The cover of today’s giveaway fills me with gossip-loving glee:
I am sure many of you are familiar with Anne Helen Petersen, whose awesome column for The Hairpin on this very topic has made its way into many a Fugs & Pieces (and who interviewed us for them once, as well), and whose writing at Buzzfeed and elsewhere is reliably excellent and oft-linked to and awesome. I am very excited to be giving away her new book!
THE PRIZE: Let’s turn to our friends at Barnes & Noble and see what they say. Ahem:
Gossip meets history—a compulsively readable collection of Hollywood’s most notorious clashes and controversies in the spirit of Hollywood Babylon
Believe it or not, America’s fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Perez Hilton, Charlie Sheen’s breakdown and allegations against Woody Allen. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren’t always the saints that we make them out to be. Film professor Anne Helen Petersen is here to set the record straight with Scandals of Classic Hollywood. Pulling little-known gems from the archives of film history, Petersen reveals eyebrow-raising information, including:
- The smear campaign against the original It Girl, Clara Bow, started by her best friend
- The heartbreaking story of Montgomery Clift’s rapid rise to fame, the car accident that destroyed his face, and the “long suicide” that followed
- Fatty Arbuckle’s descent from Hollywood royalty, fueled by allegations of a boozy orgy turned violent assault
- Why Mae West was arrested and jailed for “indecency charges”
- And much more
Part biography, part cultural history, these stories cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups. But it’s not all just tawdry gossip in the pages of this book. The stories are all contextualized within the boundaries of film, cultural, political, and gender history, making for a read that will inform as it entertains. Based on Petersen’s popular column on the Hairpin, but featuring 100% new content, Scandals of Classic Hollywood is sensationalism made smart.
THE TASK: We have five copies to give away today! I am going to pick our winners at random from the comments. To keep it fun, please tell us what Hollywood scandal you’d most like to see made into a (potentially terrible) movie. (My would be Lindsay Lohan’s Summer of Car-Jacking, starring Lindsay as herself, for Logo.)
THE RULES: All entries must be posted in the comments of this post by 9 p.m. Pacific time on Monday. (US and Canada residents only, unfortunately.) FYI, if this is the first time you’ve commented here, (a) I’m very glad you’re here and (b) the system will automatically kick you into comment moderation, but don’t worry, I will rescue you.
