Book Description
The deaths of film celebrities are sometimes even more fascinating than their lives. Hollywood visitors and natives are often drawn to sites of tragedy involving the rich, the beautiful, and the notorious. This book can make finding those locations simple.
These sixteen driving tours cover over 500 sites relating to celebrity deaths and scandals. Each tour covers a specific area of the world's film capital, from Sunset Strip to Bel Air, giving specific directions to each location on the tour. Sites include famous graves, like Rudolph Valentino's, where the Lady in Black made her annual pilgrimage for thirty years; houses and businesses said to be haunted by those as famous in death as they were in life; locations of famous murders and deaths, from William Desmond Taylor to John Belushi; and scandalous locations like the infamous Francis Brothel. Tips for safe and enjoyable touring are also included, and the tours allow everyone from the mildly curious to the completely morbid to find some of Hollywood's darkest corners.
Customer Reviews:
Well researched guide that can be used for travel or armchair reading.......2006-05-30
This unusual guidebook is structured as a series of sixteen tours to scandalous sites around the Los Angeles area., from Hollywood (central, Western, and more) to Beverly Hills to the outer boroughs. Why are we so fascinated with sites of death and scandal? Who knows?!? We are, though, and we might as well own up to it. Nothing sells better than the true-life stories of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll (or sex, drugs, and Hollywood's big screen, in this case).
This is billed as a guidebook, but, as a Los Angeles resident, I found it more fascinating from an armchair perspective than as a step-by-step trip guide. I have no desire to go on any of these sixteen tours, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the scandalous sites around the Los Angeles area. Much of the text focuses on pre-1930's and lesser-known film stars, so few people are likely to obsessively follow any given tour as a tribute to a fallen movie star. Anyone familiar with the Los Angeles area will enjoy this book and glean ideas for "Oh, do you know what happened here??" during the course of the text. If you are an L.A. resident and ant to impress your friends and visitors, look no further.
The text is a guidebook on the surface, but beneath the exterior, it is truly a guide to every major Hollywood scandal. I don't plan on using it as a driving tour; rather, it has furthered my education about the region. On the other hand, the comprehensive index will allow any fan of specific stars to locate the site of related scandals.
Very helpful for scandal lovers!.......2005-02-25
I love visiting celebrity graves and infamous locations so this book was perfect for me. I even learned about a few scandals I had never heard about before. Mr. Fleming provides good directions and helpful tips so you won't miss a thing. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Hollywood scandals.
You have to do it to believe it.......2003-11-11
I have family that lives in the L.A. area and when I visit them, they know we will do a "Death Tour". They teased me at first and then when we started seeing the sites, they stopped!! Now they look forward to the next tour that we will take. This book is an interesting compilation of not only where events have taken place, but also the history behind them. Although, the title can seem a bit ominous, there are a lot of other sites to see in the book besides "DEATH" (stars homes, arrest locations, homes used for TV shows, etc.). So, as for the previous review about this being too morbid, I completely disagree. Besides, death is after all a part of life. Enjoy...I certainly have!
too morbid for my taste..........2001-06-27
first things first, it is a very good book with great research but just too morbid for my taste. I prefer sight seeing of star homes, movie studios, the Chinese theater, the wax museum, etc.... where celebrities met their mortality has never interested me...
Things To Do On Your Vacation (or a free Saturday in L.A.).......2000-10-26
Several years ago an L.A. cemetery worker told me that a Chicago area resident was researching a book about Hollywood cemeteries and death sites. I am assuming this is it. This is a chatty gem of a tour book that examines some uncoventional tourist attractions ----- predominantly suicide, death and scandal sites ----- and is loaded with information. Having done my own bizarre self-designed tours in L.A., I wish I had this book in the past as I would have saved myself much time and trouble. The narrative was informative and well-written and provided a lot of facts, along with some excellent (and fairly current) pictures. For the most part the information was accurate, but I did identify some questionable facts mostly involving dates. My immediate impression was that this book probably should have been proofed better before it went to print, but it is quite apparent that the author really does know his/her subject matter and did a fairly thorough job researching the subject matter. Is it worth the $35 price tag.......definitely! It provided me with a full day's worth of enjoyment and was a lot cheaper and more fun than a trip to Disneyland. Will I use it again? Absolutely........I have only done a couple of the tours so far!
