They weren’t always the saints that we make them out to be. Columnist 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

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 website the Hairpin, but featuring 100% new content, Scandals of Classic Hollywood is sensationalism made smart.