Hollywoodland: Rich and Lively History About Hollywood's Grandest Era [Hardcover]

David Wallace (Author), Ann Miller (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2002

Hollywood lifestyles of today have nothing on those of the first half of the last century for opulence and glamour. David Wallace, author of Lost Hollywood, has unearthed new stories and fresh details about some of the era's biggest names and how they lived, worked, and played. The stars' real lives at the dawn of the studio era were infinitely more interesting than anything committed to celluloid, and they're all here. Hollywoodland explores, among other topics:

--high society
--"twilight" guys and gals
--getting high
--dream houses
--great movie music and where it came from
--star retreats and playgrounds
--the mob and the movie business
--celebrated on-screen and off-screen fashions

Hollywoodland is rich and lively history about Hollywood's grandest era, and necessary reading for any fan of the movies and their earliest stars.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Hollywood's heritage is the subject of these two books. Wallace follows up his Lost Hollywood with Hollywoodland, his ruminations on various happenings in Tinseltown's history, including a foreword by famed tap dancer Ann Miller. Chapters include "Getting High in Hollywood," "Bombshells-Blonde, Brash and Built," " 'Twilight' Guys and Gals," and "The Lowest of the Low-The Hollywood Screenwriter." Unfortunately, there is no bibliography, which made this reviewer curious about the research. Hollywood Remembered contains more than 30 short recollections from various Hollywoodites, such as actress Evelyn Keyes, comedians Steve Allen and Jonathan Winters, and writer Charles Champlin. Zollo (Songwriters on Songwriting) presents a brief history of Hollywood's "Golden Age," a sprinkling of memoirs, and a tour describing the hot spots. The memoirs are quite fun to read, and one does get a real feel for the Hollywood of yore. While Hollywoodland focuses on the seamier side and is a light diversion, Hollywood Remembered is a vivid work incorporating the personalities of the interviewees. Both books are recommended for film collections and larger public libraries where interest warrants.
Barbara Kundanis, Batavia P.L., IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Wallace's book jacket fittingly features a picture of the Hollywood sign in its original splendor. His arch and choppy writing style contributes to an overall aura of smug amusement reminiscent of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon s (1975 and 1984), but he isn't as well organized as Anger. He can be long on detail, but long and quirky. He mentions that corrupt D. A. Buron Fitts killed himself with a gun "identical to that used by Mary Miles Minter's mother . . . to kill [director William Desmond] Taylor"--a fascinating tidbit, but presented innocent of the complexities of the Taylor case. No matter. Wallace's emphasis clearly indicates where his and the book's focus lies: in tasty, scandalous stories of Hollywood back when the stars and the movies were bigger than big, huger than huge; that is, before the 1950s. And Wallace doesn't just expose actors and cops; studio czar Harry Cohn, among many off-screen others, comes in for some well-deserved exposure, too. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: L.A. Weekly Books; 1st edition (October 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312291256
• ISBN-13: 978-0312291259
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Babylonland, April 9, 2004

By 

Jeffrey Lipscomb (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywoodland: Rich and Lively History About Hollywood's Grandest Era (Hardcover)

As in his previous volume "Lost Hollywood," Wallace here does little more than recycle the gossip & rumors found in Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon." Much of it is fun reading - for example, it's always amusing to re-visit Mae West's witty one-liners - but the book is rife with factual inaccuracies and typos. Many of them - but certainly not all - have already been cited in other reviews. One correction I might add is that Herbert Stothart, not Max Steiner, was the film composer for "Wizard of Oz." After that sort of gaffe, it becomes difficult to trust Wallace's information (new to me) that "Oz" author L. Frank Baum designed the crown-like chandeliers that still hang in the dining room at the Hotel del Coronado. Wallace's assertion that "Citizen Kane" was "certainly the best" film music Bernard Herrmann ever composed would likely be disputed by most film music critics (the consensus would appear to favor "Vertigo"). The absence of even a single footnote and the lack of a bibliography are simply additional indications of a carelessly researched and poorly edited volume. Rather disappointing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inaccuracyland, March 8, 2004

By 

Nostalgic for the '50s - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hollywoodland (Paperback)

Despite Mr. Wallace's avowed claim to find the "truth behind the anecdotes," this book--just like his first on the subject (Lost Hollywood)--is nothing more than a series of mostly unsubtantiated Hollywood myths coupled with outright inaccuracies (e.g., Mr. Wallace indicates Jean Harlow as being the recipient of James Cagney's grapefruit-in-the-face in the famous "Public Enemy" scene--when, in fact, it was Mae Clarke), held together by numerous misspellings and typos. Only for the desperate! The dust jacket is nice, though.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great Title; Poor content, June 20, 2004

By 

M. Pierce "ReWrite Man" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywoodland: Rich and Lively History About Hollywood's Grandest Era (Hardcover)

It's disappointing that not one, but two books by this author, filled with inaccuracies, could find their way to publication. A glance through the chapter about Blondes relates the tired Jean Harlow/Christian Science/Evil Mother Jean story that first appeared in Irving Shulman's 1964 best selling, but totally made-up HARLOW, AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY. Mr. Wallace apparently missed both the excellent David Stenn and Eve Golden bios of Jean Harlow that were written in the early 1990's, which refute that legend based on hospital records and other 'minor' facts, etc.
If you are in the mood for salacious gossip unrooted in reality, read Kenneth Anger's books; they are 'classics' of this genre that will leave you howling and hungry for more, unlike copycats like HOLLYWOODLAND, which reminds one of stale bread.