fi, y oye, aunque nunca es suficiente, llevaba ya tiempo queriendo leer estos libros (la edición no corresponde, no he encontrado la que se ha editado en España por ediciones Tusquets), y ahora he tenido la oportunidad y no lo he dudado. He aparcado temporalmente a Sanderson, Howard y Carey y me he lanzado a una lectura frívola e imposible a día de hoy, y he devorado los dos libros en una semana. Y me ha encantado.
Los dos volúmenes de Hollywood Babilonia nos hablan de la historia de todos esos escándalos y secretos a voces de la Meca del Cine, de ese Hollywood con más estrellas de las que hay en el cielo, lleno de dioses del celuloide, y que en el mejor de los casos podría decirse que tenían los pies de barro, por no decir diréctamente que estaban hundidos en la mierda. Con una escritura ácida y directa, y un contenido que a día de hoy creo que sería imposible que viera la luz, Hollywood Babilonia es una crónica descarnada y cruel (hija también de un tiempo mucho menos sensible, los años 80 en que fue escrito) de las cloacas de Hollywood y los grandes estudios, llena de drogas, alcohol, traiciones, suicidios, orgías e incluso asesinatos, donde el miedo a que un escarceo homosexual por parte de una de las grandes figuras del cine llevó a que se echara al director de la mayor película de la historia del cine, por ejemplo, y en la que vamos a ver nombres que son historia del cine y de nuestra sociedad, desde Rodolfo Valentino a James Dean, desde Mary Pickford a Rita Hayward, desde el salto al vacío de Peg Entwhistle desde la decimotercera letra del cartel de HOLLYWOODLAND a la siniestra muerte de George Zucco en un manicomio gritando que Cthulhu le estaba atravesando el corazón con una estaca (sí, no me alejo de Cthulhu ni cuando salgo de la fantasía)...
Una lectura no apta para todo el mundo, ni por su contenido ni por su crudeza, pero que yo personalmente, he disfrutado de la primera a la última página.
A ver, creo que entre libros y cómics, llevaba una temporada muy centrado en la fantasía, el terror y la ci-fi, y oye, aunque nunca es suficiente, llevaba ya tiempo queriendo leer estos libros (la edición no corresponde, no he encontrado la que se ha editado en España por ediciones Tusquets), y ahora he tenido la oportunidad y no lo he dudado. He aparcado temporalmente a Sanderson, Howard y Carey y me he lanzado a una lectura frívola e imposible a día de hoy, y he devorado los dos libros en una semana. Y me ha encantado.
Los dos volúmenes de Hollywood Babilonia nos hablan de la historia de todos esos escándalos y secretos a voces de la Meca del Cine, de ese Hollywood con más estrellas de las que hay en el cielo, lleno de dioses del celuloide, y que en el mejor de los casos podría decirse que tenían los pies de barro, por no decir diréctamente que estaban hundidos en la mierda. Con una escritura ácida y directa, y un contenido que a día de hoy creo que sería imposible que viera la luz, Hollywood Babilonia es una crónica descarnada y cruel (hija también de un tiempo mucho menos sensible, los años 80 en que fue escrito) de las cloacas de Hollywood y los grandes estudios, llena de drogas, alcohol, traiciones, suicidios, orgías e incluso asesinatos, donde el miedo a que un escarceo homosexual por parte de una de las grandes figuras del cine llevó a que se echara al director de la mayor película de la historia del cine, por ejemplo, y en la que vamos a ver nombres que son historia del cine y de nuestra sociedad, desde Rodolfo Valentino a James Dean, desde Mary Pickford a Rita Hayward, desde el salto al vacío de Peg Entwhistle desde la decimotercera letra del cartel de HOLLYWOODLAND a la siniestra muerte de George Zucco en un manicomio gritando que Cthulhu le estaba atravesando el corazón con una estaca (sí, no me alejo de Cthulhu ni cuando salgo de la fantasía)...
Una lectura no apta para todo el mundo, ni por su contenido ni por su crudeza, pero que yo personalmente, he disfrutado de la primera a la última página.
November 10, 2018
Tacky as hell but so fun; still want a copy.
August 10, 2022
See my feedback for the first volume for my thoughts, but just take off an extra star.
