Books The Hollywood Book of Scandals : The Shocking, Often Disgraceful Deeds and Affairs of Over 100 American Movie and TV Idols
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - The Hollywood Book of Scandals
The book came super fast, packaged perfectly (in cardboard so it did not bend or get damaged) and in excellent condition. Thank you!

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Rating: - Dishes the Dirt!
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

James Robert Parish has written enough books about Hollywood to fill a library.

He knows just about everything there is to know about vintage movies and movie stars. Not only are his books well researched and superb reference works, but they are also entertaining reading.

In this work, Parish explores Hollywood's underside, giving readers the inside scoop on some of Hollywood's juiciest scandals. He talks about the Errol Flynn rape case, Clark Gable and Loretta Young's love child, the Robert Blake murder trial and much more.

If you enjoy Hollywood gossip, this is the perfect book for you.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008)

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Rating: - Those who like this book really like it, those who don't really hate it
There's not much space, it seems, for in-betweens, but place me firmly in the "like" camp, especially since I've talked up this book favorably in reviews of several other Hollywood-gossip books here on Amazon. I will say I'm also in Parish's corner. I haven't read a _bad_ book from him yet, IMO. His "Hollywood Book Of..." series specializes in relatively short, punchy articles that are well-researched (certainly in comparison to some other books in this genre), evenhanded and crisply written. While the photos are not always anything special (his series on actresses features much better selections of pictures), they're also usually well-chosen and a lot less sensationalistic than, say, _Hollywood Babylon's_ selections.

Another reviewer questioned why Cary Grant's rooming with Randolph Scott should even be considered a scandal in 2007, which misses the point. It's not that it's not scandalous now, in 2007; the point is how it was regarded _back then_. If Parish doesn't make it clear in that particular instance, he generally does elsewhere in the book (for instance, in his analysis of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, where it was clear both at the time and now that Arbuckle was a railroaded, innocent man; in fact, Parish explodes the myth of Virginia Rappe's innocence and demonstrates that key (false) testimony was given by a friend of Rappe's who had an axe of her own to grind).

No book is perfect, though, and my own quibble is that Parish covers some material that's already been gone over in other books in the present series, while leaving out other material that clearly deserves inclusion. Specifically, I'm thinking of his section on the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow breakup, which was already discussed at length in "The Hollywood Book of Breakups". The space devoted to that rehash could have been used, instead, to talk about - for instance - the David Begelman check-forgery scandal (where actor Robert Stack discovered his name signed to a check he didn't draw or cash, which was ultimately traced to then-studio head Begelman).

All in all, though, I have no hesitation in recommending this book.

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Rating: - Poor book, badly disjointed, rehashing scandals most people already know about
I found this book to be very disjointed, badly organized, and even poorly written. The list of "scandals" is the same old list of tired stories, innuendo, and might-have-beens that every movie fan and scandal fan likely knows about already. Worse, some of the occurrences Parish lists aren't really even scandals - the fact that Robert Blake was tried for his wife's murder may be a scandal, but in 2007 is the fact that Cary Grant shared a house with a fellow male star even slightly scandalous? The only scandal is in those who judged him, one way or the other.

In addition, this book could have benefited from thorough copy editing and fact-checking. There are many minor and major factual errors and, in addition, many typos and grammatical errors.

I don't recommend this book.