My Life With Stella Kane [Paperback]

Linda Morganstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2009

In 1948, Nina Weiss, a snobby college girl from Scarsdale, goes to Hollywood to work at her uncle's movie studio where she's assigned to help publicize a young actress named Stella Kane. Nina is immediately thrown into the declining studio system and repressive fifties Hollywood. Adding to her difficulties is her growing attraction to Stella. When a gay actor at the studio is threatened by tabloid exposure, Nina invents a romance between Stella and the actor. The trio becomes hopelessly entangled when the invented romance succeeds beyond anyone's dreams. This is the "behind-the scenes" story of the trio's compromises and secrets, a story that still has relevance for today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Linda Morganstein's new novel My Life With Stella Kane is a funny, sharp look at what it was like to be gay in 1950's Hollywood.

The book starts with a confessional prologue featuring Nina Weiss. "I'M A LESBIAN," she declares. "There, I've said it." At seventy-six years old, Nina is finally ready to tell her story about the life she lived with the famous actress Stella Kane:

"This is a story of self-invention and drama. It's a story about the value and limitations of truth. Most of all, it's the story of the bond I shared with a woman and a legend. She was a star. She was the one I knew best and the one who will always remain a mystery to me."

The point of view shifts from the first to the third-person in the opening chapter, which is initially a jarring transition. However, the story picks up quickly as we meet the young Nina leaving her sheltered life in Scarsdale, New York, to work at her uncle's movie studio in Hollywood.

Nina is assigned to help the illustrious and beautiful actress, Stella Kane, with her publicity. When a studio executive claims that Stella appears too "independent" for a role in an upcoming film, Nina concocts a complicated but familiar plan: she sets up Stella with Hollace Carter, a closeted actor whose reputation is in need of protection for obvious reasons.

As Nina works to construct Stella's image as one half of Hollywood's "it" couple, she grows more aware of her feelings for her client and friend. Though the story is juicy and at times campy, the book's most interesting moments feature Stella and Nina struggling to communicate their attraction -- and once that happens, how they deal with the potential consequences.

My Life With Stella Kane is an entertaining look into Hollywood during the fifties and the pressure actors experienced to stay in the closet. In many ways, the rules here don't seem all that different from today's rules -- one of the book's subtle but effective ideas. "Some day we'll be able to be ourselves," Hollace's lover says at one point. Hollace, however, is a bit more pessimistic: "It will always be this way. This is one thing people won't accept." --AfterEllen.com April 2009

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC (February 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935053132
• ISBN-13: 978-1935053132
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,764,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am an overeducated fiction writer who grew up in the Borscht Belt resort area of New York. My father worked in hotels and I met many entertainers who would later become famous in Hollywood. I love theatre and film, which explains how these topics often find their way into my books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of inside info about the 1940's Hollywood scene., July 2, 2010

By 

Sandra Johnson (St. Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Life With Stella Kane (Paperback)

Linda Morganstein does a great job of portraying the story of Nina and Stella and their growing love for each other at a time when being gay was punished and had to be hidden to exist at all. The book is also filled with wonderful, factual, fascinating details of old Hollywood.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review by respected GLBT reviewer and blogger Amos Lassen:, December 24, 2010

By 

Linda Morganstein (St. Paul MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Life With Stella Kane (Paperback)

Amos Lassen wrote: I love novels about Hollywood and the movies because we always get some good dish. Linda Morganstein wrote a novel that I could lose myself in and have a great time and that is just what I did with "My Life with Stella Kane". We meet Nina Weiss first when she was a junior at Barnard from an upper-class family; an intellectual nice Jewish girl. In the summer of 1948, Nina takes a summer internship at the Hollywood studio that belongs to her uncle. She finds that that the studio's new discovery, Stella Kane, takes an interest in her. Nina is assigned to "handle" the young actress and act as her publicist and Nina is very business-like--she wants to do her job and go home but the fact that this glamorous soon-to-be movie star is interested causes her to rethink her decision. However she is attracted to Stella as well. Nina is told by Stella at the end of her internship that she will return and she does, but she is a bit different.

She now is able to create positive news about young stars as well as knowing how to keep them out of trouble. "When one of the gay male actors is threatened with having his liaisons exposed, Nina goes to work devising a relationship between Hollace Carter and Stella Kane". In fact the story was so successful that the two actually wed. But something else is going on with Nina--she struggles to deal with her own feelings toward Stella and to accept herself for who she really is. When the struggle is over, Nina and Stella are able to deal with their feelings but everything must be kept under wraps.

Morganstein uses a non-chronological approach to telling the story and I found myself feeling like it was going on all around me.Morganstein takes us into the Hollywood closet when it was closed tight but she does more than that--we are made aware of the politics of Hollywood, of characters and of secrets. From Nina's confession at the start of the book, we go backwards in time and see that so many of the rumors we have heard are true. The book grabs you on the first page and does not let you go for a second. The characters are large while their lives are intimate and Linda Morganstein gives us one great story.