Betty Grable Books

HE TELLS WHAT HOLLYWOOD IS ALLBOUT. HE WRITES GREAT AND TELLS WHAT HIS LIFES ALBOUT.

This book is a great journey of someone's life. Skip E. Lowe is a true show business character--as much a part of the town as the Holllywood Sign and the billboards of Angelyne. His life is filled with pathos and happiness. From cover to cover the book is a pure joy. You'll find yourself wondering who could possibly play Mr. Lowe in the movie that undoubtedly will come from this fabulous life memoir.

Okay, I'll admit it. I bought Skip E. Lowe's memoir with the idea that it would be a horrendous hack-job full of celebrity groveler and rampant name-dropping. Needless to say, I was floored when The Boy with the Betty Grable Legs turned out to be a compelling autobiography written with panache and a good deal of humility.

Lowe's book is difficult to put down. Lowe does well to balance his personal tragedies (Lowe seemed to attract molestation the way flowers attract bees) with his career as an entertainer. While his brief mention of his part in BLACK SHAMPOO is akin to Orson Welles skipping over CITIZEN KANE, Lowe's book manages to stand tall on its own shapely legs. (ISBN: 0964963582)

LOVE THIS BOOK IT TAKES YOU EVERY ALL OVER THE WORLD AND FEEL LIKE I WAS THERE.ITS SO GOOD LOVE IT THANKS FOR THE JOURNEY .. WHAT A LIFE.

I picked up Skip E. Lowe's book on the recommendation of a friend, but had no idea that I was in for such an amazing read. In addition to having some unforgettable stories to tell, he is able to share them with complete emotional honesty, which provides surprisingly human insight into this larger-than-life world in which he has lived. I recommend this as a "must read" to all who are interested in learning about the Golden Days of Hollywood, the truly fascinating character once known as Sammy Labella, and the ups and downs of an unconventional life. By relating his madcap adventures and the lessons he has learned, Skippy does the best job I've ever seen at creating a road map for the road less travelled.

i had forgotten just how wonderful it was to read a book without swearing, sex, explicit murder scenes, etc. this type of book was given to me in the fifties by my grandmother and created the desire for me to read constantly. the story is very good, gentle, yet interesting, even at my age of 64. easy reading and i recommend it for all ages.

Don't let the price of this book scare you. It is worth every penny. If you love, like or just want to find out the facts of this star's life this is the book to own. I mean own because you will refer to it time and time again. I will admit when I first receiverd the book I was disappointed. For that price I thought it would be a big book full of color photographs. All one has to do is read that lovely dedication and you know you are in for a treat. The only thing Mr. Billman left out was how to request to have Betty Grable put on a U.S. Postage Stamp. I don't think he will mind if I give you that information. All you have to do is write your request and send it to: The Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Room 5670 Washington, DC 20260

I was very happy to purchase this tribute to the film career on one of Hollywood's most durable musical comedy actresses. Long overdue, but well worth the wait. Masses of photographs, some of which I had never seen before, and a well catalogued screen career - including long-forgotten shorts she made under the name of Frances Dean. The reviews on her many films provided an insight into the golden years of Hollywood. An excellent addition to the "Films of..." series.

Much more traditional and classical than most of his other stuff, this is an example of Sorayama's earlier work from the 80's. It doesn't have much of the futuristic hign tech surrealism of his other early works from that period like Sexy Robots and Gynoids. It does not have the outrageous hardcore sadomasochistic surrealism of his more recent works like Torquere and Naga. It actually has very little of the surrealism one has come to expect from Sorayama. In fact, it would be among the blandest of Sorayama's works if not for the fact it is less sanitized than Sexy Robots (i.e. depictions of pubic hair were left untouched). But it does have generous depictions of incredibly beautiful lush females. A lot of the stuff is from commercial advertising work that Sorayama had done. The paper quality is not glossy, and it actually rather poor. Overall, it's classic pinup art but with a more modern sensibility. It's still worth having in your Sorayama collection if you are Sorayama fanatic like me.

Betty Grable was the star whose pinup photograph was the most popular among World War Two servicemen. The vibrant blonde star also set a record that has never come close to being equaled in reigning as Hollywood's female box office champ for an incredible ten years. What made movie fans throughout the world love Betty Grable?

Scottish author Tom McGee supplies the answer to that question in his entertaining biography of the popular film great. A personal friend of Grable's who had the opportunity to interview her at length on many occasions, McGee etches an enduring portrait of a wholesome, caring woman who always put warmth as a human being and loyalties to family and friends above star persona. Ego was never a problem with the popular superstar in an industry often overcome by it. When one sees such a warm and totally unaffected woman emerge in the pages of "The Girl With The Million Dollar Legs" it becomes obvious that people the world over loved Betty Grable because of the vibrance, warmth, and sweetness they saw in her.

