Hollywood Babylon

[Michael O'Regan]

So, I've been leafing through a copy of this and I'm wondering exactly how much of this stuff is true? Did Anger invent a lot of this stuff?

[drednm]

No, it's all true.

[entredeuxguerres]

The author was almost as much a stickler for facts & accuracy as Oliver Stone.

[drednm]

See. Just as I said.....

[Michael O'Regan]

OK, well I was kind looking for a straight answer. Call me dumb, but I feel like I didn't get one.
I don't know a lot about the history of these books, so I'm asking is all.

[FrankFay]

There are bits of truth here and there, but for the most part it's safe to assume that what you read in those books is a lie or a gross exaggeration. Some horribly fascinating pictures, like the mangled corpse of Jayne Mansfield's lapdog in the death car.

[Frederica]

OK, well I was kind looking for a straight answer. Call me dumb, but I feel like I didn't get one.
I don't know a lot about the history of these books, so I'm asking is all.

Anger was dishing up the dish. It isn't factually true (not by a long shot), but it's true in the sense that he was recording gossip, the more tawdry the better. I'm sure he probably embellished quite a bit because he's Kenneth Anger. As a record of what actually happened it's disastrously flawed. As a record of the squalid gossip people will swallow about movie stars--hook, line, and sinker--it's unsurpassed.

[entredeuxguerres]

Sorry, Mike; here's a straightforward evaluation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Babylon" target="_blank

Worse thing about reading vile gossip is that it usually becomes permanently lodged in the gray cells, while other more useful info fades away.

[Bruce Long]

Even the photos are sometimes not what they claim to be. For example, the photo on p. 96 ("On board the Oneida, Marion Davies welcomes Tom Ince") was published over a year earlier and was really a photo of Davies welcoming Robert Vignola, see http://archive.org/stream/MorningTelegr ... 1/mode/1up" target="_blank

[sepiatone]

didn't Anger get right the circumstances surrounding the death of Ramon Novarro - 1968. Or was that because Novarro's murder is more recent Hollywood history covered in the news media, and not buried in obscurity in 40 or 50 years of film history.

[Frederica]

didn't Anger get right the circumstances surrounding the death of Ramon Novarro - 1968. Or was that because Novarro's murder is more recent Hollywood history covered in the news media, and not buried in obscurity in 40 or 50 years of film history.

I haven't read Anger in a long while, but wasn't it he who promulgated that absurd iron dildo story? Because, no. Andre Soares covers the circumstances of Novarro's death very carefully in Beyond Paradise, which btw is one of the best movie-star biographies I've ever read.
http://www.altfg.com/blog/actors/beyond ... n-novarro/" target="_blank" target="_blank

[FrankFay]

I think it was a lead dildo / phallic paperweight, but in any respect No, Anger was quite off base.

He is also one of the prime sources for the Lupe Velez drowning in the toilet story.

Hala Pickford did an extensive debunking of these books - her blog is now inactive but some of the text is still around. She is something of a piece of work herself but on this subject I agree with her.

[sepiatone]

didn't Anger get right the circumstances surrounding the death of Ramon Novarro - 1968. Or was that because Novarro's murder is more recent Hollywood history covered in the news media, and not buried in obscurity in 40 or 50 years of film history.

I haven't read Anger in a long while, but wasn't it he who promulgated that absurd iron dildo story? Because, no. Andre Soares covers the circumstances of Novarro's death very carefully in Beyond Paradise, which btw is one of the best movie-star biographies I've ever read.
http://www.altfg.com/blog/actors/beyond ... n-novarro/" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

yep, he was the guy, and it took a long time for authors to debunk it. There was even a video in the early days of betamax and VHS that video stores rented, and it was based on the Anger books I and II. I remember the segments on Novarro, Thelma Todd and Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer. It was well-done, but as we have seen inaccurate as it is based on the Anger books. It left me feeling cold and sad.

[Frederica]

yep, he was the guy, and it took a long time for authors to debunk it. There was even a video in the early days of betamax and VHS that video stores rented, and it was based on the Anger books I and II. I remember the segments on Novarro, Thelma Todd and Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer. It was well-done, but as we have seen inaccurate as it is based on the Anger books. It left me feeling cold and sad.

They left me feeling like Alice Roosevelt Longworth. If you haven't got anything nice to say about anyone, come sit next to me.

[sepiatone]

oh I loved her

[FrankFay]

oh I loved her

If you mean Hala Pickford, yes there was some very good material in her blog, but she got into some nasty disputes over Valentino and some questionable business practices. Too bad.

[entredeuxguerres]

I think it was a lead dildo / phallic paperweight, but in any respect No, Anger was quite off base.

Lead...iron...? What man of means would commission his prosthetic in these base metals? My source (confidential, naturally) reports the bibelot was sterling silver; I can't swear to it, you understand.

[s.w.a.c.]

Somewhere I have a comic book of so-called Hollywood lore, most of which seems to be cribbed from the Anger books, including a graphic portrayal of both the Arbuckle/Rappe incident and the Velez suicide, which only helps perpetuate the myths. Somehow the illustrations make it all seem even more mean-spirited, if such a thing is possible.

