Baba's Reviews > The Casting Couch

Selwyn Ford is really Alan Selwyn (Hollywood agent) and Derek Ford (movie director and writer) and together they leave no stones unturned in their decade by decade detailed look at the 'casting couch' when usually young women and girls are encouraged (sometimes expected) to sleep with mainly movie moguls, but also producers, directors, agents etc. to get into Hollywood. The book focuses on the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood but covers Hollywood's origins to the 1950s. Pretty much every starlet had to go through this process, the vast majority of them knowingly. I can imagine this is what starlet Ava Gardner belatedly thought of it:

With multiple sourced stories, quotes and court/police records as the foundation for the information and detailed shared this book does not hold back on the rampant misogyny, statutory rape, fragile male egos and overall abuse of power exerted by some of the biggest names behind the scenes in Hollywood over five decades and absolutely does not hold back names or police complicity. It maybe shock too many readers (it was to me) of the list of Hollywood actresses that underwent this process and/or had most of their careers dependent on whom they slept with. The clear reality is that many men abused their power to live this lifestyle which in turn for many led them to disrespect and disregard women even more than they did already. The book also doesn't hideaway the economic realities of the situation and of just how many women and indeed their own families' were complicit.

The HUGE takeout from this book is the final chapter which was reserved for Marilyn Monroe which puts forth a rationale and evidenced reason why she no longer wanted to live... a reason that has since this book's publication been validated! Marilyn Monroe was the perfect starlet for the casting couch system and Hollywood and other privileged men took maximum advantage, of that few can deny. All in all a book that frames Hollywood and it's obsession with young woman and girls in the reality that it was driven my the needs of the men in power. A extremely sad read that shatters the illusion Hollywood even now tries to portray and essentially in the 21st century underlines the importance of #MeToo. 9 out of 12.

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