McGee's book is also rich in photographs capturing Grable and the luminous era in which she starred. There is also a warmly affecting Foreword by fellow Twentieth Century Fox blonde glamour girl, Alice Faye. Grable and Faye became great friends with no animosity or jealousy ever emerging.

This book is a must for Grable fans and all those who love the exciting cinema era of the forties and fifties. It is so refreshing to read a movie biography devoid of trashy gossip and petty commentary.

A wonderfully researched and well-written book about a trully magnificent woman.

A lovely written book a bout Betty Grable a 5 Star treat

I have been a Betty Grable fan since I was small. It is odd for a kid today to rather watch old movies than new ones. I am now in my twenties and interested in bios. Betty and Ginger Rogers have always been my favorites. After reading this book, I do not like Betty Grable. It seems as if the author and Ms. Grable are both very stuck on HER. She seems VAIN from my understanding of the book. I could not finish it because the more I read, the more I disliked her, and I want to enjoy her movies. Ginger Rogers "Ginger: My story" and Ester Williams "Million Dollar Marmaid" autobiographies were much more interesting. I suggest those over this one any day.

Just as some biographies emphasise the negative qualities and scandals of some stars, this valentine to Betty Grable does the opposite. It is a detailed and loving tribute to the star. The author became a personal friend of Grable and was able to draw on talks with her over an extended period so we get many quotes from Grable herself.

The photos are excellent. If there is any criticism to make it, it is that the book does gloss over Grable's problems. It is a pity, as the author states, that her daughters did not participate. While she was obviously a warm, modest and funny woman, it would seem that while she may have wanted to be a good mother, she really wasn't equipped to be. Her own childhood was hardly normal since she began performing at age 12. Also, there is no doubt that her husband Harry James was a louse. Grable should have been financially secure, allowing her more time for her family but she was cleaned out supporting James's gambling habits, not that her own love of the horses etc did not have a bearing too. Whether she wanted to continue to work or not, she certainly had to.

The author captures what an excellent all round entertainer Grable was and there are plenty of personal details about her films, her exploitation by Darryl Zanuck, her eventual resistance to this exploitation and her own lack of ego.

An interesting and enjoyable read.

My mom and I have been reading one chapter of this book each night. Now that I'm on vacation from school we watch a movie from the actress we read about the night before the following day. My mom has always talked about these actresses and I've enjoyed knowing more about their personal lives. It gives me a better understanding of their acting when I know who they were in real life.



All the famous ones are covered in "Hollywood Blondes" - My favorites are Marilyn Monroe, Judy Holliday, Betty Grable and Jean Harlow. The detailed filmographies have helped us track down which movies we want to see too. It's a real bonus to have the filmographies of each actress after their chapter.



Not all of the movies are available anymore but old movies are being found and restored all the time so hopefully some of the lost films will become available in the future. If you're a fan of the blonde actresses from many years ago, whatever your age, this is a really fun and enjoyable book to read :) :)



If you think famous people of today like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Nicole Ritchie have their problems, after reading this book, it seems that old Hollywood celebs had the same pressures, addictions and problems. Many of the women in this book were addicted to drugs and alcohol. They had so many marriages and men in their lives, I found it hard to keep up and there were even some murders! I also found it interesting that as beautiful as they all were, their self esteem was very low. Probably the reason why they used drugs and alcohol to feel better about themselves.



Well, that's it. I just really liked this book and wanted to let you all know about it. Thanks!!!!!

I was beyond thrilled when someone told me there was a chapter about Marie McDonald in this book. I have been a huge Marie fan ever since I saw her in Promises Promises but there is not a lot of information about her out there. Thank goodness for Hollywood Blondes! This has to be the most detailed and accurate look at Marie's turbulent life. I thought they picked some stunning photos of Marie too. I wasn't surprised when I learned the authors started MarieMcDonald.org

I also like the other chapters in Hollywood Blondes. It was a good mix of bombshells from the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

I didn't like this book - I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!! If you think the stars today live crazy lives you should see the messes these classic stars got themselves into. I like to consider myself a classic film expert and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I learned. There is a lot of information packed into this book. There are tons of quotes sprinkled throughout the book which made you feel like you were hearing the actresses tell their own story. Adding a detailed filmography at the end of every chapter was a great idea too. Also most books like this give you one or two pictures of each actress but this one is filled with dozens of great photos (some were a little dark). The best part for me was discovering actresses like Carole Landis and Barbara Payton who I didn't think much about before.

