Customer Reviews

Open Secret: Gay Hollywood--1928-1998

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

If you want gossip, get a tabloid. If you'd rather read a thoughtful analysis of "gay Hollywood" in a social/historical context, get this book. This is not a list of who's gay and who isn't; Ehrenstein has chosen to write about what happened (and happens) to gays who are part of the Hollywood machine. He demonstrates, through first-person interviews and anecdotal accounts, in what ways Hollywood--the studios, the executives, the media, the audience--is and is not accepting of homosexuals. Not everyone in his book is famous, or a big time movie star, but they all have something to say or show about the difference between the gay Hollywood of the Cary Grant and Rock Hudson era and the gay Hollywood of the Ellen Degeneres and Tom Cruise era.

Ehrenstein's skill is in keeping the history together, so that James Whale's story is appropriately connected to the "Gods and Monsters" story, but each stands on its own as well. He has also taken care in choosing what to cover in this book. It would be impossible to write the entire history of Gay Hollywood in one book; and Ehrenstein has selected only certain aspects of that history and examined them in depth rather than touch only the surface of too many things.

This book is slightly more academic perhaps than most of the Gay Hollywood books are. If you're really interested in the history of Hollywood's treatment of gays ... in front of the camera and behind; closeted and out... then this is a good starting point. Written compactly, it allows us a glimpse of things those of us outside the industry might otherwise not know.

Worth a look.

It's about time someone took a serious stab at updating Vito Russo's amazing Celluloid Closet. Ehrenstein's book not only covers the world of film, but to a certain extent television and other popular entertainment. I wish his style had been smoother (it ranges from academic to deliciously trashy) but he brings up many interesting points. The chapter on Tom Cruise was especially insightful (and Cruise's lawyers would be hard-pressed to find anything to sue about). I was a little surprised that he didn't go into more depth about how the World Wide Web is influencing what we know about the private lives of famous people (maybe he'll add something for the eventual paperback release). If you have more than a passing interest in this century's entertainment industry and how it impacts the lives of gay men and lesbians, you should have a look at this book. (Note to publisher: when you have an author this good-looking, for God's sake use a bigger picture of him on the cover!)

Forewarned is forearmed: If you don't know anything about the rich, provocative topic of gays and the movie industry, by all means skip this trivial book and read Vito Russo's THE CELLULOID CLOSET. Or go see the new film Gods and Monsters, based on Christopher Bram's delightfully imaginative novel FATHER OF FRANKENSTEIN--a fictional work that offers far more insight and entertainment value than this intellectually pedestrian, rambling survey. OPEN SECRET insults not just the intelligence, but the very awareness, of gay and straight readers alike. The only apparent "organizing principle" in this maddening volume is its author's penchant for identifying dead closeted celebrities (whom we already know about) and speculating about living ones (ditto), while offering pompous, pseudo-intellectual bromides about why closets existed in the first place. The book succeeds neither as investigative journalism nor as pop cultural analysis. Its shallow ponderousness about "who's gay" in Hollywood feels both dated and irrelevant in a post-Signorile gay world. For just one example of a more rewarding approach to the topic of gays and the movies, one might consider Harry M. Benshoff's MONSTERS IN THE CLOSET, a book which, in scholarly fashion, probes the intersections of homosexuality and the horror film. Here, our author is critical of the old yellow press and present tabloid media for sensationalizing stars' homosexuality, then does the very same thing by quoting these sources at preposterous length. When he's not quoting up a storm, the author's busy rehearsing old gossip. He talks about Liberace at length: Since when is Liberace a Hollywood--as opposed to merely, show business--figure? Ehrenstein returns again and again to Ellen DeGeneres's coming-out, as if this were the seminal media coming-out story of our age; and again, how many readers really consider DeGeneres a Hollywood, as opposed to television sitcom, personality? The book is replete with this kind of filler and digression--so much intellectual "Hamburger Helper." The final chapter, "Is Tom Cruise Gay?," is a minor masterpiece of the bait-and-switch genre. The chapter offers no new sources in seeking to "answer" this question, and it digresses shamelessly by positing pages and pages of meaningless anecdotes about John Travolta, Alec Baldwin, and even Rupert Everett. The author himself concludes that nobody should care whether Cruise is gay or not; the reader stopped caring about both that question and this book long before reaching its final chapter. In his provocative new book THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE, author Daniel Harris talks about how gays support the publishing industry by buying books that are so many masterpieces of the obvious. While Harris is primarily concerned with self-help and romance guides, his thesis seems to apply by extension here. Even when gay-themed books contain commonsensical advice and information, gays themselves will often rush to the bookstores and scoop them up as almost existential acts of self-affirmation and validation. OPEN SECRET tells us that there were closeted gay stars in Hollywood and recalls all the usual suspects. There you have it, save your money. One hopes that readers looking for something new won't waste their time on OPEN SECRET, a book that cheapens both the terms and potential rewards of sincere analytical inquiry about gay issues.

...nonetheless. This book is not a distasteful one unlike a vast majority of books about gays in Hollywood. It is also quite entertaining and should be regarded only as such: an entertaining book on a summer's day... In this case it does not really matter, whether the material is credible or not. If you do not take what you read TOO SERIOUSLY, then you will enjoy this book. If you want some serious study about gay actors, then look some place else for it.

Ehrenstein's book is a fine overview of Hollywood's treatment of gay and lesbian actors/actresses. There was a lot in the book that I was not aware of, and I've been a dedicated movie fan for five decades. He surprised even me with anecdotes about people I never "suspected". I'll be sure to seek out his earlier works, and am waiting for the next book.

Dish on, David!

This book has no life to it---I mean the writing--it is redundant, heavy, lackluster. Reads like a boring college research textbook. The author repeats and repeats and is consumed and obsessed with Ellen Degeneres over and over again. It is not like a book, but an overblown article. There is nothing new in the book--it is a historical account of gay and lesbians in Hollywood and boring as can be. Sorry I bought it but am thankful I got a used copy and did not pay much. I could hardly wait to finish it to throw it out as I did not even want to keep it. Forget this dull and dreadful book!

This is one of those annoying books where the author writes and writes and says nothing. He draws from a lot of better sources, but can't make anything original or readable out of all the tidbits of superior material. It's like somebody who talk a lot but says nothing. A veritable snooze fest.

Most of the reviewers here seem to be on track but a few seem highly bizarre --even suspect. One writes: "A must for any serious Hollywood History library." HUH??? Serious Hollywood history? Try "Wisecracker" by W.Mann or "Nazimova" by G.Lambert for serious history. This might have made an interesting piece (way condensed) for OUT or VANITY FAIR, but this book is all over the place, gives no sense of chronology or historical development, and ultimately adds little to what we know about gay Hollywood history. A shame, too. Ehrenstein's a good journalist; maybe it's his editor's fault.

I picked up Hollywood secret expecting a trashy expose of who's gay who in the Biz. It isn't, but it doesn't dissappoint. Ehrenstein delivers both the goods, and the social climate, both of larger society, and the surprisingly accepting, inward looking Hollywood society. In some ways better than other books covering the same territory, because Ehrenstein doesn't just name names, he also names sources. His interviewees are credited, and he doesn't engage in the current bankrupt practice of blind items. I wish Cruise's lawyers had sued, thus giving the book a big publicity boost. A must for any serious Hollywood History library.