My Last Movie Star: A Novel of Hollywood [Hardcover]

Martha Sherrill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

Allegra Coleman is young, beautiful, and destined for stardom. Clementine James is a jaded journalist who has been persuaded to write one last celebrity profile, a piece on Allegra for Flame magazine. But when their road-trip interview ends in a car crash, Allegra vanishes into thin air, and America goes into a frenzy of round-the-clock TV coverage, candlelight vigils, and miraculous sightings.

Clementine becomes a celebrity by proxy—and while recovering from her injuries, she receives a series of ghostly visits from Natalie Wood, Clara Bow, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, Gloria Swanson, and other screen sirens of the past. As Tallulah Bankhead tells her, “It’s agony, darling...bitter agony—watching everything slip away. Your looks. Your dough. Your mind. Your ass.” Has the missing Allegra escaped such a fate?

To find out, Martha Sherrill takes Clementine on a riotous, often hilarious journey inside the hideaways of Hollywood stars and the hangouts of Manhattan’s power editors. Along the way, Sherrill captures the erotic jolt of celebrity and the way it affects the celebrated. My Last Movie Star is both a parody and parable of Hollywood, at once absurdly funny and weirdly plausible.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bette, Audrey, Angelina, Julia, Gwyneth-and now Allegra. In this first novel, veteran journalist and experienced celebrity profiler Sherrill (Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Esquire, etc.) brilliantly dissects the vicissitudes of fame and the absurdities of Hollywood idol worship. Sherrill's "It" girl, Allegra Coleman, believes she's creating her stardom herself-"Acting is mostly... having the balls to stay still and not move and letting the camera stare at you like some kind of pervert"-and is AWOL from her obligations at Cosmos Studios. With her on the road is jaded journalist Clementine James, who is doing her absolutely last celebrity profile for Flame, a popzine that she wants to abandon for life on a horse farm with her lover, Ned. Their trip stretches on and on-until a car crash brings it to a screeching halt. When Clementine awakens at the accident scene, she's lost an eye and Allegra's vanished. The world becomes obsessed with Allegra's fate while Clementine, the last person to see her alive, finds herself caught up in a media feeding frenzy. Vigils, air kisses with celebrities, endless gifts, interviews, photo ops and even a one-night stand with Allegra's TV star ex-boyfriend threaten to turn Clementine into a pop icon herself until mysterious "visits" from glamorous movie stars-Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Swanson, Loretta Young, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy and Tallulah Bankhead-teach her the fickleness of celluloid celebrity. It's popcorn parody for the soul, with plenty of butter. Extra perk: a fun "Filmography" glosses movies mentioned in the text.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Fed up with her manipulative editor, entertainment journalist Clementine James is packing up to move to her boyfriend's Virginia farm when Flame Magazine asks her to write an in-depth profile of captivating actress Allegra Coleman. When their interview ends in a car crash, Clementine awakes to find herself a celebrity. Allegra has vanished, and Clementine was the last person to see her. Allegra's disappearance catapults her into instant superstardom. Flame produces an "All-Allegra" issue, Allegra Web sites spring up overnight, and a candlelight vigil attracts the likes of John Travolta and Snoop Dogg. Meanwhile, sirens of Hollywood's past visit Clementine, smoking endless cigarettes and dispensing advice about men, movies, and the uncertain rewards of fame. With a less skilled writer, this device could get tiresome, but Sherrill makes these passages humorous and affecting. Jaded by L.A., skeptical of preening actors, Clementine is nevertheless--like us--in thrall to the movies and the larger-than-life personalities on screen. Sherrill has crafted an absorbing, note-perfect examination of Hollywood's culture of stardom, and film aficionados will savor the many cinematic references. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375507698
• ISBN-13: 978-0375507694
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,524,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martha Sherrill was born in Palo Alto, California and was raised by a single mother in suburban Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA where she studied film and art history. For several years after college, she worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. before landing a job at The Washington Post, initially as a fashion assistant in the Style Section and then as an award-winning essayist and feature writer covering the arts and politics.