You can tell the authors have a lot of respect for these actresses because they are all written about in a mostly positive way. I hate books that treat the stars like they were saints but Hollywood Blondes doesn't do that. It gives you all the real dirt about their bad marriages, their drug problems, and their sad endings. Fanatics probably won't like seeing their idols exposed but you have to face the fact that celebrities are human beings. These blondes may have been gorgeous and talented but they were also very flawed women. After reading it you really feel sorry for them yet you still want to run out and rent their films.

I did find some factual errors but that is true with every book. There are definitely not as many errors as some of these other reviewers claim. The Jayne Mansfield and Jean Harlow chapters were actually two of my favorites. I am looking forward to Michelle Vogel and Liz Nocera's next book!

Hollywood Blondes is the title of a new but highly superficial and unoriginal book on the flaxen actresses of the silver screen by Michelle Vogel and Liz Nocera. Weaving the reader in from silly hair color commercial catchphrases, to the history of how blonde hair was revered throughout the ages, (throughout the centuries women have use horse dung, horse urine, and saffron to lighten their hair) to the introduction, these two self-proclaimed "film historians" do themselves in and let the reader know what they are in for....which certainly is NOT knowledge of famous blonde actresses.

From telling the readers about the psychological effects that blondes are supposed to be lovelier, and that only a few percentage of the world's population are naturally blonde, one gets the idea that they are over-wording just to use up more space in the book.

I will limit myself discuss the Jean Harlow chapter and add a couple of notes here on other actresses I am familiar with, so others can write their reviews on other stars they know more about.

While Jean Harlow's hair did become damage from over-bleaching, it wasn't true that, "She had no other choice but to wear a platinum blonde wig in her last seven films." In fact, Harlow was not a platinum blonde since 1935. She opted for a platinum colored wig in 1935's China Seas, as she was letting her own hair grow in. The only two films that she wore wigs after that were in Riffraff----the movie that introduced Harlow to the world as a "brownette"in 1936, and in Wife vs. Secretary. Harlow wore her own natural hair color of honey blonde hair in her other films from 1935 on, including Saratoga, her last film in 1937.
Here are some mistakes about Jean Harlow that were written on this book.

--Jean Harlow was not born in St. Louis, Missouri. It was Kansas City Missouri. Betty Grable was the one born in St. Louis.

--Harlow's mother was never referred to as "Mama Jean"; she was known as "Mother Jean."

--Jean's grandfather, Skip Harlow, was not an architect; he was a real estate broker.

--Clara Bow did not make a film called The Love Parade with Harlow. It was The Saturday Night Kid, in which Jean had a minor part.

--Charles McGrew did want Jean to have their child at the time she was pregnant.

--Howard Hughes was never "infatuated" with Jean; he was never interested and neither was she. There was no romance between the two.

--Canine star Rin Tin Tin did not die "cradled in her (Jean''s) arms." That is just a myth added to the Harlow legend.

--MGM Mogul Louis B. Mayer was not "obsessed" with Harlow; he never offered her a mink coat to have sex with her. That is a tall tale fabricated by novelist, Irving Shulman, who wrote an unaccountable, undocumented, un-researched, and false account on her life.

--Paul Bern, Jean Harlow's second husband, did not buy Jean "a mansion on Easton Dr, in Benedict Canyon." after they got married. That house was already his.

--Jean was never suspected of "being the killer" in Paul Bern's death; that is a plot from one of Jean''s movies.

--Jean did not "witnessed" Dorothy Millete killing Paul Bern. Jean was at her mother's house where she had spent the night.

--It was not "one of the biggest mistakes" for Jean to turn down King Kong, as we know it Fay Wray did nothing but scream and scream in it since the star of the picture was and will ever be: Kong!

--The character of Lola Burns in Bombshell is not patented after Jean Harlow, as the writers claim, but after Clara Bow. However, this was Jean's favorite role.

--While John Barrymore was in Dinner at Eight where Harlow was featured, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford were not. The authors were thinking of Grand Hotel, in which Jean never appeared.

--Jean did not buy" a big mansion." She purchased the lot and her mother build it. It was called the ``White Palace," not "the big white house."

--MGM never tried to "destroy all copies" of Harlow's novel Today is Tonight. Mother Jean sold MGM the book after Jean''s death. MGM bought it help out Mother Jean economically.

--Reckless was not "loosely based on Jean and Paul Bern's real story." It was a script patented after Broadway star Libby Holman, whose husband, Zachary Smith Reynolds, had killed himself the same year that Bern did.

--Jean and her mother did not move in "a modest bungalow on North Palm Drive." It was a beautiful, Spanish styled, two-storied large home in Beverly Hills.

--Jean did not "collapsed into his (Clark Gable''s) arms" on May 24. The time was May 29 and the actor was Walter Pidgeon.

