Film Biographies & Interviews, Entertainment Biography, Gay & Lesbian Studies, Gay & Lesbian Biographies
Open Secret
David Ehrenstein
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Overview
Part social history and part exposé, this revealing, entertaining, and provocative book spans nearly seventy years as it explores the lives and careers of some of the silver screen's foremost gays and lesbians and the effect of their high-profile lifestyles on the general public. From Charles Laughton and Greta Garbo to Nathan Lane and Ellen DeGeneres, David Ehrenstein traces the gradual transformation of Hollywood from a time when it was box-office poison to be publicly gay to the modern era when many top entertainment figures are celebrating their gay sexuality—and are in turn celebrated for it. Updated, Open Secret reveals what has happened to the key players in gay Hollywood since the original hardcover publication.Author Biography: David Ehrenstein is a journalist who has covered the entertainment industry for numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Daily Variety, Los Angeles Magazine, and Cabiers du Cinema. He lives in Los Angeles.
Editorials
Washington Post
[Ehrenstein] knows his subject, and has some pungent things to say about an industry that prides itself on its liberal heart but has banker's blood in its veins.Gary Indiana
Open Secret cuts through the greasy veil of Hollywood myth and American sexual hypocrisy to deliver the tragic, hysterically funny, hypnotically entertaining truth. It's an important yet never self-important contribution to American social history, and a great read.Entertainment Weekly
Brings a welcome, steady compass to barely charted territory.Edmund White
Open Secret is at once good gossip and telling analysis of the media mechanisms for promoting or suppressing gossip...A shrewd diagnosis of our voyeuristic compulsions.Book Details
Published
May 1, 2000
Publisher
New York : Perennial, 2000.
Pages
416
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780688175856