Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl (Kindle Edition)

by Eric Gans (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Despite appearing in twenty-eight movies in little over a decade, Carole Landis (1919-1948) never quite became the major Hollywood star her onscreen presence should have afforded her. Although she acted in such enduring films as A Scandal in Paris and Moon over Miami, she was most often relegated to supporting roles. Even when she played the major role in a feature, as she did in The Powers Girl and the film noir I Wake Up Screaming!, she was billed second or third behind other actors.

This biography traces Landis's life, chronicling her beginnings as a dance hall entertainer in San Francisco, her career in Hollywood and abroad, her USO performances, and ultimately her suicide. Using interviews with actors who worked with Landis, contemporary movie magazines and journals, and correspondence, biographer Eric Gans reveals a tragic figure whose life was all too brief.

Landis's big break came in 1940 with Hal Roach's One Million B.C. She appeared in thirteen Twentieth Century-Fox pictures between 1941 and 1946. In 1942-43, Landis entertained troops in England and North Africa in the only all-female USO tour. The trip led to her memoir, Four Jills in a Jeep, and a Fox movie of the same title. After her last American film in 1947, she completed two projects in England while having an affair with married actor Rex Harrison. Tormented by a love that could not lead to matrimony and depressed about growing older, she took a fatal drug overdose on July 5, 1948.

From the Publisher

This account of the tragically brief life of the actress who became every serviceman's pin-up

--Provides one of the first biographies of this dynamic but tragically short-lived star

--Features over 30 photographs

--Tells a special kind of heartbreaking story: Landis was desired by many, loved by none

--Expands the Hollywood Legends Series

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (June 1, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002L16JWE
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #123,918 in Kindle Store (See Bestsellers in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not The Real Carole, Just A Fantasy, December 14, 2008

By	JeanetteEddy (Glendale, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl (Hollywood Legends Series) (Hardcover)

I had no plans to buy this book because I think this guy's web site was creepy. The site has a stalker feel to it loaded with rambling essays about Carole's body. My daughter passed the book along to me and I honestly can't find anything positive to say about it. He turns Carole into a sexual object and he simply does not understand her. We are told that Carole slept with HUNDREDS of men and there are stories about "graphic" sexual encounters she had as a teen. I laughed out loud when it says hat Carole killed herself because she was being blackmailed over her sexual escapades. The big problem here is the sources for these stories are people who barely knew Carole but cashed in after her death with scandalous articles and books. When the discussion turns to Carole's depression it turned into a psychology textbook and unless you have a master's degree you can't understand most of it. It's painfully obvious that the guy who wrote this does not know anything about bipolar disorder and suicidal tendencies. Otherwise he would understand that bipolar people don't need a reason to get depressed and a broken heart could have easily pushed her over the edge. There is also a ton of speculation about things that may have happened without any facts to back them up. Are we really supposed believe that Carole changed her own birthday and chose the 4th of July to die on because she liked holidays? NO! Another thing that made me so ANGRY was the way Rex Harrison comes off as almost a good guy and we are led to believe that it was the best relationship Carole had. How many healthy relationships start off as an affair and end with one person committing suicide? NONE! When I finished reading I wanted to cry but I was too mad. It's such a shame that 60 years later some men will never see Carole as anything more than a "beautiful girl".

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Carole, December 10, 2008

By	MrsSchmidlapp (Hollywood, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl (Hollywood Legends Series) (Hardcover)

This is the second full-length biography of Carole Landis and I don't think it needed to be written at all. There's absolutely nothing new in this book that Carole fans don't already know. I was HORRIFIED that the author says the stories about Carole being a hooker are true (she made enough money during that time she didn't need to sell her body) and I HATED reading all the details about her sex life (she was able to have relationships that lasted more than one night). I STRONGLY DISAGREE with the portrayal of her loving romance with Rex Harrison (he treated her like dirt and they could not have parted on pleasant terms on July 4) and I DON'T AGREE with the theory that a fear of aging led in any way to her suicide (clearly she did it because she was heartbroken over Harrison). I was VERY DISAPPOINTED that the book ignores her childhood sexual abuse (which clearly affected her attitude about men) and doesn't even mention the cover-up that went on after Carole's death (why did the police have to go to such great lengths to hide evidence of an ordinary suicide? maybe Carole wasn't dead when Rex found her?). There are also quite a few factual ERRORS (she was not born on January 2! she was not buried in her butterfly dress!). I wasn't a big fan of the writing style either because the author would start talking one topic then abruptly stop and say it would be examined later. If you're just discovering Carole Landis then I think the best thing to do is to forget about this book and read E.J. Fleming's fabulous biography Carole Landis: A Tragic Life In Hollywood.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "most interesting" book, and I'm just the tiniest bit biased on this... :), November 4, 2008

By	Joseph A. Admire (Manassas, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl (Hollywood Legends Series) (Hardcover)

...because Eric Gans is an online acquaintance of mine, and a fan of and contributor to my website, For the Love of Opera Gloves. In fact, he even thanks me in the acknowledgment section, so I have to apologize for being so long in getting around to reviewing _Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl_.

I've been anticipating this book for several years now, and it's simultaneously scholarly, well-written and an engaging portrait of a fascinating woman who might have been one of Hollywood's icons if she had, essentially, just had better luck. (As William Goldman famously put it about movie concepts, "nobody knows anything" about who will make it in Tinseltown and who won't.) Eric has meticulously researched Carole Landis' life and career for many years in the writing of this book, and I certainly can't find any errors in it - but then, he knows a lot more about Carole than I do. :) He has tremendous affection and respect for his subject, which drives him to also be exactingly honest about her human frailities; for example, he frankly discusses the playgirl reputation Carole had, which, while in fact rather exaggerated, may have had a negative impact on her career, and also talks affectingly about the effect that her inability to bear children had on her personal life. (It does seem interesting that a lot of Hollywood's sex symbols - Landis, Linda Darnell, Lana Turner, and Marilyn Monroe among others - have either been unable to have children or have had a great deal of difficulty in pregnancy.)

My only quibble, being a picture-oriented kind of guy, is that there aren't enough photos (though those that are present are well-selected and uniformly high-quality). However, Eric has the web's biggest archive of photographs of Carole Landis online at his site, Carole Vivante [...]. Visit it; it's the perfect visual counterpart to this book.