Hollywood Babylon

It is difficult to understand the exact point where humanity threw away its values and its moral and started to pervert itself. Perhaps it was in old ages, perhaps it has always been intricated in our DNA. The fact remains: everyday we see so many disturbing claims and situations being reported related to those who are mostly envolved in shaping the new generations - the celebrities.

Like it or not, those “stars” are great influencers on the minds, opinions and styles for the kids and teenagers, and more and more we watch on the news disgusting facts about their real personalities - where they, unknowingly or unwillingly reveal their true faces behind the “good girl / good boy” mask - or situations in which they put themselves. But that is not new, no. And today we will talk about how these celebrities learned with their predecessors. But, first, we need to learn about their playground, the place that build them up (and, sometimes, burn them down): Hollywood.

Believe it or not, Hollywood began not as a center for entertainment, but as a sober, religious community founded in 1887 by Harvey and Daeida Wilcox. They envisioned a quiet “temperate” utopia of ranches and orchards, even going as far as to ban alcohol and promote moral living. However, by 1910, the town’s lack of water forced it to merge with the city of Los Angeles, just as a group of East Coast filmmakers were looking for a way to escape the restrictive “Patent Trust” run by Thomas Edison in New Jersey.

These filmmakers moved to California to evade Edison’s legal teams and patent fees, taking advantage of the state’s proximity to the Mexican border for quick escapes and its distance from the reach of New York courts. Beyond the legal benefits, Hollywood offered a perfect natural environment: over 300 days of sunshine a year allowed for constant filming without expensive lighting, and the nearby mountains, deserts, and oceans provided versatile backdrops for any story. In 1911, the Nestor Film Company established the first permanent studio in an old tavern on Sunset Boulevard, and within a few years, dozens of others followed.

By the 1920s, Hollywood had fully transitioned into a corporate “factory of dreams”. The famous Hollywood sign was erected in 1923 - originally reading “HOLLYWOODLAND” as a temporary real estate advertisement - and the “Big Five” studios (MGM, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, RKO Radio Pictures) rose to power. These studios created the “Studio System”, which gave them absolute control over every aspect of the industry, from the actors’ private lives to the theaters that showed the films. The release of the first “talkie”, The Jazz Singer, in 1927, signaled the end of the silent era and the beginning of the Golden Age, officially cementing Hollywood as the global capital of cultural influence.

With the success of the new “land of dreams”, many young delusional girls and boys rushed as fast as they could to make a living out of acting. What they didn’t know was what they were signing of to: drugs, alcohol, heartbreak, prostitution. A dream coming true, unfortunately, is not for every one.

In Hollywood Babylon, the author Kenneth Anger dives deep in the secret unknown world of stardom in the land of the stars, although a bit exaggerated in his storytelling of the rumors and gossips of that world. Sharing with us, the public-reader, many questionable situations that were either swept underneath the rug or completely ignored by the people.

Many actresses and actors, sadly, suffered many influences by their peers to “join the fun” and “have a good time”, meanwhile destroying their healths, their families, their lives - all in the name of not being left out. Or even, impressionable young teens being groomed because someone “saw potential” - just to end up in prostitution.

Anger’s narrative starts with the silent movie era, sharing a little about the first big scandals that permeated that place and paved the way to today’s biggest offenses. And those that rise too fast, fall just as fast: the “talkies” brought an end to many inspiring and promising careers, people that “loved” an actor or actress, when first watching them act in a talking movie, turned their backs as the star struggled to adjust themselves to this new shape of work.

With the era of wars (1st and 2nd, and then the cold war), movies brought a new way of expression, of turning away a little from the hurt and evil of this world to fall in love and sing and have fun with the stories that they interpreted on the big screens. Still, they knew how to make people remember that they weren’t all that perfect as they wanted the public to believe. And the pressure to keep their images just as that - perfect - added on to their already heavy shoulders of expectations and the need to have more, to win more, to be more.

Many died by suicide (the 30s through the 70s were full of bodies of people who gave up on their own lives). Many were killed in a passion homicide, or even as a way of shutting down a potential threat. Many overdosed and many died from alcoholism. Some were lucky and survived to tell the story, but few were they. Imprisioned, exiled, erased from the hall of fame. The book of the stars is full of dimmed lights and forgotten reminiscences.

In special, Kenneth explores the private rumors and entangled relations that surrounded the lives of: Theda Bara, Olive Thomas, Roscoe Arbuckle and Virginia Rappe, William Desmond Taylor, Mary Miles Minter, Wally Reid, Joan Crawford, Barbara La Marr, Gloria Swanson, Charles Chaplin (and his child bride Lita, besides the other actresses in his life like Marion Davies), Rudolph Valentino, Louella and Hedda (the gossipists of the time), Clara Bow, Norma Talmadge, Marie Prevost, Ina Claire, Peg Entwistle (who jumped from the thirteenth letter in the HOLLYWOODLAND sign - which is one of the reasons the last 4 letters are missing till this day, the place became a hot spot for suicide after her), Mary Nolan, Charlie Farrell and Janet Gaynor, Mae West, Mary Astor, Thelma Todd, Errol Flynn, Frances Farmer, Lupe Velez, and many other names of the industry from the 20s to the 70s.

Rape, betrayals, aborts, involvement with gangsters and dealers, shady contracts and agreements, trials, suicide, homicide… This is the dark side of Hollywood.