Lost Hollywood [Hardcover]

David Wallace (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312261950 | ISBN-13: 978-0312261955 | Publication Date: April 7, 2001 | Edition: 1st

The movie business may have been born on the East Coast, but it created Hollywood in its own image. LOST HOLLYWOOD is a rich trip back into a vanished place and time-25 chapters that use lost structures as a launching point to tell the history of the movie business in the last century. Many of the subjects Wallace covers will be unfamiliar to even the most knowledgeable film buffs: from Marian Davies' extraordinary playpen Ocean House, known as"Xanadu by the Sea" to the development of Whitley Heights and its now-iconic Mediterranean architecture. Other chapters include new and fascinating details on classic Hollywood institutions, like the Hollywood Canteen, the Garden of Allah, the Brown Derby, the Copacabana and the legendary Pickfair.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forget about the Internet Americanizing the world it was film, from the silent days forward, that began cultural globalization, claims Wallace at the outset of this short, quirky take on Hollywood's impact on world culture. Using famous architectural structures the glamorous Garden of Allah apartment complex, the Hollywood sign, the Hollywood Bowl as jumping-off points, he sketches a free-wheeling history of the industry through its triumphs and failures, great and petty. While his anecdotes and thumbnail sketches won't impress serious film historians with fresh insights, casual readers will find them deliciously entertaining. Wallace is at his best when he assumes the tone that Kenneth Anger perfected in his legendary Hollywood Babylon books a tone of malicious gossip rendered with jaundiced irony though Wallace maintains a more respectable aura. Known for his celebrity interviews, Wallace covers such Hollywood scandals as the Thomas Ince murder and Peg Entwistle's suicidal leap from the H in the above-mentioned sign, while also dishing dirt on lesser-known figures, such as Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded one of the largest churches in America, the Angeles Temple, before she was consumed by scandal. Wallace is careful to warn that some of his information may be more folklore than established fact (in relating how John Barrymore's corpse was reputedly employed in a practical joke on Errol Flynn, he includes varying versions and denials). But he is less concerned with veracity than with how Hollywood rumor becomes American myth. (Mar.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hollywood insider and journalist Wallace attempts to capture the early history of the American film industry for today's audience. His 25 chapters cover subjects as diverse as the architecture of the stars' homes and haunts and the impact of sound on the careers of silent screen stars such as John Gilbert and Lillian Gish. The descriptions of the architecture and daily lives of the players and directors are generally informative, but at least two errors stand out: Biltmore House in North Carolina was built by the Vanderbilts, and the Alhambra is in Granada, Spain, not Seville. Frustratingly, the captions for the photographs quote the text when more material on the subjects could have been added for the reader. In addition, the conversational writing style is no better than that found in popular gossip magazines. Ultimately, then, this book is a disappointment. Not recommended. Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: L.A. Weekly Books; 1st edition (April 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312261950
• ISBN-13: 978-0312261955
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where were the fact checkers?, July 15, 2004

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Hollywood (Hardcover)

Maybe there is an updated edition with corrections, but why would any publishing house put out a book this riddled with errors in the first place?

David Wallace is in trouble even before the first chapter of "Lost Hollywood." The photo caption on a picture opposite chapter one is full of mistakes. I'm not sure that's ZaSu Pitts, and I question whether the photo is from "A Little Princess"--a movie in which Pitts played the downtrodden Becky, and this pic shows her in a cute pantaloon outfit with a parasol. At any rate, that movie was not directed by Mack Sennett, as the caption states (it was directed by Marshall Neilan) and although ZaSu P. was in "A Little Princess," it was not her first picture and, in fact, "A Little Princess" starred Mary Pickford. Pitts was always a character actress and never a film heroine as Wallace claims; and "Greed" was directed by Erich von Stroheim, not DW Griffith as Wallace would have us think. And this is just a photo caption! What a way to kick off a book.

For someone who lives in Los Angeles, Wallace also has a shaky grasp on LA geography. The city of San Pedro is described as Hollywood's "neighbor"--it must have taken hours to get from one town to the other in the silent era and it is not much better now. The Edendale studios were in Silverlake, not in Glendale (we're on page 6 at this point).

Does this guy not imagine that there are scores of people who know enough about Hollywood history to be apalled by the lack of easy research? This is a sloppy and innacurate piece of work and there is no excuse for it.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Book Long Overdue, April 10, 2001

By 

MarshnRog (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost Hollywood (Hardcover)

When I first visited Hollywood a few years ago, I was extremely disappointed that many of the sites I wanted to see (the Brown Derby, Schwab's, Ocean House, Pickfair, the Sunset Blvd. house) are no longer there -- long ago torn down by a town that has no respect for its own past. What makes this even more puzzling is the large number of tourists who flock to the movie capital every year. LOST HOLLYWOOD gave me the tour I wanted. It not only tells about the lost buildings, but about the people who lived and played there, and built Hollywood. Wallace shows a deep reverence for things past and tells Hollywood's story openly an honestly. The book is filled with little stories that amaze, surprise, and touch your heart (most especially Gene Tierney working at the Hollywood Canteen). I'd easily give it five stars, except that it really needs a lot more photos (and a better proof reader). There's also a caption that incorrectly cites D.W. Griffith as the director of Erich Von Stroheim's masterpiece, Greed (1925). Still, a superb book. Thank you, David Wallace! I am forever in your debt.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Idea, Lazy Writing, July 29, 2002

By 

W. Sullivan "wapsullivan" (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost Hollywood (Hardcover)

Being an avid Hollywood historian, I was eager to get this book about the history of Hollywood. While the writing is fast paced, and the author has a keen interest in history, I cannot stop finding mistakes that make me question the writer's committment to research: Fatty Arbuckle, for instance, was involved in a scandal at the St. Francis Hotel, not the Palace Hotel in San Francisco as reported here (and EVERY biography of Arbuckle mentions the St. Francis). The Alhambra (in the Valentino part) is in Granada, not Seville, Spain. Most historians believe William Desmond Taylor was gay, not "romancing both Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Mintner at the same time". Not to mention numerous typos that any self-respecting editor would have caught. This turns me off.