In preparation for my trip out to Los Angeles, I picked up a guide book that listed locations of historical importance to movies and television in Los Angeles. They could be movie studios, shooting locations, and. more often then not, the places where some of the greatest tragedies in Hollywood occured.
In listing the places where these suicides, murders and other nefarious acts took place, they also mentioned Hollywood Babylon, which supposedly was supposed to go into more detail into them.
Obviously, I had to get it.
See, I have a morbid, dark side. I am also, I am ashamed to say, very nosy. I need to have the story behind the story. So, when I heard of the content of this book, I had to check it out.
The book reads like a it was written by a casual acquaintence who likes to impress you with the amount of gossip they can spread.
Originally written in 1954, with a chapter or two written after for later editions to cover the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Tate, Jayne Mansfield, and others, the book mainly covers the early days of Hollywood, from the turn of the century to the 1940's.
There seems to be a popular belief that the years prior to the 1960s were a simpler, more innocent time. If the stories in this book are to be believed, they most certainly weren't. Rock 'n Roll wasn't around at the time, so they made due with more Sex and Drugs.
If I had to pick one word to describe the book, the word would be lurid. Not only in detailing the stories, but also in the inclusion crime scene photos of corpses or the rich and famous and pictures of many a star in the nude. Some of it is in bad taste, made more so by some of the captions included. This is not a book for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
It is a quick read and interesting if you take it with a grain of salt. It did provide me with a story idea. A Vertigoesque one which will probably never see the light of day.
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