Salacious Biographies

[GringoTex]

I can out a famous gay filmmaker for having a girlfriend. But is it outing if he wasn't hiding her?

[David Ehrenstein]

Who are you talking about Tex?

[David Ehrenstein]

Check your e-mail Tex.

[GringoTex]

Check your e-mail Tex.

Well of course I didn't have any scoop on David, who has assured me that said filmmaker has recovered from his brief bout with bisexualitis.

[souvenir]

From the NY Post

January 28, 2007 -- SHE was one of the most alluring sex symbols of the 20th century, but Marlene Dietrich was so broke toward the end of her life that she solicited money from an obsessed fan in exchange for singing to him five nights a week - while he performed an act of sexual self-gratification.

In "The Grand Surprise," a collection of previously unseen journals of Leo Lerman - the late, flamboyant Vanity Fair magazine editor who was a lifelong pal of Dietrich - he writes that her daughter, Maria Riva, told him how the star had plummeted into the pits of "degradation" to survive in Paris in the late 1980s. Dietrich died in 1992 and Lerman in 1994.

"Marlene received a letter from a man in the San Fernando Valley. He told her how much he adored her, etc.," Lerman writes. "When she saw, from his letterhead, that he was a doctor, she rang him. This began endless telephone exchanges, during which he became more and more enslaved."

But when the doctor offered to fly to Paris to rescue her, Dietrich cut off communication for several weeks, only to start up the calls again and find him depressed about being out of touch and seeing a shrink five times a week for $90 a session.

" 'Why don't you give me that money,' she asked. 'I'll sing to you five times a week,' " Lerman wrote. "He sent her a $5,000 check. She cashed it." Dietrich then began her task, singing tunes like "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" to the doctor every night. "She sings to him," Riva told Lerman, "and you should excuse me, but I have to put it blankly - he [achieves sexual gratification] . . . If she was some woman from Oshkosh I could have her committed."

In the book, due out this April from Knopf, Lerman also reveals an unappetizing secret about the hygiene of another sex icon, Greta Garbo. "Marlene says Garbo has only two suits of underwear. They are made of men's shirting. She wears one for three days, then washes it, does not iron it. Then she wears the other," Lerman writes.

"Marlene says she doesn't mind the not ironing, but three days! Garbo uses only paper towels in her bathroom, has two pairs of men's trousers, two shirts, and little else in her wardrobe. She is very stingy."

[David Ehrenstein]

Fascinating stuff. Proving that whatever our fantasies might be Garbo and Dietrich probably never did the deed.

Marlene wouldn't tolerate anyone so unhygenic.

Was looking at Anna Karenina again just last night. Wow was Garbo teriffic!

[Matt]

The Dietrich story sounds like the plot of a von Sternberg film.

[devlinnn]

While not terribly salicious, Farley Granger's recent autobiography Include Me Out proves those that sit on the fence do have the most fun. I'm halfway through, and so far he's namechecked Patricia Neal, Arthur Laurents, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Tyrone Power as very good friends. Sadly for Danny Kaye, Granger had little time.

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's a nice interview with Granger about the book and his career.

[David Ehrenstein]

Donald Spoto has written a biography of Alan Bates that's about to come out -- "outing " Bates for the five people who didn't know he was gay.

[Matt]

Donald Spoto has written a biography of Alan Bates that's about to come out -- "outing " Bates for the five people who didn't know he was gay.

What I wouldn't give for a time machine and the guts to chat up Alan Bates circa The Caretaker.

[patrick]

My friend recently saw Kenneth Anger speak, and said that afterwards he was told that Julianne Moore is one of the major targets of Hollywood Babylon III, but he wasn't told why.

[Matt]

My friend recently saw Kenneth Anger speak, and said that afterwards he was told that Julianne Moore is one of the major targets of Hollywood Babylon III, but he wasn't told why.

Anger is so addle-pated at this point that he's probably confusing Julianne Moore with Juanita Moore.

[feckless boy]

And eventually "...take my hips to a man who cares..."

[Lino]

Ok, what's the best book (salaciously speaking) on Liz?

[Matt]

Ok, what's the best book (salaciously speaking) on Liz?

I haven't read it, but surely it's got to be the Kitty Kelley book. Of course, that was published in 1981, so you'd be missing a whole quarter-century worth of gossip on Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson, and Larry Fortenski (for starters). Then again, it would be untempered by attempts at hagiography for her tireless AIDS charity work and declining health.

[Michael]

I'm looking for the best biography of Judy Garland to spend the rest of the summer. Years ago I read one called Get Happy which I found dull but from that book, I learned that Tom Drake was gay and to come to think of it, all the young guys in Meet Me in St. Louis are HOT and how fantastic it must be playing one of the Smith sisters.

Recommendations please?

[Michael]

Has anyone here read this?

[mentalist]

Maureen O'Hara's autobiography is pretty salacious -- and perhaps a little bitter, too. Anyway, she talks about accidentally seeing John Ford and a famous male star (whom she doesn't name) kissing.

Then, of course, there's Ford's notorious sex hygiene "documentary" he made for the army.

Ever seen his early Fox Film The Blue Eagle, or at least what remains of it? I clearly remember a slightly gratuitous scene of sweaty (dripping with) bare chested seamen working in the bowels of a ship and wondering myself whether Ford may have found the whole scene ... alluring.

[SheriffAmbrose]

Then, of course, there's Ford's notorious sex hygiene "documentary" he made for the army.

Can someone please elaborate on exactly what goes on in this hygiene film?

[tryavna]

Can someone please elaborate on exactly what goes on in this hygiene film?

In the footnote at the bottom, DVD Savant gives a pretty good description of the more grotesque elements of the film, except that he fails to mention all the shots of soldiers washing their genitals.

What is particularly telling, as Joseph MacBride points out in his biography of Ford, is that the only Ford film that deals explicitly with sex "makes the subject seem thoroughly revolting."

EDIT: Why don't you just watch it for yourself. It should be the first video at the top of this Google Video page. (Don't watch it near any meal times.)

[SheriffAmbrose]

Why don't you just watch it for yourself. It should be the first video at the top of this Google Video page. (Don't watch it near any meal times.)

Cool thanks!

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Not a salacious biography, more like a salacious autobiography by Kathleen Turner entitled Send Yourself Roses. New York Times has an interview with her.

An excerpt:

Burt Reynolds? “Burt was just nasty,” she writes.

meow!

[Michael]

Has anyone read Under the Rainbow: An Intimate Memoir of Judy Garland, Rock Hudson and My Life in Old Hollywood by John Carlyle?

Judy and Rock are among my favorite people but I have never heard of John Carlyle. Any comments?

[Michael]

You got that right, I never read John Carlyle's book. But that book you're recommending sounds so much more fascinating. I'm going to pick it up. Thanks.