Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1920-1969

Synopsis

WILLIAM J. MANN'S Behind the Screen is a thoughtful and eye-opening look at the totality of the gay experience in studio-era Hollywood. Much has been written about how gays have been portrayed in the movies, but until now, no book has looked at their influence behind the screen. Whether out of or in the closet, gays and lesbians have played a significant role in shaping Hollywood from the very beginning. Gay actors--from the screen's first matinee idol, J. Warren Kerrigan, through Ramon Novarro, Marlene Dietrich, Clifton Webb, and Rock Hudson--have defined movie stardom. Gay directors and producers--such as George Cukor, James Whale, Dorothy Arzner, and Ross Hunter--have long been among the most popular filmmakers. In fact, gay set and costume designers--Adrian, Travis Banton, Orry-Kelly, and George James Hopkins, among many more--created the very look of Hollywood. Based on seven years of exacting research--scrupulously documented--Behind the Screen chronicles an era never before seriously or thoroughly considered. With a historian's precision, Mann sets the story of Hollywood's gays in context with their times--from the free-loving Roaring Twenties through the conservative Depression years to the progressive flowering of World War II and the turbulent backlash of the McCarthy era. He describes which fields offered gays the most freedom and which de facto barred their entrance. Mann examines not only the working conditions of Hollywood's gays but also their after-hours' pursuit of Los Angeles's rowdy gay underground. With the recollections of dozens of survivors, Mann has woven together unpublished memoirs, personal correspondence, oral histories, and scrapbooks to assemble the first thoughtful analysis of the gay experience during cinema's initial fifty years. While always conscious and sensitive to the shifting social construction of homosexual desire and identity, Behind the Screen remains a platform for a whole new way of seeing both the Golden Age of Hollywood and the history of American gay men and lesbians. It is destined to become a classic of film literature. WILLIAM J. MANN is the critically acclaimed author of Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star, as well as the novels The Men from the Boys and The Biograph Girl. He lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Copyright:

2001

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

422 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780670030170

Publisher:

Viking

Date of Addition:

01/19/25

Copyrighted By:

William J Mann

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Entertainment, Nonfiction

Submitted By:

Terry Gorman

Proofread By:

Terry Gorman

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.