Hollywood Revisited by Sheilah Graham

 Did you know that Ingrid Bergman was not in love with Roberto Rosellini, or that Elizabeth Taylor began her affair with Richard Burton to make Joseph Mankiewicz jealous? Did you also know that Marilyn Monroe had bad hair, and skin when she first went to Hollywood? These are just Sheilah Graham’s opinions, of course, but as she was an important gossip columnist there for decades, she was in a position to know! Apparently, she was bitchy, but she wasn’t cruel like Hedda Hopper, and Louella Parsons.

This book was fun to read, with lots of intriguing and amusing anecdotes about the old Hollywood stars, such as Clark Gable and Gregory Peck. She also compares the Hollywood of the thirties and forties with the Hollywood of 1984, when it was written, which I found a bit dull compared with the rest of the book.  I also found the book a bit annoying because of the constant name-dropping, and her overwhelming confidence and boasting about men paying her attention, although she was very beautiful. There’s not much about her romance with F. Scott Fitzgerald here,  although she writes about the film of her book Beloved Infidel about it. That would be much more interesting than this book, I think.

I’m not sure if many people would be very interested in this book now, unless they’re keen on gossip about old Hollywood stars. I’ll definitely read her books about her relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and watch the movie again.

I read this for the Rose City Reader TBR 26 in ‘26 Challenge.