She is more fascinated by human behavior than news -- and specialized in profiles of complex personalities and relationships.

The author of four books -- two novels and two works of nonfiction -- her work describes the struggle of the individual, particularly freethinkers and nonconformists, to find a home in society. Her fifth book tells the story of her family's move to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and her volunteer job at the town dump.

See her author website for more details, www.marthasherrill.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An elite paparrazo gets a taste of her own medicine..., March 13, 2003

By 

M. A. Moore (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Last Movie Star: A Novel of Hollywood (Hardcover)

...and it turns out it goes down a little too smoothly. If you've ever wondered what it might be like to suddenly have the world's celebrity spotlight searching you relentlessly out, My Last Movie Star is a must read.

This book, about a cynical celebrity journalist who accidentally crosses over to become a celebrity in her own right, gives hilarious insight into the seductive but ephemeral allure of sudden fame.

My favorite sub-theme is the author's biting description of the self-important self-adulation of movieland's beautiful elite. The story's protagonist, Clementine James, ends up making some surprising choices when she is thrust into the glare of Hollywood's klieg lights.

One of the inventions that makes this book an original and a great read is the way the writer effortlessly weaves in appearances from the spirits of formerly-exalted-but-now-forgotten movie divas. You'll find out why Demi Moore named her unfortunate daughter Tallulah, among other tidbits.

MLMS will appeal to the serious movie buff, as well as anyone who has wondered about the ridiculous--and lucrative-- conniving that goes on behind the fame-making machine.

Hilarious. Entertaining. Soon to be made into a major motion picture, no doubt directed by Robert Altman, with Renee Zellweger cast as Clementine and Tim Robbins as the manipulative publisher Ed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Book, March 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: My Last Movie Star: A Novel of Hollywood (Hardcover)

A thought-provoking (and laugh out loud funny) rumination on fame and what it means to actresses famous for their beauty as they grow older. Clementine Jones, recovering from a car wreck in which the young starlet she's interviewing disappeared, is visited by actresses as diverse as Dorothy Lamour, Myrna Loy and Tallulah Bankhead. Sherrill fills the book with quotes from these women's (sometimes self-indulgent) autobiographies, and peppers the novel with references to dozens of films, from well-known classics to bizarre, obscure films that aren't even rentable.

I loved the book, although the last chapter seemed a little odd considering Clementine and Allegra's history together. But the last paragraph more than compensates for any problems.

This book made me actually buy Dorothy Lamour's autobiography. I can think of no higher praise.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Fun Read, March 10, 2003

By 

Robert W. Corrigan (Sisters, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Last Movie Star: A Novel of Hollywood (Hardcover)

My Last Movie Star by Martha Sherrill is a clever, funny send-up of Hollywood that will suit those who've succumbed the glamour of Tinseltown, as well those cynics that view Hollywood Fame as a force wholly independent of the deserts of its victims.

Elements of the book read as truth. Sherrill presents an authentic insider's view of the star-making machinery that occasionally turns interesting, quirky personalities into genuine Hollywood Stars. The story line and characters are as real as anything you might find in the magazine racks at the grocery store checkout line. Lest the reader confuse Hollywood truth with reality, however, the book is punctuated with supernatural visits from Stars of the past, providing an effective and comical vehicle for examining the nature of Fame.

For those that revel in the fiction of the real Movie Star world, Sherrill is respectful of history, and pays homage to the oeuvres of forgotten Stars. For those who choose to laugh at the self-importance of Hollywood, the story is told through the jaded eyes of an outsider journalist that cuts through sycophantic phoniness like a laser. And provides plenty of belly laughs along the way!

Truth or fiction, Hollywood idol or idiot, My Last Movie Star will appeal to just about anyone the relishes a good story well-told.