This photo was associated with Metro Pictures’ promotion of Alla Nazimova’s 1919 production of “The Brat.”

From the publisher’s book description:

Whether in or out of the closet, gays and lesbians played an essential role in shaping studio-era Hollywood. Gay actors (J. Warren Kerrigan, Marlene Dietrich, Rock Hudson), gay directors (George Cukor, James Whale, Dorothy Arzner), and gay set and costume designers (Adrian, Travis Banton, George James Hopkins) have been among the most influential individuals in Hollywood history and literally created the Hollywood mystique. This landmark study-based on seven years of exacting research and including unpublished memoirs, personal correspondence, oral histories, and scrapbooks-explores the experience of Hollywood’s gays in the context of their times. Ranging from Hollywood’s working conditions to the rowdy character of Los Angeles’s gay underground, William J. Mann brings long overdue attention to every aspect of this powerful creative force.

From the publisher’s book description:

THE GIRLS lifts the veil on the private lives of early Hollywood’s most powerful and uninhibited goddesses…The most unforgettable and immortal women of Hollywood’s golden era thrilled to a hidden world of exciting secrets. In THE GIRLS, Diana McLellan reveals the complex and intimate connections that roiled behind the public personae of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and the women who loved them. Previously unseen FBI files, private correspondence and a trove of unpublished documents reveal a chain of lesbian affairs that moved from the theater world of New York through the heights of chic society to embed itself in the power structure of the movie business.

From the publisher’s book description:

Between 1917 and 1941, Hollywood studios, gossip columnists and novelists featured an unprecedented number of homosexuals, cross-dressers, and adulterers in their depictions of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. Actress Greta Garbo defined herself as the ultimate serial bachelorette. Screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta engaged in numerous lesbian relationships with the Hollywood elite. And countless homosexual designers brazenly picked up men in the hottest Hollywood nightclubs. Hollywood’s image grew as a place of sexual abandon. This book demonstrates how studios and the media used images of these sexually adventurous characters to promote the industry and appeal to the prurient interests of their audiences. Illustrations, notes, bibliography and index.

From the publisher’s book description:

The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era rediscovers the fascinating lives and pioneering achievements of 15 women who dared to venture into early motion pictures, an industry dominated by men, and who not only succeeded but became the focal points of the industry. Each star earned a position at the height of her profession, and though many are largely forgotten today, made a lasting and significant contribution to early cinema. In this entertaining and informative volume, author David Menefee reveals these women and their signature roles, drawing on many original sources to show us how such actresses as Theda Bara, Sarah Bernhardt, Dorothy Gish, and Norma Talmadge were received in their time, and the many ways in which their influence remains important today.

Reviews for The Trouble with Scarlett, by Martin Turnbull:

As a fan of The Garden on Sunset, it was a joy to join again in the endearing story of the three Hollywood ascendants: Marcus, Kathryn, and Gwendolyn. Through an adept combination of skillful character development and evocative settings, Martin Turnbull has, in the second novel in a promised series, become even more of a solid and resonant storyteller. In The Trouble with Scarlett, Turnbull’s characters have become (as real people do over time) more stable and clearly defined, and what might have deteriorated to an expected “gimmick” of involving his fictional characters with real people in historic events has instead become even more seamless, what might have been a clumsy technical contrivance is now an organic and properly rhythmic narrative voice.

Alla Nazimova died on July 13, 1945, in Los Angeles, as a result of a coronary thrombosis that she suffered in her villa at the Garden of Allah Hotel. She was buried in Forest Lawn Glendale. The inscription on her marker reads: In Memoriam Madame Alla Nazimova 1945 “Voice of World’s Conscience – Immaculate beyond […]

Alla Nazimova graced the cover of the July 1918 issue of Motion Picture magazine, and in the interview she revealed her “devilish ambition.” This was part of publicity for Madame Nazimova’s latest picture in which she starred with her “husband” Charles Bryant (in reality the two were never legally married.) This article names the picture […]