Customer Reviews:
Yeah for Tallulah!.......2003-07-30
It's easy to figure out after reading this book that Baxt actually knew Tallulah Bankhead at the time when this story is set. (1952). She is portrayed by him in all her outrageous glory, "dahling". What a character she was! This book is extremely entertaining and I enjoyed it the most of the three I've read so far. The book is set during the time of the infamous McCarthy hearings. Careers and lives hung on the decisions made by the HUAC. It's when friend turned on friend and enemies swore bitter revenge. Baxt has taken it one step further to revenge murders for those that "squealed" on their freinds in the hearings. It is very realistic and because we know how many lives were totally wrecked during this dark chapter in American history, it makes the book very realistic. Tallulah teams with Detective Jacob Singer (who we last saw in the Dorothy Parker Murder Case) to unmask a killer. The romp that we have while trying to keep up with the erstwhile Tallulah makes this book a lot of fun.
Tallulah Lives Again - A Great Read.......1998-06-19
I've enjoyed the entire Baxt celebrity mystery series, but this one is possibly the most entertaining of the bunch. Baxt knew Tallulah, and he brings her outrageous style to roraring life here. He also captures the essence of other stars, from Estelle Winwood to Ethel Merman, while mapping out a dah-ling little plot. A first-rate bit of fun for show-biz buffs and mystery lovers alike.
Book Description
Her father and her uncle were U.S. congressmen. Her grandfather was a U. S. senator. Although born to privilege in Alabama and groomed in a convent school, Tallulah Bankhead resolved not to be just another Southern belle.
Quickly she rose to the top and became an acclaimed actress of London's West End and on the Broadway stage. Her performances in many plays of the 1920s brought her to the notice of Hollywood. She starred in such Paramount films as My Sin, Faithless, The Devil and the Deep, and Thunder Below. Even though she won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for her leading role in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), she never achieved the prominence in movies that she enjoyed in the theater and on radio. On the New York stage she originated the starring roles of Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and of Sabina in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth.
Tallulah, like Eudora, Flannery, and Coretta, was a southern woman identifiable by her first name. Her flamboyant public personality may be the most fully realized and memorable character Bankhead ever played. She became famous for her snappy repartee, candid quotes, and scandalous lifestyle. She was disposed to remove her clothes and chat in the nude. Overfond of Kentucky bourbon and wild parties, she was a lady baritone who called everybody "Dahling."
In Tallulah, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller for twenty-six weeks, Bankhead's literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London. Along with a searing defense of her lifestyle and rambunctious habits, she provides a fiercely opinionated, wildly funny account of American stage at a time when the movies were beginning to cast theater into eclipse. This is not only a memoir of an independent woman but also an insider look at American entertainment during a golden age.
Book Description
Outrageous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Tallulah Bankhead was an actress known as much for her vices -- cocaine, alcohol, hysterical tirades, and scandalous affairs with both men and women -- as she was for her winning performances on stage. In 1917, a fifteen-year-old Bankhead boldly left her established Alabama political family and fled to New York City to sate her relentless need for attention and become a star. Five years later, she crossed the Atlantic, immediately taking her place as a fixture in British society and the most popular actress in London's West End. By the time she returned to America in the 1930s, she was infamous for throwing marathon parties, bedding her favorite costars, and neglecting to keep her escapades a secret from the press. At times, her notoriety distracted her audience from her formidable talent and achievements on stage and dampened the critical re-sponse to her work. As Bankhead herself put it, "they like me to 'Tallulah,' you know -- dance and sing and romp and fluff my hair and play reckless parts." Still, her reputation as a wild, witty, over-the-top leading lady persisted until the end of her life at the age of sixty-six.
From her friendships with such entertainment luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Estelle Winwood, Billie Holiday, Noël Coward, and Marlene Dietrich, to the intimate details of her family relationships and her string of doomed romances, Joel Lobenthal has captured the private essence of the most public star during theater's golden age. Larger-than-life as she was, friends saw through Bankhead's veneer of humor and high times to the heart of a woman who often felt second-best in her father's eyes, who longed for the children she was unable to bear, and who forced herself into the spotlight to hide her deep-seated insecurities.
