Customer Reviews

The MGM Stock Company: The Golden Era

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

James Robert Parish is the only writer I can think of, off the top of my head, who's more prolific than alternate-history author Harry Turtledove. I've lost count of how many books he's written, but I feel certain I have about a dozen of his titles in my library, and I also feel certain I can give all of them my strong recommendation, including this one.

_The Fox Girls_ is one of about half a dozen books Parish wrote in the 1970's about the actresses of classic Hollywood (the others were _The RKO Gals_, _The Paramount Pretties_, _The Hollywood Beauties_, _The Leading Ladies_ and The Glamour Girls_). The basic format of this "series" is the same in each case; Parish selects anywhere from 6 to 20 of the most representative actresses of the group, then writes a lengthy biography/filmography of each woman accompanied by numerous B&W photos.

While these books are all long out of print, they're also important basic reference works for film fans and students. Many of the actresses Parish writes about in these volumes are ill-covered elsewhere. In _The Fox Girls_, for example, Parish profiles Theda Bara, Janet Gaynor, Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Loretta Young, Sonja Henie, Linda Darnell, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Anne Baxter, Carmen Miranda, June Haver, Jeanne Crain, Marilyn Monroe, Sheree North and Raquel Welch. Some of these actresses still don't have full-length books about or by them (in the case of Carmen Miranda, for example, there's no full-length photographic retrospective in English that I know of, though there are several in her native Brazilian-Portuguese). Thus, if you want to know about some of these actresses, books like this one are your best bet. The good news is that this book, plus the other ones I mentioned, are all readily available and reasonably inexpensive on Amazon Marketplace!

What a great book!! I've owned three copies over the years. If only people would return things!! ;). A good buy!

This book may be readable but it's not accurate. For one thing, it's filled with misinformation about Freddie Bartholomew, which misinformation has subsequently been repeated all over the internet. If a star of Freddie's magnitude is misrepresented, then I wonder how much else in the book is incorrect. At the very least then take this book with a grain of salt, and do not consider it an authoritative reference book.