100 books like Indecent Exposure

Granted unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe’s best-selling The Bonfire of the Vanities, Salamon serves up a fascinating portrait of one of Hollywood’s most notorious flops. Miscast (Tom Hanks as an arrogant Wall Street heel?) and tone-deaf, the resulting film ran roughshod over Wolfe’s satire and Salamon was there to record every juicy and head-scratching nugget explaining just how the disaster unfolded. Detailing the head-on collision between ego, money, and power in smooth, vivid prose, Salamon will keep any reader interested in Hollywood turning pages long into the night.

Film historian and professor Jeanine Basinger covers the entire history of the movie musical with scholarship, laugh-out loud asides, and a love of film that shines through on every page. No one knows more about film than Basinger but she wears her knowledge lightly, inviting the reader to join in the fun.

Film Historian Eyman eschews the tired caricature of Mayer as a cigar-chomping Hollywood mogul, instead delving into his immigrant roots and love of America, all of it informing Mayer’s tyrannical approach to running MGM, an approach that, unlike today’s dealmakers, was always leavened by a genuine love of movies. In the process, Eyman delivers a sweeping history of Hollywood’s outsized impact upon 20th century American life, filtered through the life story of a studio head who greenlit Ninotchka, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and An American in Paris.

When a Hollywood legend’s child writes a biography of his or her parent, the result usually ends up as either a hatchet job (Mommie Dearest) or candy-coated alternative history. But here, Marlene Dietrich’s daughter Maria Riva delivers a loving but warts and all portrait of her complicated, fascinating mother. Dietrich’s career combined sex, allure, and world-weary refinement to revolutionize our very concept of femininity, in the process fascinating audiences around the world. The only biography of Dietrich to draw upon the star’s own letters and diaries, Riva delivers the ultimate insider’s portrait of both the warmth and suffocating shadow cast by a legend upon her own child. 

As someone who adores all things Pickford (and has written about Mary’s sister-in-law, Olive Thomas), there’s no way I couldn’t include this book, which covers the association between silent star Mary Pickford and her scenarist Frances Marion. 

I love the dynamic between these two powerful women, and Benjamin does a good job of establishing their relationship. There is a lot to love about this book: the writing, the dialog, and the detail. I love this book!

My only quibble is the picture they used for the front cover. I’d have picked it up long before I did if they’d actually used a picture of Mary and Frances because I would have recognized instantly who it was about.  

Martin Turnbull is somewhat of an expert on Old Hollywood and I found his incredible website in my research for Honey Black.

His website is full of original photos of LA throughout the decades and these were invaluable for me when I was writing certain scenes. I then discovered he had written a series of books based in Hollywood, following three friends who come together to navigate their way through the movie business, starting with The Garden of Allah set in the late 1920s. It’s a fascinating look at the seedier side of Old Hollywood. 

This novel is a blend of fact and fiction and informed speculation, centered on the relationship between two mammoth film stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age: Loretta Young and Clark Gable. While the deeper truths of their relationship during the filming of Call of the Wild might be disputed, what is certain is that they produced a daughter whose identity was kept secret—even from her father. Loretta is sympathetically portrayed, often from the perspective of an Italian nun (the author’s creation). A whole galaxy of film celebrities passes through the pages of this book, which for fans of 20th century cinema, is a plus. One touching and poignant aspect of the story, for me, is the danger Loretta’s beloved child poses to her reputation and career.

A novel about Marlene Dietrich held a natural attraction for me, as Dietrich was one of Dolores del Río’s close friends in Hollywood. Gortner paints a vivid picture of decadence in pre-War Berlin, where Dietrich finds work in music halls. There, she meets Joseph von Sternberg, who casts her as the lead of The Blue Angel, the film that launches her career. As antisemitism grows in Germany, von Sternberg, who is Jewish, leaves for Hollywood, and Dietrich follows him. Paramount Pictures finds in her the answer to MGM’s sexy Swedish star, Greta Garbo, and casts her in one hit after the other. When Hitler approaches her to make propaganda films for the Nazis, Dietrich courageously rebuffs him, opting instead to become an American citizen and entertain Allied troops. 

He is a fictionalized account of the comedian Stan Laurel's life. Being a massive fan of Laurel & Hardy, whose films remain irrepressibly funny to this day, and having read several factual books about Stan and his sidekick, it was a no-brainer to pick this up and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst at times it feels like a ‘tick box’ situation regarding some of the events that an aficionado of Laurel would expect to be covered, at other times it provides an acute insight into the man behind the films. The similarity of the process on show here is so close to Blonde that a comparison is inevitable, and whilst he doesn’t provide the same emotional impact and is quite clinical in the telling, it nevertheless remains an important work in its own right and therefore is highly recommended.

I was speechless after finishing this book. It took me completely out of my own life and brought me to its world in a way I hadn't been in a long time.

No spoilies, but your heart will break into a thousand pieces, get put back together, and then break all over again. The world of old Hollywood glamour will draw you in, and the story of Evelyn and her husbands will keep you there. I promise.

Treat yourself to the audiobook, as well. The narrators (Alma Cuervo, Julia Whelan, and Robin Miles) are marvelous.