Drawn from scores of exclusive interviews, as well as previously untapped information from Scotland Yard and the FBI, this is the essential biography of Tallulah Bankhead. Having spent twenty-five years researching Bankhead's life, Joel Lobenthal tells her unadulterated story, as told to him by her closest friends, enemies, lovers, and employees. Several have broken decadelong silences; many have given Lobenthal their final interviews. The result is the story of a woman more complex, more shocking, and yet more nuanced than her notorious legend suggests.
Customer Reviews:
Curse of the Black Widow on the Author.......2005-09-29
If you're hoping for that "dishy," tell-all, spicy account of Tallulah's life, this ISN'T it! That bio is still to be written. This attempt at capturing the essence of the grande dame suffers from two fatal diseases: tedium and barely tolerable--lethal combinations in any dose. And, there are glaring errors of fact. Someone fell asleep at the research table! Better to view some of la Bankhead's films than try to wade through these waters. Anyone got a Lifeboat?!!!
The artist in context.......2005-09-18
She's been dead for nearly 40 years and she's still controversial. There were certainly bigger stars, but there was one Tallulah. In my childhood I remember her as a deep-voiced woman who carried a long cigarette holder and called everyone "dahling." I had no idea that she had at one time been considered a great actress. She originated two of the great roles of the 20th Century American theatre: Regina in Lillian Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES and the Sabina in Thorton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH. She received the New York Film Critics Award as Best Actress for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT. Opinon was always divided on whether she was truly a great actress or merely a strong charismatic personality. Her professional achievements were overwhelmed by an oversized caricature of herself she popularized on radio. Rumors of her offstage behavior did not help matters. There have been several other biographies of Tallulah since her death. They have tended to focus on the sensational aspects of her life. Joel Lobenthal has subtitled his book, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A LEADING LADY. He examines the life of the artist and the context in which she lived and worked. This is a detailed work. He gives synopses of every play Bankhead ever appeared in and lets us know how critics, public and co-workers assessed her performances. He does not neglect the seamier side of Tallulah's life. Her alcoholism, drug usage, exhibitionism, numerous sexual escapades with members of both sexes are all recounted, often in more detail than previously reported. But the main focus is on the artist. Lobenthal has great respect for his subject's artistry, and that is very refreshing. The detail of this book may bore some people, but for those with a strong interest in the English speaking theatre of the 20th Century, this book will prove informative and provocative.
Best Bio of Tallulah.......2005-09-07
If you're looking for dish, this biography on Tallulah Bankhead, is not for you. Granted there is dish here, but this is a scholarly, well reseached biography that tries (perhaps too hard) to establish Tallulah as a talented actress of her time, rather than concentrate on her offstage antics. Using her autobiography, memoirs and interviews of people who worked with her, reviews and letters, this book is exhaustively researched. I did find some of the text rather dry, especially the background and plots of her various plays, but there is so much new material here one can forgive the author his occasional lapses. Sadly, the real Tallulah still remains somewhat of a mystery (even to herself) when one finishes the book. A talented, beautiful actress whose personal excesses led to an early death (she was only in her mid 60's) and trapped her in her later years as a caricature who no one took seriously anymore. In many ways, she was her own worst enemy. The chapters on her final years are especially sad. The definitive Bankhead biography has yet to be written, but in the mean time this one will do very nicely!
A Book For The Ages.......2005-08-17
Joel Lobenthal's book is a remarkable feat. He has rescued Tallulah Bankhead from her fans.
I can't understand the horrid reviews this book has gotten from others on the site. I found his work utterly compelling and a vast improvement on every other book I've seen (all of which I've enjoyed by the way). It's just that Lobenthal has done something no other biographer has attempted-he has gone back and attempted to recreate the actual performances that she gave, by various means, including locating fellow castmates, some of them of extreme age but all of them with amazing, never before heard memories and anecdotes. They build up a picture of Bankhead as being the exact opposite of the coke-addled personality-driven dilettante we have been used to for a long, long time.
And Lobenthal's research has deep roots! He worked on this project for close to 30 years, and it shows. He seems to know everything about Bankhead, but about American and British theater throughout the 20th century. Plus, he has persuaded his witnesses to spill all the beans and you'll find things out in this book which you never imagined about all of your favorite actors, writers and directors.