July 6, 2015
Better than the first "Hollywood Babylon" because the stories are much more reflective. Anger writes longer and more page-turning articles here, perhaps because he's writing about scandals that are not quite as well-known as those from the first book. However, caveat lector: this is still a compendium of gossip and and there are a couple of horribly gory photos.
January 18, 2018
Plutôt un 2,5. J'ai eu l'impression que Kenneth Anger raclait les fonds de tiroir pour trouver de nouvelles anecdotes. Et sur le dernier tiers, consacré aux suicides, on dirait parfois une rubrique nécrologique avec 2 lignes de texte, parfois une photo, et la date de la mort...
Cela-dit, il y a quand même quelques petites histoires savoureuses et beaucoup de photos.
Cela-dit, il y a quand même quelques petites histoires savoureuses et beaucoup de photos.
February 5, 2009
A lesson in when an author is so emboldened and delusional as to believe he doesn't need an editor. Dull, long-winded, and irrelevant tangents galore. Would have been more effective at half the length. BUT, there is still some juicyness and wicked photos.
October 1, 2014
Mr Anger is back to trawl through Hollywood for gossip, death (including a lengthy section, pre-Wikipedia, on Hollywood suicides), and gangster connections - ending with an impassioned attack on then-president Ronnie Reagan... good stuff.
June 30, 2008
I picked it up as it was in my parents books that I was not allowed to read.
Really just a catty finger pointing exercise of people Kenneth liked and didn't. No real history or depth.
Really just a catty finger pointing exercise of people Kenneth liked and didn't. No real history or depth.
January 30, 2014
The troubled lives of film stars during golden era
Kenneth Anger is a well-known author who wrote the best seller “Hollywood Babylon,” and revealed many interesting stories about the stars of the pre-code era. This book is a second volume with the same title and fills in the material not covered in the first book and additional info about less-known stars. The author was an insider who worked in Hollywood as a child-star and got to know many well-known personalities in movie business. His stories are reliable and they have been quoted in many articles in Wikipedia, blogs and books on the history of Hollywood.
Alexander Pantages came from Athens, Greece and made fortune during Klondike gold strike and owned vaudeville houses and about 60 theaters. He was worth $30 million in 1929 when the rest of the country was in economic turmoil. But his sexual assault on a young Eunice Pringle, a school dropout and would-be dancer dethroned him as the commander-in-chief of movie theaters. Later on her deathbed, Eunice confessed that it was a frame set by Joe Kennedy, bootlegger to the film colony and head of FBO pictures who wanted to destroy Pantages theater circuit. Joe also had eyes for beautiful females in Hollywood that led to a sensual relationship with actress Gloria Swanson. While shooting the movie “Swamp,” which later became “Queen Kelly,” Gloria Swanson was so incensed with the antics of erratic and kinky director, Eric von Stroheim, she asked Kennedy to stop the “lunatic in charge of the film.”
William (Billy) Haines was the first MGM star to face the ordeal of a microphone with Lionel Barrymore in 1928 film “Jimmy Valentine.” He was a well-known gay and had loved his ex-stand-in Jimmy Shields. Howard Strickland, the head of the publicity at MGM and studio head Luis B Mayer had to make sure that all MGM movies are box office hits at Loew’s theaters. The challenging job was to make sure that studio stars conformed to a strict image of morality is highest. Undesirable romances were discouraged, gay life style was unacceptable, and abortions arranged in Tijuana. When MGM found out that William Haines, an upcoming star of the studio was gay, studio started rumors that he was in love with actress Pola Negri and they were getting married. Things got from bad to worse as Haines was arrested in gay sex scandal at downtown Los Angeles YMCA when the house dick and vice squad appeared at his door and arrested him promptly. Later, the Klan assaulted Haines and Shields when they were coming out of a party at El Porto beach in Los Angeles. Mayer fired the “fagelah” instantly. He later became an interior decorator and worked to decorate actress Carole Lombard’s house and they became good friends. She was so sure of his “gayness,” she would strip naked and dress in front of him; he reported that often times she did not wear bras or panties. Years later when her husband Clark Gable, irked with his wife being “palsy” with mainly males, asked “don’t you have any girlfriends,” she said “yes, Mitch Leisen and Billy Haines.”
