The best novels set in Golden Age Hollywood

This novel is a blend of fact and fiction and informed speculation, centered on the relationship between two mammoth film stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age: Loretta Young and Clark Gable. While the deeper truths of their relationship during the filming of Call of the Wild might be disputed, what is certain is that they produced a daughter whose identity was kept secret—even from her father. Loretta is sympathetically portrayed, often from the perspective of an Italian nun (the author’s creation). A whole galaxy of film celebrities passes through the pages of this book, which for fans of 20th century cinema, is a plus. One touching and poignant aspect of the story, for me, is the danger Loretta’s beloved child poses to her reputation and career.

Marlene Dietrich is one of the iconic figures of 20th century Hollywood—actress, singer, photographer’s dream model. She carried the exotic and scandalous and artistic aspects of Weimar Germany with her when she arrived in Hollywood, and leveraged them into stardom. But the rise of fascism and the onset of World War II put her native country in conflict with her adopted one. Gortner’s novel relies on first-person narrative to explore Dietrich’s life, professional and personal, in a revealing and moving fashion. This novel is a reminder that Golden Age Hollywood would have been a very different place without the massively important contributions of immigrants and refugees at a time when the world was in turmoil.

This murder mystery novel is one that really stayed with me. It has a noir quality that fits the 1940s era, and a realistic depiction of the difficulties of employment at various levels in Hollywood. Suspicion falls on the protagonist when her roommate turns up dead on the set of a Barbara Stanwyck film, and through the course of the novel various scandals, mysteries, and cover-ups collide. Though the main character isn’t herself a star, far from it, she offers a particular perspective on the stars she knows and the industry as a whole. Stanwyck is one of Hollywood’s great talents and true survivors, as forceful on the page and as desperate to salvage her personal life as any of her movie characters.

Martin Turnbull has produced various series about Hollywood, primarily populated by fictional characters. This book is biographical fiction centered on the boy-wonder movie producer Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His life and career are overshadowed by ill-health, yet he managed to make his studio the greatest of the Golden Age, in no small part through his ability to co-exist with studio head Louis B. Mayer. Through her marriage to Thalberg, actress Norma Shearer’s status as MGM’s most popular leading lady, was assured. I felt the portrait of their marriage, a union with both personal and professional ramifications, and the depiction of Thalberg’s relationship with two strong women—his wife and his mother—added conflict and context to the story.  

So many Hollywood novels focus primarily on the marquee names—the movie stars. This one explores the tortured romantic relationship between gossip columnist Sheilah Graham and author F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose stint as a scriptwriter was financially sustaining and artistically demoralizing, deepening his descent into alcoholism and despair over his failing marriage to Zelda. Sheilah could have been his creation, with her Gatsby-esque concealment of her background and reinvention of herself. Though this is a work of fiction, it results from meticulous research into the lives and careers of its fascinating and legendary main characters. As a writer myself, who has produced newspaper columns as well as more than a dozen novels, I fully appreciate the literary aspects of this story.