What a roller coaster ride Bankhead had for a career. Things looked pretty bleak for her by the mid 1930s and then in rapid succession she landed a series of parts which put her once again in the thick of the theatrical action and even returned her to movies. As Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES, she brought her Southern gentility into play, and got out the claws. As Lily Sabina in Thornton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, she brought European expressionism onto the Broadway stage during World War II. Philip Barry's FOOLISH NOTION, though not a commercial success, was an amazing dream play in which Bankhead's character imagined herself acting out alternative scenarios a la Pirandello. She made a personal success out of Noel Coward's PRIVATE LIVES, eclipsing the memories of Gertrude Lawrence and replacing them with a raw wit that attracted many gay fans.
These fans, who stuck with her thick and thin, responded to something about her-both her emotional fragility and her perdurability. When she came to play Blanche in STREETCAR for Jean Dalrymple, in the 1950s, this claque dismayed her by hooting and carrying on as though they were watching Dame Edna. Bankhead's attempts at shading Blanche with vulnerability founding purchase in the wall of knowing laughter that greeted her every speech.
Soon we will have the first DVD of LIFEBOAT, a propitious moment for those of us who, intrigued by Lobenthal's account of her acting, want to see it first hand. (We also have the late products FANATIC-a/k/a DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! and the animated THE DAYDREAMER, for which Bankhead provided a character voice.) Let's get those early Paramount films available, and A ROYAL SCANDAL, and number one on my want list MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY, in which she apparently plays herself, advising a young playwright on breaking into the writing biz.
He is a master biographer, the theatrical equivalent of a Robert Caro or a Leon Edel. If he decided to write the life of his cat I'd line up for a copy.
Alas, STILL no definitive biography, .......2005-03-22
but then perhaps Tallulah doesn't need one. Despite Lobenthal's cloying efforts to 'legitimize' Tallulah's 'talents;' the fact seems to remain that as an artist she was marginally 'talented,' and a classic (and perhaps one of the first) example of one who became famous for being infamous. There is an abundance of research, cataloging, and protracted and downright boring review of plots of plays that nobody ever heard of...again, Lobenthal's desire to create something out of nothing...and one is left with the sense of 'so what.' It seems, from the many other accounts I have read of Tallulah, that one of her desires in life was not to bore people...would that Mr. Lobenthal had shared her desire.
Average customer rating:
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Tallulah
Brendan Gill
Manufacturer: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0030010268 |
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- The Kindness of a Stranger...Who Became a Friend
- This is a valuable theatrical memoir
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Costly Performances: Tennessee Williams : The Last Stage
Bruce Smith
Manufacturer: Authors Choice Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0595137571 |
Book Description
In his last years, America's leading playwright,Tennessee Williams, often threatened to publish a 'black book' describing the darker side of show business as he experienced it. Knowing he would not have time to complete it in his lifetime, he asked author Bruce Smith to write his personal memoirs of his years as Mr. Williams media and personal manager. That book is COSTLY PERFORMANCES/ Tennessee Williams: The Last Stage. It is now scheduled as a major motion picture release in 2005, starring Derek Jacobi as Tennessee Williams and Kevin Anderson as the author.
Customer Reviews:
The Kindness of a Stranger...Who Became a Friend.......2007-02-06
What is most striking about this book is its lack of sentimentality and incisive, sharp language. There has, indeed, been much written about Tennessee Williams, perhaps too much; the endless nonsense of his being a self-hating homosexual, the lurid tales of his promiscuity, the alleged Oedipal complexes, the temper tantrums and paranoia, and other such twaddle have all obfuscated many essential things about the genius who was Tennessee Williams. This excellent book stands out because it reminds us of Mr. Williams' power -as a person and a playwright- and at the same time it is not sycophantic nor is it cleverly bitchy. Smith, the author, meets Williams rather by accident and the unlikely friendship blossoms. I found the writing to be rather enthralling, evocative, and extremely well-crafted, which allows it to stand apart from many of the other (lesser) books on Williams. It is a memoir and does not purport to be anything but that, which allows the reader a keen insight into the life and work and humanity of the great Tennessee Williams. Because it is told from Smith's eyes the recounting of these stories is deeply personal and often effervescent with images and ideas; a far cry from the mawkish, self-consumed memoirs that pass as literature these days. I also liked the fact that Smith names some names and makes clear the case that the critics, PR people, and the various 'powers that be' in the theater and film worlds (i.e. agents, lawyers, producers) all played their part in Williams' miserable and protracted demise as much as the alcohol and pills did. And while Smith does not exculpate Williams from his vices he carefully explains why, he in fact, had them, and elucidates the nefarious forces constantly in conflict with the artist and his creative process.