--Gable did not call "William Powell who took Jean home." She was driven in a limo back to her house by herself.

--William Powell died in 1984 not "1980."

--Mary Dees was not Jean's "long-time stand-in." Dees was hired to complete Saratoga. She never met Jean Harlow.

--Mother Jean did not die in "the same room at Good Samaritan Hospital," and she did not die on June 7th either; Mother Jean died of a massive heart attack on June 11, 1958.

As for Marilyn Monroe, the authors inform us that, "Without a doubt, Marilyn Monroe's persona was a creation of men, for men." That's part of the Monroe legend but it isn't true. By taking on Harlow's favorite color of white dresses to Lana Turner's hair styles, and Betty Grable's make up, Monroe presented her own version of the dumb blonde in the 1950's.

The misquote attributed to director Billy Wilder, where Marilyn said she was the only blonde in the films, didn't happen in Some Like It Hot (1959). The incident to what the writers are recalling was from Something's Got To Give (1962), Monroe's last and uncompleted film, and the director was George Cukor. If people watch Some Like It Hot, they can see that Monroe was in an all-blonde-girls-band. Another misquote attributed to Colombia Pictures' mogul Harry Cohn; he never said "Get me another blonde!," when he heard that Monroe had died in 1962. Monroe made only one film at Columbia when she was a starlet in 1948. She was never a contract player at Columbia; they had their own bombshell in Kim Novak. Any Monroe fan knows that she attained stardom at 20th Century Fox Films with the release Niagara in 1953, and had been that studio's contract player from 1951 till 1962.

According to the authors, Jayne Mansfield was "the poor man's Marilyn Monroe." In all my years of researching the library's microchips newspapers on Mansfield I never read that she was referred to that way. Mansfield was a Broadway star, given a highly-paid contract by Fox. Mansfield was that studio's premiere blonde star of the late 1950's. The only two films Monroe made at Fox, after her departure, were Bus Stop in 1956, and her last, Something''s Got To Give. Jayne''s market value at 20th Century Fox was twenty million dollars in late 1950's and early 60's money, which is about one hundred million in today''s money.

In a grave error the authors state that Lana Turner's Cheryl Crane "...shot and killed her (Turner's) gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato..." and then telling us that "Cheryl stabbed him with the knife" in the Lana Turner chapter. At this rate one wonders, who did this book's editing? I found most of the chapters that I read to be careless, rehashed stuff from similar and equally badly written books. The authors use unverified websites as reference, quote sensationalist books, and worse, misquote a lot and resort to tabloid-trash writing. I would advise any reader to skip this book at all costs, not even for the photographs, which are studio-standard photos that any fan is probably familiar with. The writers just didn't care or know about reporting fresh, insightful, and true accounts of these stars' lives.

This book is sensational. From the gorgeous cover to the well written text. Vogel andher co-author, I do not know but am now a fan of, have really been great in their work. This book went into why Hollywood Blondes lived such tortured lives. Sure there are things in here, that some reviewers can and will disagree with. But it's unfair and tasteless to claim facts are wrong and you (the reviewer) knows more about a star like Jean Harlowe than the writer. Maybe the writer got information from someone other than you. Maybe if you are such a Jean Harlowe nut, you should write a book yourself. I found this book to be more than 99% accurate, sometimes writers have their own way of doing things and finding research and you shouldn't assume they didn't do their homework. These authors most certainly DID do their homework and the book is written brilliantly! I enjoyed the Lana Turner chapter most of all. The way Vogel writes it, gives you the feeling of almost being in the room as an observer in many dramatic and shattering scenes played out in this blonde beauty's life. Great job, Ms. Michelle Vogel. Looking forward to your next book.

I collect Grable memorabilia which is why I bought this book. A rather depressing book of poetry - can't say I would recommend buying the book.

I bought this book because I'm a big fan of Betty Grable. Unfortunately, this book has many inaccurate facts and gives a tawdry view of one of most well liked and respected stars of early Hollywood. Perhaps some day someone will write an accurate biography with interviews from her family, friends and co-workers.

After I read this book, I was hurt, because I saw Betty Grable in a different light, this book really shows the bad side of Betty, I don't know if this book is true, but if it wasn't, wouldn't the family sue. Even Betty Grable's daughters supposedly was interviewed for this book, and doesn't speak well of their mother. After I read it, no one could give me a good clear answer on this book, was it true or not? But for a while I couldn't watch or listen to Betty Grable, but then I noticed we all are human beings and we all make mistakes, and we shouldn't look at movie stars like their perfect, or have the perfect life, they make mistakes too, and they pay for it, just like all of us.