Jon Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520284319
- eISBN:
- 9780520959910
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284319.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In postwar Hollywood, mobsters, moguls, and movie stars commingled frequently and often carelessly. Professional encounters were commonplace given the mob’s involvement in the organization of the ...
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In postwar Hollywood, mobsters, moguls, and movie stars commingled frequently and often carelessly. Professional encounters were commonplace given the mob’s involvement in the organization of the movie industry’s labor force. Film workers and gangsters routinely crossed paths at nightclubs, bars, clandestine gambling establishments, and private parties where interactions were complicated by alcohol and illicit drugs, human trafficking (prostitution) and the occasional “badger” or blackmail plot. The moral here is fairly simple, at least in retrospect. The movie stars -- and circling about them the many movie aspirants, wannabes, and sycophants -- were always playing at things, trying on roles, aliases, lovers, identities, fads. But the gangsters in the strictest sense of the expression “meant business.” And that was something folks who trucked in the world of make believe failed to appreciate and understand.Less
In postwar Hollywood, mobsters, moguls, and movie stars commingled frequently and often carelessly. Professional encounters were commonplace given the mob’s involvement in the organization of the movie industry’s labor force. Film workers and gangsters routinely crossed paths at nightclubs, bars, clandestine gambling establishments, and private parties where interactions were complicated by alcohol and illicit drugs, human trafficking (prostitution) and the occasional “badger” or blackmail plot. The moral here is fairly simple, at least in retrospect. The movie stars -- and circling about them the many movie aspirants, wannabes, and sycophants -- were always playing at things, trying on roles, aliases, lovers, identities, fads. But the gangsters in the strictest sense of the expression “meant business.” And that was something folks who trucked in the world of make believe failed to appreciate and understand.
Jon Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520284319
- eISBN:
- 9780520959910
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284319.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn ...
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The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn Monroe, the studio era’s last real movie star, discovered dead at her home in August 1962. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of the studio system, Hollywood’s awkward adolescence during which the company town’s many competing subcultures -- celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, industry wannabes, and desperate transients – came into frequent contact and conflict. Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles focuses on the lives lost at the crossroads between a dreamed-of Los Angeles and the real thing after the Second World War.Less
The history of Hollywood’s postwar transition is framed by two spectacular dead bodies: Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947 and Marilyn Monroe, the studio era’s last real movie star, discovered dead at her home in August 1962. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of the studio system, Hollywood’s awkward adolescence during which the company town’s many competing subcultures -- celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, industry wannabes, and desperate transients – came into frequent contact and conflict. Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles focuses on the lives lost at the crossroads between a dreamed-of Los Angeles and the real thing after the Second World War.
