Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet
Page 75
Von Stroheim, Eric 235
Vonnegut, Kurt 181, 447
Wade, Stuart 43, 44
Wagner, Robert 193, 209
Wahlberg, Mark 482
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel 47, 91
Walker, Clint 209
Walker, Nancy 132
Walker, Robert 97, 99, 136, 140, 141, 143, 496, 521
Wallace, George 421
Wallace, Mike 418
Wallach, Eli 178, 290, 310
Wanderings of Oisin, The 153
War on Poverty, the 419
Ward, Ronnie 473
Warhol, Andy 422, 431, 432
Warner Brothers 34, 123, 124, 126, 127, 141, 177, 188, 446
Warner, Jack 21, 121, 125, 126, 133, 144, 146, 159, 164, 173, 176, 187, 195, 217, 235, 246, 247, 249, 269, 270, 271, 326, 501, 522
Warren, Earl 90
Warren, Patricia Nell 440
Warwick, Dionne 437
Washington Post, The 419
Waters, Ethel 166
Wayne, John 203, 210, 212, 216, 217, 220, 259, 337, 412, 415, 420, 421, 438, 500, 521
Wayne, Judge Diane 493
Weber, Bruce 439
Weekend at the Waldorf 47
Weintraub, Jerry 490
Weissmuller, Johnny 20, 29, 43
Weldon, Joan 185
Weldy, Pilar Palette 217
Welk, Lawrence 101
Welles, Orson 255, 440, 447, 457, 459, 460, 461, 462, 482
Werner, Mort 354, 376
West Point Story, The 212
West Side Tennis Club 19
West, Mae 114, 115, 157, 261, 262, 264, 265, 267, 334, 523
Westcott, Gordon 199
Westcott, Helen 199, 201
Westinghouse Broadcasting Company (Group W) 377, 378, 408, 411
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery 514
Whales of August, The 29
“What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” 403
“What Do I Care?” 274
What Does Joan Say? My Seven Years as a White
House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan 465
What's My Line? 331
“What's New Pussycat?” 324
What's the Question? 368, 375
Wheel of Fortune 2, 13, 377, 443, 444, 445, 446, 457, 467, 471, 486, 489, 494, 513
Wheeler, Jerry 441
“When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” 402
“When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” 299
“Where'sa-Your House?” 317
Whispering Winds, The 9
White Cliffs of Dover, The 59
White House, The 497, 499
White, Betty 365
White, Vanna 444, 445, 482, 489, 507, 513
Whiting, Margaret 296
Whitney, Jock 94
Who Do You Trust? 332
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 211, 306
Whole Truth and Nothing But, The 253
Wickes, Mary 159
Wild River 358
Wilder, Billy 311
Wilding, Michael 119, 247, 248, 250, 251, 252, 253, 313, 324, 329, 427
“Wilhelmina” 45, 86
Will Rogers Memorial Award, The 481
William Morris Agency, The 404
Williams, Andy 365
Williams, Dr. John E. 453
Williams, Emyln 427
Williams, Esther 481
Williams, Guinn “Big Boy” 461
Williams, Tennessee 23, 49, 50, 308
Willson, Henry 31, 57, 58, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 225, 227, 240, 246, 271, 432, 433, 439, 519, 520
Willson, Meredith 92
Wilson, Demond 429
Wilson, Earl 406, 449
Winburn, Mark 292
Winchell, Walter 106, 297, 319
Windsor, Elizabeth, The Queen Mother 328, 329
Windsor, Marie 185
Windsor, Royal House of 389
Winfrey, Oprah 417
Wings 356
Winters, Jonathan 334, 355
Winters, Shelley 111, 296, 447
With a Song in My Heart 131
Withers, Grant 94
Wizard of Oz, The 401, 423
Wodehouse, P.G. 335
Wonder, Stevie 511
Wonderful World of Toys, The 343, 344, 345, 347
Wood, Natalie 380, 431, 514
Woods, Tiger 383
Woolery, Chuck 377, 443, 444
Woolley, Monty 22, 113
Woolworth, F.W. 37
Word for Word 368
Words and Music 328
Worldwide L.P. 473
Worley, Jo Anne 386
Wyler, William 430
Wyman, Jane 48, 124, 143, 147, 196, 210, 272, 474, 497, 498, 500
Yani, Andrew 507
“Yankee Doodle Boy” 26
Yasgur, Max 413
Yeats, William Butler 153
“Yellow Bird” 78, 411, 420
“You Belong to Me” 285
“You Go to My Head” 274
“You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” 438
