BOOKS ABOUT SHOW BUSINESS, FROM TODAY & THE GOLDEN AGE

The Girls in the Picture
By Melanie Benjamin

Known as the “Queen of Movies,” Mary Pickford was the first actual movie star in Hollywood. She won the first Academy Award and put her hand and footprints on Grauman’s Theater sidewalk. Frances Marion was known as the top and highest-paid screenwriter of her time. Together, best friends and business partners, these women took the town by storm. From vaudeville and silent movies, Charlie Chaplin and the infamous Westerns, incredible author Melanie Benjamin takes us through the lives of these beautiful, talented and strong women. One hundred years ago, the casting couch was full of action and a handful of men ran the studios with an iron fist. Pickford and Marion became so successful they were the first women finally able to direct their own movies. Including a history of rough childhoods, difficult marriages and two world wars, this fascinating story is magically brought to life on these pages.

The Only Woman in the Room
By Marie Benedict

Hedwig Kiesler was an Austrian-born beauty most people remember as Hedy Lamarr, the glamorous Hollywood movie star from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Talented, exotic and married six times, Lamarr’s intelligence was not the first thing one might have noticed. But Hedy was brilliant and observant and possessed a confidence that helped quickly catapult her to stardom. She was a powerful woman at a time when beautiful women were only to be found hanging on the arm of an important man. Author Marie Benedict shares the fascinating story of Lamarr’s life, from her early days as a young stage actress in Vienna to dinners shared with Nazis and her first marriage to Fritz, a slippery Austrian weapons manufacturer. Overhearing the Third Reich’s plans while with her husband, she makes an escape to Hollywood and eventually uses her knowledge of the enemy, paired with a background as a scientist, to create an invention that would change the world.

Nora Goes Off Script
By Annabel Monaghan

Nora is a single mom living in a small town, struggling to pay the mortgage and keep her eclectic home from crumbling. She writes screenplays for The Romance Channel while her no-good husband has disappeared. Nora pours her soul into a screenplay called “The Tea House.” While it doesn’t have the Hallmark happy ending her agent expected, it’s a powerful story loosely based on her own heartbreak. Quickly set for production with the sexiest man alive playing the main character, Nora is thrown for a loop when they unexpectedly film a scene in her own yard. She and the heartthrob, Leo, fall into their own surprising romance and the entire town – including her two kids – instantly warm to Leo’s charms. When he is called away to work on another film, Nora wonders if she imagined the whole thing. A script within a script, this tender, laugh-out-loud rom-com is simply delightful.

How to Fake it in Hollywood 
By Ava Wilder

It’s been a year since Grey Brooks has worked. When her long-running TV series ended, so did the acting offers. Having acted since childhood, Grey at 27 considers herself extremely lucky. She helped her mother pay the bills when her deadbeat dad left and has been independent since. When she eyes a role that could put her back in the spotlight, her feisty publicist feels the directors need a little nudge. She pushes Grey to create a fake relationship with a reclusive A-lister who could also use a creative comeback. A decade older, Ethan Atkins was Grey’s ultimate teen heartthrob, a poster that hung on her wall fulfilling all her young fantasies. She agrees with the plan, never dreaming their chemistry would be off the charts. When the paparazzi become uncontrollable, Grey and Ethan must put down their scripts and face their actual feelings, Hollywood style.

Karen Newfield is first and foremost a reader, she has reviewed hundreds of books on her blog www.readingandeating.com. And, more recently, this new Keys resident has also begun writing.