In 1939 when George Cukor was replaced by Victor Fleming to direct the epic film, “Gone with the wind,” it was widely reported that the “macho” Gable did not like to work with the gay director because of his dislike for that lifestyle. But the truth is that Cukor knew something about Gable that no one else knew except for Billy Haines. It turned out that when Clark Gable was still a bit player at MGM, he had let himself blow-serviced by Haines and seek his help to further his career at MGM. Haines, a close friend of Cukor was not “lip-lazy,” when he confided Gable’s secret. George Cukor knew that Gable was not “He-Man” after all.
In “Roman Scandals” made for Goldwyn in 1933, director Busby Berkley (Buzz), the undisputed genius of the Hollywood musical shot a scene with completely nude women who were wearing long chains and blonde wigs which fell down to their snatches. At the height of his success tragedy struck in 1935. Buzz was returning home after a party at production manager William Koening’s house. He had one too many drinks at the party and while driving at Pacific Coast Highway near Santa Monica Canyon, he lost control and careened off into the oncoming traffic which resulted in three deaths. He was charged for second degree murder. He was found not guilty.
In 1938 Buzz was sued by Irving Wheeler for seeking the affections of Irving’s wife, actress Carol Landis, and the suit was dismissed. But Landis was widely known at the Fox studio as the “available” girl in the backroom of Darryl Zanuck’s office. He was known to have a regular female companion for “fun” every working day at about 4 PM. After Buzz’ mom passed away he lost control of his senses and hit the bottle hard. He spent six weeks at a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles. He was reduced to rubbles physically and emotionally. He weighed about 107 pounds and his bank balance was $650.
Jimmy Dean was reclusive, compulsively withdrawn, promiscuous, friendless, suspicious, boorish and rude. On occasion, he would be charming and on occasions, he would be annoyingly nuts. On the eve of his death, he had attended a gay party in Malibu, and his gay friends accused him of dating women for publicity purposes.
Actor John Bowers who lost all his money when he invested in a failed flying school, he became penniless and depressed. Later he intentionally drowned in Pacific Ocean and his body recovered from the Malibu Beach in California. His death was retold in the movie “A Star is born,” starring Frederick March and Janet Gaynor. Screen writer of the movie took this story and put into the movie. In this movie, the character played by March simply walks into the Pacific Ocean in Malibu and never returns. In the last chapter entitled, “The magic of self-murder” the author has a given brief account of several Hollywood’s notable who committed suicides. This includes actor George Sanders, Jack Dougherty, husband of Barbara La Marr, Lupe Velez, Jonathan Hale, Gig Young and his young wife Kim Schmidt’s double suicide, Mae West’s lover John Indrisano, actress Peg Entwistle, Charles Boyer, Clara Blandick, Alan Ladd, Chester Morris, Inger Stevens, Margaret Sullivan, and others.
The book has plenty of rare and hard to find pictures that need to be treasured. The pictures of Joan Crawford is racy. The book is very well written and reads effortlessly. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of Hollywood, especially the golden era.
Kenneth Anger is a well-known author who wrote the best seller “Hollywood Babylon,” and revealed many interesting stories about the stars of the pre-code era. This book is a second volume with the same title and fills in the material not covered in the first book and additional info about less-known stars. The author was an insider who worked in Hollywood as a child-star and got to know many well-known personalities in movie business. His stories are reliable and they have been quoted in many articles in Wikipedia, blogs and books on the history of Hollywood.
Alexander Pantages came from Athens, Greece and made fortune during Klondike gold strike and owned vaudeville houses and about 60 theaters. He was worth $30 million in 1929 when the rest of the country was in economic turmoil. But his sexual assault on a young Eunice Pringle, a school dropout and would-be dancer dethroned him as the commander-in-chief of movie theaters. Later on her deathbed, Eunice confessed that it was a frame set by Joe Kennedy, bootlegger to the film colony and head of FBO pictures who wanted to destroy Pantages theater circuit. Joe also had eyes for beautiful females in Hollywood that led to a sensual relationship with actress Gloria Swanson. While shooting the movie “Swamp,” which later became “Queen Kelly,” Gloria Swanson was so incensed with the antics of erratic and kinky director, Eric von Stroheim, she asked Kennedy to stop the “lunatic in charge of the film.”