You Were Never Lovelier 201
“You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To.” 28
“You're the Prettiest Thing” 237
“You're a Queer One, Julie Jordon” 257
Young Lions, The 181
Young, Billie (Penelope Ashe) 413
Young, Loretta 92, 94
Your Hit Parade 38, 103
Youth International (Yippy) Party, the 415
Zanuck, Darryl F. 94, 363
Zerbe, Jerome 346
Ziegfeld, Flo 93
Zinnemann, Fred 160, 166, 178, 180, 256, 522
Zoglin, Richard 386
Zotto, Loretta (a.k.a. “Stormy Weather”) 213, 214
Zukor, Adolph 263
BLOOD MOON PRODUCTIONS
Entertainment about how America interprets its celebrities.
Blood Moon Productions originated in 1997 as The Georgia Literary Association, a vehicle for the promotion of obscure writers from America's Deep South. Today, Blood Moon is based in New York City, and staffed with writers who otherwise devote their energies to THE FROMMER GUIDES, a trusted name in travel publishing.
Four of Blood Moon's recent biographies have been extensively serialized (excerpted) by the largest-readership publications of the U.K., The Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Times. Other serializations of Blood Moon's titles have appeared in Australia's Women's Weekly and The Australian.
Our corporate mission involves researching and salvaging the oral histories of America's entertainment industry--those “off the record” events which at the time might have been defined as either indecent or libelous, but which are now pertinent to America's understanding of its origins and cultural roots. For more about us, click on www.BloodMoonProductions.com, or refer to the pages which immediately follow.
Thanks for your interest, best wishes, and happy reading.
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KATHARINE THE GREAT
A LIFETIME OF SECRETS REVEALED
BY DARWIN PORTER
You already know about what Kate Remembered
(there are a LOT of “deferential and obsequious whitewashes” already in print)
HERE‘S AN UNVARNISHED ACCOUNT
OF WHAT KATHARINE HEPBURN WANTED TO FORGET
Darwin Porter's biography of Katharine Hepburn cannot be lightly dismissed or ignored. Connoisseurs of her life would do well to seek it out as a forbidden supplement”
The Sunday Times (London)
“Behind the scenes of her movies, Katharine Hepburn played the temptress to as many women as she did men, ranted and raved with her costars and directors, and broke into her neighbors' homes for fun. And somehow, she managed to keep all of it out of the press.
As they say, Katharine the Great is hard to put down.”
The Dallas Voice
“The door to Hepburn's closet has finally been opened. This is the most honest and least apologetic biography of Hollywood's m
ost ferociously private actress ever written.”
Boomer Times /Senior Life
In Porter's biography of Katharine Hepburn, details about the inner workings of a movie studio (RKO in the early 30s), are relished.
The Bottom Line (Palm Springs)
“You can say or write anything about me you like.
Just don't, for any reason, ever tell the truth.”
A favorite and oftrepeated declaration of Katharine Hepburn
Softcover 558 pages, with photos. ISBN 0-9748118-0-7 $16.95
The drama of Steve McQueen's personal life far exceeded any role he ever played on screen. Born to a prostitute, he was brutally molested by some of his mother's “johns,” and endured gang rape in reform school. His drift into prostitution began when he was hired as a towel boy in the most notorious bordello in the Dominican Republic, where he starred in a string of cheap porno films. Returning to New York before migrating to Hollywood, he hustled men on Times Square and, as a “gentleman escort” in a borrowed tux, rich older women.
