Showing Hollywood Bohemians: Transgressive Sexuality and the Selling of the Movieland Dream by Brett L. Abrams

Between 1917 and 1941, Hollywood film studios, gossip columnists, and novelists featured an unprecedented number of homosexuals, cross-dressers, and adulterers in their depictions of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. During this era, actress Greta Garbo defined herself as the ultimate serial bachelorette, screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta wore mannish attire and began numerous lesbian relationships with Hollywood elite (including Greta Garbo herself), and countless homosexual designers brazenly picked up men in the hottest Hollywood nightclubs. These personalities, along with many others, played an important role in establishing Hollywood's image as a place of sexual abandon, enhancing the movie capital's mystique and selling Hollywood as a "must-see" destination.This significant contribution to gay, lesbian, and film studies demonstrates that the Hollywood studios and mass media used images of these sexually adventurous characters to promote the movie industry and appeal to the prurient interests of a more conservative audience. Each chapter examines the happenings in one segment of important Hollywood locales, ranging from the stars' private homes to the hippest restaurants and public nightclubs. Focusing on the media coverage of each location in nationally distributed newspapers and local publications, tabloids or fan magazines, this book reveals how such media images indelibly altered the world's fascination with old Hollywood.