Customer Reviews

Hollywood Beauties

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It seems James Parish churns out far too many books. However, his series of books dealing with films and stars of the Golden period of Hollywood are absolutely indispensible for movie buffs.

Anyone old enough to remember the old (now defunct) film magazine, ''Films in Review'', will recall the magazine's monthly career article on stars which covered their films in detail. The article was followed by a filmography and many photos.

The Hollywood Beauties is in similar vein. It covers the careers of female stars renowned for their beauty - stars like Dolores Del Rio, Kay Francis, Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner.

The great thing about this book is that all of the stars' films are covered in detail along with details about their personal lives (each chapter is like a mini book). At the end is a detailed filmography and a section on photos.

Anyone interested in old stars should immediately add this great book to their library.

James Robert Parish has put his astounding research
qualities to the test and come up with "Hollywood
Beauties" - a lovely valentine to seven of the screen's
most alluring sirens. There is not a lot that is new
and in the case of Grace Kelly, a lot of questions are
unanswered - why did she suddenly decide to marry Prince
Rainier and give up what would have been a memorable
life in film. She was the most enigmatic of them all -
she was originally a model but from the start was
determined to make it as an actress and according to
people in the know had the talent to be the best.
The other beauties - Dolores Del Rio was beautiful but
extremely ambitious (the callousness toward her first
husband was, I thought, shocking) and not above using
her beauty as a flirtatious way to further her career.
Parish claims everything was "above board" but why was
she given such star treatment at Warners during the making
of "Wonder Bar" when Kay Francis, at the time Warner's
biggest star, was left out in the cold?
Kay Francis - To me the most beautiful and alluring but
was really in movies for the money and the nice holidays
she could afford. She didn't think about career longevity
and her career suffered when more astute actresses like
Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland came along. Jean Harlow
- the most beloved and yet the most exploited, especially
by her mother, her step father and her awful agent. Ava
Gardner - sensual and down to earth but according to Humphrey
Bogart the most self centred actress he had ever met. She
had a fear of her face being marked, so what did she do -
she got drunk, rode a horse (she had never ridden before)
and charged a bull, which then kicked her!!! She later
became a recluse. Elizabeth Taylor was another who I think
needed a deeper apraisal. So beautiful and supposedly so
intelligent and with an Oscar for her shocking portrayal in
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (she also won another for
"Butterfield 8" a film she was not proud of) she seemed to
become a victim of her own wealth and beauty, with self
indulgent performances in "Reflections in a Golden Eye",
"Boom" and "Doctor Faustus". Lana Turner, perhaps the saddest
of all, whose erratic childhood must have been the cause of
her undisiplined life. At the end of her chapter she went on
a "Legendary Ladies" tour and among the inevitable questions
were "would she change her life", her answer was "No No No!!".
I immediately thought of her poor little daughter and that
awful murder, Lana must have forgotten about that!!
More insight would have been nice instead of a "and then she
starred in" but the book was written in the late 70s when
most of the beauties were still alive,so people had to be
considered.