William (Billy) Haines was the first MGM star to face the ordeal of a microphone with Lionel Barrymore in 1928 film “Jimmy Valentine.” He was a well-known gay and had loved his ex-stand-in Jimmy Shields. Howard Strickland, the head of the publicity at MGM and studio head Luis B Mayer had to make sure that all MGM movies are box office hits at Loew’s theaters. The challenging job was to make sure that studio stars conformed to a strict image of morality is highest. Undesirable romances were discouraged, gay life style was unacceptable, and abortions arranged in Tijuana. When MGM found out that William Haines, an upcoming star of the studio was gay, studio started rumors that he was in love with actress Pola Negri and they were getting married. Things got from bad to worse as Haines was arrested in gay sex scandal at downtown Los Angeles YMCA when the house dick and vice squad appeared at his door and arrested him promptly. Later, the Klan assaulted Haines and Shields when they were coming out of a party at El Porto beach in Los Angeles. Mayer fired the “fagelah” instantly. He later became an interior decorator and worked to decorate actress Carole Lombard’s house and they became good friends. She was so sure of his “gayness,” she would strip naked and dress in front of him; he reported that often times she did not wear bras or panties. Years later when her husband Clark Gable, irked with his wife being “palsy” with mainly males, asked “don’t you have any girlfriends,” she said “yes, Mitch Leisen and Billy Haines.”
In 1939 when George Cukor was replaced by Victor Fleming to direct the epic film, “Gone with the wind,” it was widely reported that the “macho” Gable did not like to work with the gay director because of his dislike for that lifestyle. But the truth is that Cukor knew something about Gable that no one else knew except for Billy Haines. It turned out that when Clark Gable was still a bit player at MGM, he had let himself blow-serviced by Haines and seek his help to further his career at MGM. Haines, a close friend of Cukor was not “lip-lazy,” when he confided Gable’s secret. George Cukor knew that Gable was not “He-Man” after all.
In “Roman Scandals” made for Goldwyn in 1933, director Busby Berkley (Buzz), the undisputed genius of the Hollywood musical shot a scene with completely nude women who were wearing long chains and blonde wigs which fell down to their snatches. At the height of his success tragedy struck in 1935. Buzz was returning home after a party at production manager William Koening’s house. He had one too many drinks at the party and while driving at Pacific Coast Highway near Santa Monica Canyon, he lost control and careened off into the oncoming traffic which resulted in three deaths. He was charged for second degree murder. He was found not guilty.
In 1938 Buzz was sued by Irving Wheeler for seeking the affections of Irving’s wife, actress Carol Landis, and the suit was dismissed. But Landis was widely known at the Fox studio as the “available” girl in the backroom of Darryl Zanuck’s office. He was known to have a regular female companion for “fun” every working day at about 4 PM. After Buzz’ mom passed away he lost control of his senses and hit the bottle hard. He spent six weeks at a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles. He was reduced to rubbles physically and emotionally. He weighed about 107 pounds and his bank balance was $650.
Jimmy Dean was reclusive, compulsively withdrawn, promiscuous, friendless, suspicious, boorish and rude. On occasion, he would be charming and on occasions, he would be annoyingly nuts. On the eve of his death, he had attended a gay party in Malibu, and his gay friends accused him of dating women for publicity purposes.
Actor John Bowers who lost all his money when he invested in a failed flying school, he became penniless and depressed. Later he intentionally drowned in Pacific Ocean and his body recovered from the Malibu Beach in California. His death was retold in the movie “A Star is born,” starring Frederick March and Janet Gaynor. Screen writer of the movie took this story and put into the movie. In this movie, the character played by March simply walks into the Pacific Ocean in Malibu and never returns. In the last chapter entitled, “The magic of self-murder” the author has a given brief account of several Hollywood’s notable who committed suicides. This includes actor George Sanders, Jack Dougherty, husband of Barbara La Marr, Lupe Velez, Jonathan Hale, Gig Young and his young wife Kim Schmidt’s double suicide, Mae West’s lover John Indrisano, actress Peg Entwistle, Charles Boyer, Clara Blandick, Alan Ladd, Chester Morris, Inger Stevens, Margaret Sullivan, and others.