Make no mistake this is Mr. Smith's story of his friendship with Tennessee, and thank goodness for its uniqueness, honesty, and edge. I think to truly appreciate this book one has to be familiar with serious writing (Eliot, Shaw) and not the Pop pap that sadly passes for publishable literature today. COSTLY PERFORMANCES and its author are both class acts and any writer or artist or person with a soul or fan of Tennessee Williams will love this book.
PS
The comment about grammatical errors is totally wrong and unfounded. And the Braun woman; who is she? "The author needed distance"? If she works in a library, how does she not know what a memoir is, and what the first person POV narrative offers the reader? These types of hit jobs are precisely the type of aforementioned `nefarious forces' to which I referred.
This is a valuable theatrical memoir.......2003-11-12
I am a young actor living in London where the plays of Tennesssee Williams are experiencing a great deal of interest within the entire theatre community: schools and universities; theatre companies; theatre media. All fans of his work are turning to background material on Williams and one of the most discussed -- and admired -- is Costly Performances/Tennessee Williams: The Last Stage by Bruce Smith. Mr Smith has, since writing this memoir, become actively involved in London's theatre world, saying he learned "at the master's hand" many enduring and valuable lessons re dramaturgy, play production and, more importantly, playwriting. His play 'Papal Gore' is scheduled for a West End staging. As well, his book about Mr. Williams is now being made into a major motion picture here in England. Real theatre people understand the sensitivity Mr. Smith brought to his portrayal of Mr Williams in his last, very difficult years and value it as a real contribution to 20th Century theatre history. It is highly literate but -- above all -- a very good read. This book, with Lyle Leverich's
The Unknown Tennessee Williams and the gossipy The Kindness of Strangers by Donald Spoto provide an indepth look at the author's life and times.
Customer Reviews:
Line The Parrot's Cage With This Pathetic Tome.......2007-08-30
When a biographer gives an innacurate birthdate for his subject, you know the book's credibility is less than zero. Ms Bankhead was born January 31, 1902, not, as David Bret claims, 1903. There is nothing new to be gleaned from this shabby pastiche of heresay and fabrication. Buy Brendan Gill's marvelous (out-of-print) "Tallulah" to get the true story.
All Hail the Ed Wood of Biographers!.......2000-10-28
After reading this book, I can assure you that the definitive biography of Tallulah Bankhead has yet to be written. The reader suffers through 250+ pages of garbled prose, which revels in the salacious details of Ms. Bankhead's life, only to find that he/she knows no more about the PERSON who was Tallulah than at the onset of the book. Furthermore, though Mr. Bret claims to have extensively researched his subject, the book conveys little firsthand knowledge of Tallulah or the people she knew. Most quotations in the book stem not from interviews, but from secondhand sources. The result is a laughingly bad work, on a par with any supermarket tabloid. Therefore, I beg you to save your money and buy the National Enquirer.
Scandalous doesn't begin to cover this legend's life.......1999-01-09
It is hard to imagine anyone leading a fuller life than Tallulah Bankhead. She did it all -- twice. The book jacket points out that she had 500 lovers of both sexes. She smoked 150 cigarettes a day and drank even while performing on the Broadway stage. The author has written a well researched book that points out the enigma that was Bankhead. She could be willful and spoiled as a child and yet keep people on her payroll years after firing them. Through all the tumult and excesses of her personal life, she still managed to give many engaging performances. In the end, her lust for life caught up with her and her lifestlye killed her at a relatively young age. Tallulah Bankhead is still a fascinating character and this book is a fascinating read.
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B: Twenty-nine letters from Coconut Grove
Sandy Campbell
Manufacturer: s.n.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0006CMAB4 |
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