The MGM Girls: Behind the Velvet Curtain

The preface states that any book focusing on Hollywood's past as informed by the personalities, is burdened by gossip, speculation, and outright lies - a source described by Norman Mailer as "factoids". This book has jumping chronology, splintered focus, occasional repetition, and there is no attempt to present the full biographies of these ladies, but the Browns have the knack of presenting trash on a silver tray. It all started with Louis B Mayer. After he had established his studio he saw that audiences were more captivated by women than men, so he set about finding star actresses. Unable to borrow Gloria Swanson or Mary Pickford, he devised a battle plan where he would create his own stars - Daddy's little girls, who were thirsty enough to "drink from his goblet of temptation". This is how the careers of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford were launched. Crawford's rise is paralled with the downfall of Mae Murray, who re-made herself after extensive plastic surgery into a Jazz age baby with bee-stung lips at the age of 39. Although Mayer grew impatient with her demand for extravagance, and she battled with director Erich Von Stroheim on The Merry Widow, she was the number one box office attraction in the world. But it all ended when she ran off with a phony Russian prince, and ended up sleeping on a park bench. It is thought that Crawford's feud with Norma Shearer began when Joan's first film appearance was one line with her back to the camera, while Shearer acted. Crawford was shrewd enough to see Murray's example and play the obedient employee, agreeing to a regimented diet not unlike the one imposed on Judy Garland, and in a Faustian gesture, trading happiness for fame. Mayer imparted a strict moral over his stars. It was one thing to perceive onscreen dalliance when he thought the "dirty dancing" employed by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in The Pirate's Voodoo number revealed Garland's interest in Kelly, with her own husband directing proceedings, and ordered the scene deleted from the film (though later we are told the tale of Garland's drug-induced paranoia that left the number incomplete). It was worse when the stars made offscreen love. A case in point was Crawford and Clark Gable, both married at the time, though Gable at the time was not yet the star he would become. Mayer used this as leverage and since Gable prized his career over his love for Crawford, Mayer won. Some stars had the opposite problem. It is said that Garbo's erotic kissing of Robert Taylor's face in Camille is due more to her frustration of his fear of touching her. Garbo is said to have poured over every magazine and gossip column that mentioned her "in a manner that would have made an adolescent girl blush". The world's fascination with her was ironic because in private she was shallow and the owner of "a chilly soul". The myth of her reclusiveness was created to cover her public incompetence. Her sets were closed, she was even separated from her crew, and the studio