Customer Reviews

The Sex Goddess

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It is a superb and immensely involving novel. I think it is flawless, I've had a wonderful reading experience from beginning top end. It is the best novel I've read about Hollywood, but it is more than that-it a cavalcade, the characters are wonderfully drawn, the dramatic scenes, Luke, Marty, Carlos, Mariono, are wonderful. And Valerie Johnson is the centerpiece. A fully developing and charming woman. L.B. Mayer is great. Woolfolk's touch with directors and actors lend authentic touches.

...No stranger to the Hollywood scene himself, Syracuse novelist William Woolfolk has crafted a "factual-fictional" account of Ava's rise to the top at M-G-M Studios in the late 1940s, in his new book, "The Sex Goddess." Woolfolk said he changed the names of characters, "to spare the feelings of those of her ex-lovers
still alive, who might find some of the graphic sexual description here offensive."
But Ava's affairs with leading entertainment figures of her day, such as impish actor Mickey Rooney, bandleader Artie Shaw, the eccentric Howard Hughes, Mafia-sponsored crooner Frank
Sinatra and an over-the-hill Clark Gable, are all recalled in dynamic detail here.
Although Woolfolk has clearly done his research, the novel reads like a blend of mystery, historical novel and romance. With it's snappy dialogue and its familiar, yet intriguing, characters "Sex Goddess" is a sheer page-turner, entertaining as it is revealing.
Snappy dialogue? How about this piece of advice from a casting couch victim who befriends an innocent Ava: "I was so dumb I even slept with a writer. You can't get much lower than that!"
...
Not only will readers learn the intimate details of this strong and talented woman's personal life, they'll also marvel at the machinations of Hollywood's behind-the-scenes studio system that so affected the development of careers and the quality of motion pictures themselves.
Woolfolk has written best-selling roman a clefs before, notably "A Beautiful Couple," about that tempestuous married pair, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. And, with it's easy-flowing prose and
episodic nature, "The Sex Goddess" deserves to be a best-seller as well. This much is guaranteed: anyone who picks it up and allows Ava's life to unfold within their mind's eyes, will
anxiously anticipate her next role and her next roll in the sack with yet another Hollywood hotshot.
... This tale of one of Tinsel Town's sweetest sexpots seems tailor made for America's ever-expanding X-rated industry.

William Woolfolk is without question the most exasperating novelist I've ever read. I first became acquainted with his work with My Name Is Morgan which was a Literary Guild choice, which is how I came to read it. I liked the novel a lot, but I liked his Opinion of the Court a lot more. I consider that book a modern masterpiece. But then he wrote a sexy best seller Elizabeth Taylor an Richard Burton that was hardly worthy of his talents. In the meanwhile I discovered he was the story editor for one of the all time great TV shows The Defenders and if I remember correctly a couple of his scripts for the show were nomitated for Emmys. So what happens now.He turns around and writes another roman a clef, this time obviously about Ava Gardner despit the change of name, and fully as steamy as the novel about Taylor and Burton the name of which I've forgottn, Yes, this novel would make a great adult film and Woolfolk writes about sex better than Harold Robbins or even the Marquisde Sade,and yes probably everything he writes about Ava is true, but why bother. A sexy novel is a sexy novel and no matter how well written the sex episodes are the book is not something to recommend to any serious reader. I hope Woolfolks next novel will put him back on the track of Opinion of the Court. That's one reader's opinion.

This is a totally involving story, with characters as vivid and true to life as the originals. I agree that Ava Gardner is really the person about whom the book is written but that doesn't change the fact that her fictional alter ego is as living and breathing a presence as that glamorous beauty was. The other people in the book, her various lovers from Mickey Rooney to Artie Shaw to Frank Sinatra, her great love, and Howard Hughes--THERE'S a charactization that will live in my memory--are just as fascinating. Ava herself is sex appeal incarnated, as she was in real life, and the story is full of incident and color and action. A wonderful read!

I love books about life in Hollywood, and this is one worth waiting for. I was spellbound -- it sounds cliche to say I couldn't put it down, but it's true! Valerie Johnson (who is so obviously Ava Gardner) leapt off the page and kept me riveted. Woolfolk does a grand job of weaving his imagination among known Gardner personal details and historical realities. If you love fictional biographies, you will love the Sex Goddess!

William Woolfolk is without question the most exasperating novelist I've ever read. I first became acquainted with his work with My Name Is Morgan which was a Literary Guild choice, which is how I came to read it. I liked the novel a lot, but I liked his Opinion of the Court a lot more. I consider that book a modern masterpiece. But then he wrote a sexy best seller Elizabeth Taylor an Richard Burton that was hardly worthy of his talents. In the meanwhile I discovered he was the story editor for one of the all time great TV shows The Defenders and if I remember correctly a couple of his scripts for the show were nomitated for Emmys. So what happens now.He turns around and writes another roman a clef, this time obviously about Ava Gardner despit the change of name, and fully as steamy as the novel about Taylor and Burton the name of which I've forgottn, Yes, this novel would make a great adult film and Woolfolk writes about sex better than Harold Robbins or even the Marquisde Sade,and yes probably everything he writes about Ava is true, but why bother. A sexy novel is a sexy novel and no matter how well written the sex episodes are the book is not something to recommend to any serious reader. I hope Woolfolks next novel will put him back on the track of Opinion of the Court. That's one reader's opinion.