[JFK]

Somewhere I have a comic book of so-called Hollywood lore, most of which seems to be cribbed from the Anger books, including a graphic portrayal of both the Arbuckle/Rappe incident and the Velez suicide, which only helps perpetuate the myths. Somehow the illustrations make it all seem even more mean-spirited, if such a thing is possible.

A Tijuana Bible image that was included by Anger in Babylon

- without - to avoid legal action- much editorial comment.

[sepiatone]

oh I loved her

If you mean Hala Pickford, yes there was some very good material in her blog, but she got into some nasty disputes over Valentino and some questionable business practices. Too bad.

uh...no, I was responding to Frederica's comment on Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy's sassy and opinionated oldest child.

[FrankFay]

oh I loved her

If you mean Hala Pickford, yes there was some very good material in her blog, but she got into some nasty disputes over Valentino and some questionable business practices. Too bad.

uh...no, I was responding to Frederica's comment on Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy's sassy and opinionated oldest child.

Ahh...the perils of responding without quoting.

Alice Longworth was still alive when I lived in DC in 1979. I stood in front of her house many a time...there was a bus stop there & she hated it...so did her neighbors who allowed the hedges to grow so thick you couldn't stand near the property or they'd grab you.

[s.w.a.c.]

Somewhere I have a comic book of so-called Hollywood lore, most of which seems to be cribbed from the Anger books, including a graphic portrayal of both the Arbuckle/Rappe incident and the Velez suicide, which only helps perpetuate the myths. Somehow the illustrations make it all seem even more mean-spirited, if such a thing is possible.

A Tijuana Bible image that was included by Anger in Babylon

- without - to avoid legal action- much editorial comment.

I have a paperback collection of Tijuana bibles, most are parodies of comic strips, but there are a few celebrity-themed ones, off the top of my head I believe there are Valentino and Clara Bow comics.

[Mike Gebert]

For me the issue with Hollywood Babylon is that because it documents what is mostly undocumented, it is the only primary source for so much of this stuff, and no one will ever know what was true, what was gossip, and what was made up. There's a memoir by some supposed Hollywood gay gigolo and one of the things cited in its favor is that it confirms things we supposedly knew about this or that star.

In other words, its quite possibly made up gossip is careful to correspond with the existing quite possibly made up gossip in Hollywood Babylon, and thus to seem true because it matches it. That's all.

[Frederica]

In other words, its quite possibly made up gossip is careful to correspond with the existing quite possibly made up gossip in Hollywood Babylon, and thus to seem true because it matches it. That's all.

Which has value, as long as it's properly defined.

[FrankFay]

There's a somewhat famous person who swore that he'd had an affair with Valentino and would show a souvenir - http://cruiseorbecruised.tumblr.com/pos ... ng-rudolph" target="_blank but it has been conclusively proven that at the time the affair purportedly happened Valentino wasn't even on that side of the continent. Still, the story will continue to circulate- to paraphrase Anthony Trollope "Lies are more beautiful than the truth"

[Michael O'Regan]

I kinda enjoyed reading through some of the books, but, at the same time felt "why am I wasting my time with this shit?"

[Frederica]

I kinda enjoyed reading through some of the books, but, at the same time felt "why am I wasting my time with this shit?"

Like covering your eyes so you don't have to see the train wreck...but leaving just a wee gap. Oops, I saw it! Ew!

[Michael O'Regan]

Hah! Yeah, something like that.

[barry byrne]

Matthew Sweet wrote a book called "Shepperton Babylon" (2006) which is really a series of essays on the near forgotten years of the British cinema, from early silents to more recent non-mainstream movies. It is not especially about Shepperton and draws on interviews with now dead participants. Unlike the other book, it is not sensationalist but does contain lots of colour. Worth a read.

As usual, it makes one regret that little of the oral history of early cinema was recorded and that myths became certainties.

Time marches on

[Frederica]

Matthew Sweet wrote a book called "Shepperton Babylon" (2006) which is really a series of essays on the near forgotten years of the British cinema, from early silents to more recent non-mainstream movies. It is not especially about Shepperton and draws on interviews with now dead participants. Unlike the other book, it is not sensationalist but does contain lots of colour. Worth a read.

As usual, it makes one regret that little of the oral history of early cinema was recorded and that myths became certainties.

Time marches on

Oh, I dunno. Yes, it's important to record the oral histories, don't get me wrong. But half the time it's the oral histories that have created and promulgated the myths. Those old movie people were a big bunch of gossips, not prone to letting a fact stand in the way of a good story, and too many of them seemed to know a lot of stuff they couldn't possibly have known. Adela Rogers St. Johns was at every event that ever took place in Hollywood, ever, and everyone spilled their guts to her at every possible juncture, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was a reporter. What are the chances? Recording the oral history is invaluable, but you don't have to accept everything people say as the unvarnished truth, which is what we have done, for far too long. For sheer malevolence it's hard to top what has been done to Virginia Rappe's reputation but we accepted that as gold standard history, didn't we? This was at the same time we were clutching our pearls over Anger's sensationalism.