And then, sudden stardom as he became the world's top box office attraction. The abused became the abuser. “I live for myself, and I answer to nobody,” he proclaimed. “The last thing I want to do is fall in love with a broad.”
Thus began a string of seductions that included hundreds of overnight pickupsboth male and female. Topping his Alist conquests were James Dean, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, and Barbra Streisand. Finally, this pioneering biography explores the death of Steve McQueen. Were those salacious rumors really true?
Steve McQueen King of Cool Tales of a Lurid Life
by Darwin Porter
ISBN 978-1-936003-05-1 Available December 2009 Hardcover $26.95
HOWARD HUGHES HELL'S ANGEL
AMERICA'S NOTORIOUS BISEXUAL BILLIONAIRE
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE U.S. EMPEROR
by Darwin Porter
A rigorously researched, highly entertaining hardcover
about the good but very naughty old days in Hollywood
As serialized by London's Mail on Sunday,
this book is about the Hollywood intrigue,
and the Hollywood debauchery of
The richest man of his era
Howard Hughes
and the A-list legends who participated.
Researched over a period of 40 years, it's
a stormingly good read about
Who and What money can buy.
“Thanks to Darwin Porter's biography of Howard Hughes, we'll never be able to look at the old pinups in quite the same way” THE LONDON TIMES
“According to a new biography by Darwin Porter, Hughes's attitude toward sex, like the Emperor Caligula, was selfish at best and at its worst, sadistic. Only three people successfully resisted Hughes's persistent advances: Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons, and Joan Crawford. Of the three, it was Crawford who most succinctly revealed her reasons for refusing Hughes's advances: “I adore homosexuals, but not in my bed after midnight.”
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS (LONDON)
“Darwin Porter grew up in the midst of Hollywood Royalty. His access to film industy insiders and other Hughes confidantes supplied him with the resources he needed to create a portrait that both corroborates what other Hughes biographies have divulged and go them one better.” FOREWORD MAGAZINE
Read about Hughes' complicated emotional and sexual entanglements with Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Tallulah Bankhead, David Bacon, Jack Buetel, Bette Davis, and just about every other player, major and minor, in Hollywood.
From the Georgia Literary Association,
in cooperation with the Florida Literary Association
and Blood Moon Productions
THE RENAISSANCE OF A CULT CLASSIC
Butterflies in Heat, by Darwin Porter. A novel about malevolence, vendetta, morbid fascination, and redemption. ISBN 1-877978-95-7. paperback $12.95. For information about how this novel indirectly applied to Merv Griffin, refer to pages 441, 442, and 520 of the book you're holding.
You first heard about it in the 70s, when it was the most notorious and gossipped-about book in Key West. Now it's back.
“Darwin Porter writes with an incredible understanding of the milieuhot enough to singe the wings off any butterfly” James Kirkwood, coauthor, A Chorus Line
“I'd walk the waterfront for Numie Chase [Butterflies' doomed hero] anytime”
Tennessee Williams
“How does Darwin Porter's garden grow? Only in the moonlight, and only at midnight, when maneating vegetation in any color but green bursts forth to devour the latest offerings”
James Leo Herlihy, author of Midnight Cowboy
MIDNIGHT IN SAVANNAH
BY DARWIN PORTER ISBN 09668030-1-9 Paperback $14.95
A saga of corruption, greed, sexual tension, and murder that gets down and dirty in the Deep Old South, this is the more explicit and more entertaining alternative to John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil..
If you've ever felt either traumatized or eroticized south of the Mason-Dixon Line, you should probably read this book.
