Customer Reviews

The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Others

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Unfortunately, it seems to be an increasingly popular trend today to try and destroy the reputations of deceased screen legends who can no longer defend themselves. This is certainly not the first of its kind, and it's obviously not the last either (too bad!). This book has many brief chapters, each one filled with the worst scandals (abortions, adulterous affairs, criminal activities, etc.) of a specific female screen legend, such as Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly. Elizabeth Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, and several others.

The sections on Lana Turner, Greta Garbo, and Hedy Lamaar were especially infuriating, filled with rumors that even the National Enquirer would hesitate to print. For example, according to this book, Mickey Rooney and Lana Turner had an affair in the late 1930's which resulted in Lana having an abortion. Lana Turner already denied this rumor, and the very idea of a beautiful goddess like Lana Turner going for baby-faced Mickey Rooney is, quite frankly, disgusting and totally unbelievable. It also hints strongly that she had an affair with Clark Gable, although in her memoir she wrote that they had no chemistry off-screen. While some may find this kind of book entertaining, I think it's in poor taste. The book also describes Hedy Lamarr's orgies and bi-sexual relationships, and basically tries to pass her off as an arrogant nymphomaniac (the author does the same thing with Garbo).

This book quickly summarizes the screen careers and lives of these great actresses yet goes into great detail about their sexual activity (and preferences). Don't be too naive when reading about the many imperfections of these famous actresses. After all, there is some truth to many of the scandals mentioned, but there are also plenty of rumors that no one could posibly prove to be true. And after all, the author is merely rehashing what you've already read in previous books written by better authors. I suggest that instead of reading this trash you buy a well-researched biography.

In their own time, these "golden-age Hollywood" stars were protected by ruthless P.R. men and a media veil of silence. Now most of their failings are common knowledge. And in "Golden Girls of MGM : Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Others," Jane Ellen Wayne only soils their names more by making them dull.

Wayne opens each chapter with a coyly feeble teaser. She then gives a brief description of the women's lives and how they got into the movie biz, and what they did when they got there. Among these actresses: much-married Elizabeth Taylor, deceptively icy Grace Kelly, busty Lana Turner, fiery ex-Sinatra wife Ava Gardner, mysterious Greta Garbo, tragic Judy Garland, and some weren't quite so juicy (Katherine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Esther Williams).

Why bother with one trashy biography when you can have a bunch all in one book? Be assured that Wayne will give you a detailed description of every lover, abortion, suicide, police-cover up and failed marriage that went on under Louis B. Mayer. Despite all this dirt, Wayne seems to be scared to have any strong opinions about anything (Joan Crawford is painted very blandly). You'll find every rumor -- true or not -- reported in various other trashy bios. Insights? New information? Decent writing? Not a trace.

"Golden Girls" fails even as a guilty pleasure. In a word, it's boring. Very boring. Gossip about stuff like affairs, abortions, failed marriages and massive scandals are related in the driest prose that Wayne can manage. She glosses over major events in these actresses' lives, but gives detailed transcripts of uninteresting personal conversations. It only makes her inept attempts at being coy painful. And it takes a special kind of ineptitude to make Katherine Hepburn so boring.

The worst kind of trashy biography is a dull one. And "Golden Girls of MGM : Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Others" is very boring indeed. Wayne can't even manage to make this a naughty pleasure.

This is nothing more than a cut-and-paste job, gathering the most salacious factoids from far and wide with no regard for accuracy.

The author's lack of command of the facts is astonishing. You know you're in trouble by the first chapter when she has Jeannette MacDonald's honeymoon cruise ship docking at "the pier in Pasadena."

And it goes downhill from there. If you want a quick, trashy read and don't mind poor research, inept writing and utter disregard for the facts, this is your book. But if you want to learn something significant about these women and their careers, you will do far better elsewhere.

I bought this book at a local bookstore and I'm grateful because it'll be much easier to return there than on Amazon. Some reviews said that this author didn't say much about anyone but I disagree. I found her bias towards and against some actresses obvious. This leads me to believe that we are only getting half of the story. I mean calling Joan Crawford a "victim" is laughable to me. If you know anything about Joan, you know that she was no one's victim.
Also, many of the conversations that Wayne quotes have no source. How do we know that they were real or just garbage that she made up? Either she stole some of these quotes from other books or they existed in her head. We don't know because she rarely explains where she got her information.
This is like a one-sided Cliff's notes version of the lives of these fabulous women. And if anyone would like to use this as source material, may I suggest using it to solve the mystery of how so many beautiful, fascinating, sexy women fell for Mickey Rooney? I would really like an explaination on that!!

In all fairness, this book is sometimes fun to read, but there are SO many errors---grammatical and otherwise--that I would skip this one and do some research on some really good ones. They're out there! This will just frustrate you ---especially if you have any knowledge of these wonderful women. In short, skip it.

Ms. Wayne is one of the worst writers I have ever read. Not only is her writing amateurish and ungrammatical, it is downright annoying. Your average seventh grader is probably a better writer.

I could put up with her writing if the book did not have numerous other faults.