The book has plenty of rare and hard to find pictures that need to be treasured. The pictures of Joan Crawford is racy. The book is very well written and reads effortlessly. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of Hollywood, especially the golden era.
November 25, 2023
Mi ha sicuramente divertito meno del primo, perché i torbidi segreti erano molto più sfolgoranti. Ma è stato piacevole
July 26, 2019
Just like Hollywood itself - sleazy but not fun sleazy.
January 24, 2008
Hollywood Babylon II (or HollyBaby II, as the author calls it) was a great way to while away the hours I spent waiting to fly out of O'Hare airport last weekend. Although it's structured as a series of gossip vignettes about various personages sprinkled throughout Hollywood history, certain celebrities pop up repeatedly in different places to tie the whole random, rambling history together. It was perhaps a little less thrilling than the first one--presumably because Anger had already used up all the superstar gossip. On that same token, in HollyBaby II Anger was able to get past the most well-known, oft-repeated stories of Hollywood's famously debauched residents and delve into the shady and under-the-radar goings-on of Tinseltown's supporting cast. I really appreciated, for example, the extended coverage of the seedy life of that Kennedy clan patriarch and wannabe film producer, the sinister Joseph Kennedy. Anger's in-depth knowledge, catty cynicism and gallows humor make this book and its predecessor both addictive guilty pleasures.
September 2, 2021
Piu stelle che in cielo!. Basta questo a prensentare Hollywood, la vera Hollywood, quella dai ruggenti anni '20 fino agli anni '50 del dopoguerra. Se da un lato la fabbrica dei sogni ha contribuito a creare gran parte dell'immaginario collettivo di generazioni di adoratori e appassionati, dall'altro, in privato, si e' rivelata una terribile macchina assassina e distruttrice di vite e destini. Il lato oscuro del sogno americano, sesso, droga, alienazione, depravazione, tutto riprovevole ma dannatamente intrigante; al servizio del mito... di cartapesta. PS Questo secondo volume e' leggermente inferiore al primo, piu' frettoloso e superficiale. Da segnalare il capitolo dedicato alla "Dalia Nera", vedi J. Ellroy.
November 15, 2008
Scandal! Intrigue! Death!
I really enjoyed both Hollywood Babylon books but this one for some reason seemed even more cynical than the first, which is just what is needed! Perhaps it is because it was written in the dark ages of the Reagan administration. That, and the fact that Hollywood seems to be a cesspool where humanity goes to die!
I really enjoyed both Hollywood Babylon books but this one for some reason seemed even more cynical than the first, which is just what is needed! Perhaps it is because it was written in the dark ages of the Reagan administration. That, and the fact that Hollywood seems to be a cesspool where humanity goes to die!
June 10, 2012
Thanks, Mom! I had to skip over the chapter about suicides but really enjoyed the chapter about Reagan. It's hard to tell what's bogus here and what's not, like, there's absolutely no way "Rosebud" refers to Marion Davies' clit, but that bit about Bill Tilden making a cameo in "Lolita" is incredible. The photos & editing in this are perfect.
May 10, 2012
I read this one all in one sitting ~ could not put it down. I only gave this one 4 stars instead of the 5 I gave the first one. To me it had a few pics & stories that were in the first one...why? Did he run out of info and needed filling? I did love it still...
July 7, 2012
Can’t remember how I acquired this book. Explicit, blunt, gossipy, bitchy, tell all and hard to put down. You won’t get this behind the scenes dirt from the newspapers. Not sure how he was able to print the murder photos. I have to admit, I need to read Book I!
September 14, 2016
This is absolute trash; gossipy, poorly written trash....sometimes I like that. I give it five stars because it's a great, trashy, guilty pleasure read. Horrible book, mind you, but it's a lot of fun!
March 20, 2017
I got on to this book after hearing about the first one in an interview by NPR about a band that is using it as inspiration for an album. Somewhat quaint what was considered scandalous in 1984 but ultimately unsubstantiated gossip is just not my thing.
November 20, 2007
p.s. bet you didn't know james dean was nicknamed the "human ashtray".
January 3, 2008
it's difficult to reveal hollywood secrets and not seem sleazy, but anger does a great job of it.
January 5, 2008
Very tabloidesque. I didn't have a think a lot while reading it
Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews