Customer Reviews

Harlow (The Lively Arts Series from Mercury House)

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(5)

 

 

Ugh!! Along with Shulman's "Valentino," one of the worst movie star biographies I've ever read. Harlow is reduced to a breast-bearing harpie, not to mention poor Paul Bern, whose reputation is utterly trashed. Written as though the writer were present for every intimate moment of Harlow's life, it offers no reliable information. I cannot believe this was the story of Harlow's agent, Arthur Landau. Avoid this hysterical trash and read David Stenn's "Bombshell" instead, a more balanced and sane look at Harlow.

.....This book should have been put in the fiction section because Shulman never talked to anyone who actually knew Jean Harlow except for her agent who was complicit in this farce. Harlow's 87 year old father sued the publisher for 3 million dollars but they settled out of court for a lesser sum because of his advanced age.

.....This book trashes the memory of one of Hollywoods most beloved stars and is not worthy of consideration.

This was an unbeilivable piece of trash written by a man who didn't give a care about those who loved Jean (her father and Bill Powell, just to name a few) and were terribly hurt by the lies. Shulman didn't do his research (he even spelled her dad's last name incorrectly) or ignored it to make a fast buck. I can't believe that it has been reissued.

I wish that I would have saved the two Photoplay magazines that came out that year, it gave dozens of interviews with Jean's friends and family completly refuting the garbage that he wrote. For the real Jean, read Eve Golden's book. Collen Moore and Myrna Loy had good chapters on Jean in their biographies. I haven't found one book that supports Shulman's lies, he (Mr Shulman) even had Jean living in a "trashy" house.A house in Beverly Hills???????? Give me a break!

I felt like jumping into the shower after reading this miserable trashing of poor Jean, who isn't around to defend herself. She wasn't anything like what this book describes. If you want to read this garbage, do so, but remember to wash your hands afterwards.

This is what a biography should never be. It's poorly written, poorly edited and is merely a titillating vehicle for the biographer to get some cheap thrills. It was Garbage.

While it is agreed this book is a definate dishonour to jean harlow's memory. One should be smart enough to realize it is still one of the best trashy pulp reads i have ever experienced. Irving shulman is regarded as one of the best pulp novelists with his stories about life on the streets circa 1940's. This film noir treatment of harlow's life maybe inacurrate, but it is still an entertaining read that would make jackie collins green with envy. If one also reads nathanel west's novel, "day of the locust", One could feel it is an companion piece to this other fictonal work detailing side of hollywood life one rarely wishes to think about.

"The sensational, intimate biography of the world's greatest sex goddess...Told in all its name-naming, spade-calling candor...fascinating" New York Herald Tribune

Plus 29 Sensational photographs.

The long-suppressed, true story of the platinum-haired love goddess who may have been the inspiration for The Carpetbaggers, but whose real life was more sensational than any novelist could imagine.

"Answers all the whispered questions. sparing no details, this book shows why in all the wild, free-wheeling history of hollywood, no star has ever blazed with such a red-hot light or left such an unforgettable afterglow" - Bridgeport Herald