One example of this book's many faults is that in the chapter on Hepburn, the decade between 1928 and 1938 -- when Hepburn started in the movies and achieved stardom -- is not even mentioned. I don't know if this is Wayne's fault or simply an editing glitch.

I bought this book because I am a fan of several of these actresses, but I was disappointed that most of the information on them appeared to have been stolen from other sources. Including conversations at which the author could not possibly have been present is the height of bad journalism and a hallmark of sleazy biographical writing. In addition, I didn't learn anything new about any of the actresses whom I had already read a lot about, and I tired of the sensationalistic recounting of their affairs, abortions, tantrums, divorces, drunkenness, and so forth. How about mentioning something positive about them? Surely there was something. But wait. I guess that doesn't sell books.

If you want to learn about these stars, there are bound to be well-researched, balanced, in-depth books about each one, particularly Crawford and Hepburn. So don't waste your money on this crapfest.

The content was trashy, and the writing was sloppy. If you like trashy and you can tolerate sloppy for a few hours, this book will give you the worst highlights of the lives of the stars discussed. On the other hand, if you want to know the truth about these women in depth, you should search for individual, well-researched, well-written books on these subjects' lives.

If you like to read bad writing, this book is a treat. Misplaced modifiers can be especially mirth provoking, and this writer is an adept in the genre. Other grammatical errors and plenty of typos add to the fun.

Jane Ellen Wayne's book "The Golden Girls of M-G-M" will not be everyone's cup of tea. The author seems to take serious advantage of the fact that most of these women are no longer around to protect their reputations, and thus this book is full of vulgar details more at home in the National Enquirer than a deceptively-stylish biography tribute book (which this purports to be). Though to be fair, Ms Wayne is somewhat sympathetic to each of the ladies she features here, but the book is riddled with typographical errors, misspelled names and wrong information. This book will probably never help Miss Wayne ascend the upper-echelon of biographers.

Covering as much dirt as possible, each actress gets a chapter (Jeanette MacDonald, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor). There is also a `Naughty-But-Nice' section in the back, comprising of mini-chapters devoted to Hedy Lamarr, Katharine Hepburn, Esther Williams, Debbie Reynolds and June Allyson.

There are so many wonderful biographies available on these ladies, but I'm afraid this isn't one of them.

If Readers Digest Condensed Books ever released a compendium of ill-researched star bios under one title, it'd have to be pretty lousy to beat this one. A cut 'n' paste rehash of every fast-buck movie star kiss 'n' tell released in the past two decades, this fast-buck compilation reveals very little that's new (let alone attributable) and fans of this sort of stuff will have a nagging sense of deja vu of the worst of the genre. But let's give the "author" some credit for imagination: within the space of several pages, she somehow manages to kill off actor Alan Ladd in two different years--with two entirely different causes of death! Don't bother!!!

It's not often that I venture forth to offer a review on Amazon, but I was so upset with this book that I had to speak up. I checked this book out of my University library to help with research for a film exhibit I am working on. I was hoping to find an at most academic and at least intelligent, or reliably informative retelling of the lives of these famous actresses within, how they were perceived by the viewing public, and the effect they had on the film industry during their tenures as stars. What I got was a sensationalist account concerned only with detailing every sexual encounter these women ever had, and taking delight in citing most of them as gay or bisexual, something that is not offensive to me but seems particularly overemphasized in this book.

Why is it important to know that several of these women didn't wear underwear on the set? This book is full of lascivious quotes from male film stars about the sexual appetites of all of these women, and time and time again I found myself questioning the legitimacy of these sources, not to mention the bias of what these men were saying considering attitudes about women at the time. Perhaps even more offensive, in Wayne's account none of these women are allowed to succeed on their own without men. Instead Wayne depicts their careers as driven primarily by sex, and there is no real examination of how these women succeeded based on their own talents or business savvy. They need men to land roles in films, they need men to fulfill whatever emotional void is in their life, and don't forget they prey on men like the vamps many portrayed on screen to fulfill their rampant sexual appetites. But I kept asking, over and over, so what? The dreaded question that every historian or biographer should strive to answer to justify the time and money spent into publishing any paper or book. The drivel presented here doesn't even attempt to answer this question.

There's no denying that none of these film stars were saints, but what does this book honestly add to any serious or intelligent discussion of film? Whether or not these actresses were as oversexualized as Wayne takes delight in portraying them, they are fascinating subjects who captured the imaginations of millions through their revolutionary presence on screen, whether through sheer talent, manipulation of their images, or both. They were acting during one of the most fruitful times for women in Hollywood in many cases, when women were allowed to be sexual and independent creatures who strove for what they wanted in their roles on screen. But instead of even attempting to point this out, Wayne is almost offensively interested in cataloging everything that supposedly went on in their bedrooms.

This book read like the worst of gossip columns with no analysis that even the more disappointing biographies I have read for this project made sure to offer. Further, the endless catalog of love affairs reads like a laundry list, making the writing bland and boring no matter how tantalizing the questionable subject matter attempts to be.