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LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE LADIES OF HOLLYWOOD'S HEYDAY
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the Glitz, the Glamour, the Grittiness
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by Melanie Benjamin
It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist. But the word on everyone's lips these days is "flickers"--the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you'll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all.
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by ReShonda Tate Billingsley
As Hattie McDaniel took the stage in 1940 to claim an honor that would make her the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award, she tearfully took her place in history. Between personal triumphs and tragedies, heartbreaking losses, and severe setbacks, this historic night of winning best supporting actress for her role as the sassy Mammy in the controversial movie Gone With the Wind was going to be life-changing. Or so she thought ...
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by Serena Burdick
Cuba, 1936: When Estelita Rodriguez sings in a hazy Havana nightclub for the very first time, she is nine years old. From then on, that spotlight of adoration--from Havana to New York's Copacabana and then Hollywood--becomes the one true accomplishment no one can take from her.
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by Donis Casey
Thanks to a ferocious Pacific storm, the skeleton of Graham Peyton is uncovered from its hiding place, under rocks beneath a cliff. As private detective Ted Oliver investigates the final days leading up to Graham's demise, he stumbles across a connection between the dead man and Bianca LeBelle, a beautiful and brilliant movie star.
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by Jerome Charyn
Narrated by a starry-eyed lesbian, this novel reimagines the tragic career of Rita Hayworth and her indomitable husband, Orson Welles.
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by Juliette Fay
It's July 1921, "flickers" are all the rage, and Irene Van Beck has just declared her own independence by jumping off a moving train to escape her fate in a traveling burlesque show. When her friends, fellow dancer Millie Martin and comedian Henry Weiss, leap after her, the trio finds their way to the bright lights of Hollywood with hopes of making it big in the burgeoning silent film industry.
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by Maria Hummel
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven't spoken to one another in over four decades.
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by Laura Kalpakian
Backed by little more than the stubborn grit she inherited from her beloved grandmother, Roxanne sets up shop as a low-budget film agent for budding screenwriters. When an old friend, exiled from Hollywood and Empire Pictures by her grandfather for being a Communist sympathizer, begs for her help, Roxanne decides to right the wrongs committed by her family.
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by Maureen Lee Lenker
Joan Davis is a movie star, and a damned good actor, too. Unfortunately, Hollywood only seems to care when she stars alongside Dash Howard, Tinseltown's favorite leading man and a perpetual thorn in Joan's side. Then, a bombshell drops- thanks to one of his on-set pranks gone wrong, Dash and Joan are legally married ...
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by Lindsay Lynch
A glittering debut set in the golden age of Hollywood, following a former actress whose new career in gossip journalism grants her more power on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera.
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by Kerri Maher
Young Grace Kelly has the world at her feet. MGM's rising queen is poised to win the Oscar, but she's tired of the studio's increasing restrictions on her life. When an unexpected friendship develops between her and Prince Rainier of Monaco, she faces the tempting possibility of a new role. But life isn't like the movies ...
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by Anthony Marra
Maria has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Despite its cheap production values and factory-approach to making movies, Mercury Pictures is a nexus of refugees and émigrés, each struggling to reinvent themselves in the land of celluloid.
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by Alex MichaelidesThis is a tale of murder. Or maybe that's not quite true. At its heart, it's a love story, isn't it? I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind...and a murder.
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by Bâarbara Louise Mujica
Spirited away to Hollywood from Mexico City, Dolores del Río becomes an instant star, swept up into Tinseltown's glitzy inner circle, until, amidst her tumultuous personal life, she becomes box office poison ...
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by Amanda Skenandore
For Mirielle West, a 1920's socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood's Golden Age.
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by Sarah-Jane Stratford
A striking novel ... about two daring women who escape McCarthy-era Hollywood for London, where they find creative freedom and fight the injustices of the Red Scare.
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by Nghi Vo
Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill-but she doesn't care. She'd rather play a monster than a maid. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen.
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by Heather Webb
She was the small-town southern beauty transformed into a Hollywood love goddess. He was the legendary crooner whose voice transfixed the world. They were Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Separately they were irresistible; together they were an explosive combination.
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by Elizabeth Weiss
All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her twin sister, Josie. As "The Sisters Sweet," they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious father and managed by their practical mother, who were once theatrical stars in their own rights. Then, in an explosive act, Josie exposes the fraud in a spectacular fashion and runs away to Hollywood.
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by Chi-min Yi
American movie star Marilyn Monroe will be visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour, and Alice has been chosen as her translator. Though intrigued, Alice has few expectations of the job--what could she and a beautiful actress at the peak of her fame possibly have to talk about?
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Maybe this list isn't your jam. Check out the RPL Readers page for more lists. Or, if you'd prefer a hand-crafted, bespoke book suggestion list, try The Bookologist service. You need an RPL Library card to access. Don't have one? Find out how to get one here.
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