“In Darwin Porter's Midnight, both Lavender Morgan (“At 72, the world's oldest courtesan”) and Tipper Zelda (“an obese, fading chanteuse taunted as “the black widow,”) purchase lust from sexually conflicted young men with dropdead faces, chiseled bodies, and genetically gifted crotches. These women once relied on their physicality to steal the hearts and fortunes of the world's richest and most powerful men. Now, as they slide closer every day to joining the corpses of their former husbands, these oncebeautiful women must depend, in a perverse twist of fate, on sexual outlaws for le petit mort. And to survive, the hustlers must idle their personal dreams while struggling to cajole what they need from a sexual liaison they detest. Mendacity reigns, Perversity in extremis. Physical beauty as living hell. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF's Big Daddy must be spinning in his grave right now.” EUGENE RAYMOND
The author, Darwin Porter, a native Southerner, is co-author of The Frommer Guides to the City of Savannah and the State of Georgia. During his research, he formed some startling conclusions about the real Savannah, The Deep South, and the city's most famous murder
IN HOLLYWOOD AT THE DAWN OF THE TALKIES, MOST OF THE SINS WERE NEVER SHOWN ON SCREEN
Hollywood's Silent Closet
A SCANDALOUS INFO-NOVEL BY DARWIN PORTER ABOUT THE SCENES BEHIND THE SCENES DURING THE SILENT ERA OF HOLLYWOOD FILMMAKING.
“A brilliant primer for the Who's Who of early Hollywood. Intricately researched by entertainment columnist Darwin Porter, this is the most realistic account ever written about sex, murder, blackmail, and degradation in early Hollywood.”
A banquet of information about the pansexual intrigues of Hollywood between 1919 and 1926, compiled from eyewitness interviews with men and women, all of them insiders, who flourished in its midst. Not for the timid, it names names, and doesn't spare the guilty.
If you believe, like Truman Capote, that the literary treatment of gossip will become the literature of the 21st century, then you will love this book.
Trade paperback 746 pages and 60 vintage photos
ISBN 0966-8030-2-7 $24.95
“Yummy!…Practically every page discloses a fascinating tidbit --about Liberace successfully seducing Dean, for example. This is an irresistibly flamboyant romp of a read.” Books to Watch Out For
“This shocking new book is sparking a major reassessment of Brando's legacy as one of Hollywood's most macho lotharios.” Daily Express (London)
“As author Darwin Porter finds, it wasn't just the acting world Marlon Brando conquered. It was the actors, too.” Gay Times (London)
BRANDO LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE. Now in its fifth printing, with translations available in French, Dutch, and Portuguese Another amazing biography by Darwin Porter. 625 indexed pages with 300 photos.
ISBN 978-0-0748118-2-6 $26.96
A COMPREHENSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF THE ONCE-MOST-FAMOUS ENTERTAINER IN THE WORLD
Ill
uminating the life of the Gloved One throughout his childhood, his heyday in the 80s, his fall from grace, and latter-day attempts to revive his career, this is not just another attempt to pillory Michael Jackson. It's an unbiased, fair, and comprehensive report on a maligned musical genius--with the kind of even-handed reporting that no one else has even attempted.
There hasn't been a bona-fide biography of Michael Jackson since 1992.
HERE IT IS AT LAST!!
“Don't stop till you get enough. Darwin Porter's biography of Michael Jackson is dangerously addictive.”
The London Observer
“Authoritative, exhaustive, and essential, it's the queer girl's and queer boy's onestop resource for what to add to their featurefilm queues. The film synopses and the snippets of critic's reviews are reason enough to keep this annual compendium of cinematic information close to the DVD player. But the extrasincluding the special features and the Blood Moon Awardsare butter on the popcorn.”
Richard LaBonte, Books to Watch Out For
“Blood Moon's Guide to Gay and Lesbian Film is like having access to a feverishly compiled queer film fan's private scrapbook. Each edition is a snapshot of where we are in Hollywood now. It's also a lot of fun…”
Gay Times (London)
“Startling. It documents everything from the mainstream to the obscure, detailing dozens of queer films from the last few years.”