The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s

Today's Nonfiction post is on The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s by Joseph Egan. It is 300 pages long and is published by Diverson Publishing. The cover is a  close-up picture of Mary Astor. The intended reader is someone who is interesting in classic Hollywood history. There is foul mild language, talk of sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- One of Hollywood s first scandals was nearly its last.
1936 looked like it would be a great year for the movie industry. With the economy picking up after the Great Depression, Americans everywhere were sitting in the dark watching the stars and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor.
But Astor's story wasn't a happy one. She was born poor, and at the first sign that she could earn money, her parents grabbed the reins and the checks. Widowed at twenty-four, Mary Astor was looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe. But the marriage was rocky from the start; both were unfaithful, but they did not divorce until after Mary Astor gave birth to little Marylyn Thorpe.
What followed was a custody battle that pushed The Spanish Civil War and Hitler's 1936 Olympic Games off of the front pages all over America. Astor and Thorpe were both ruthless in their fight to gain custody of their daughter, but Thorpe held a trump card: the diaries that Mary Astor had been keeping for years. In these diaries, Astor detailed her own affairs as well as the myriad dalliances of some of Hollywood's biggest names. The studio heads, longtime controllers of public perception, were desperate to keep such juicy details from leaking.
With the complete support of the Astor family, including unlimited access to the photographs and memorabilia of Mary Astor's estate, The Purples Diaries is a look at Hollywood s Golden Age as it has never been seen before, as Egan spins a wildly absorbing yarn about a scandal that threatened to bring down the dream factory known as Hollywood."

Review- This is an engaging and insightful look into a scandal that captivated a nation. Egan gets access to the Astor family, the first hand documents, and other sources as he brings to life the biggest scandal of the time. Mary Astor wanted a divorce from her third husband but she was also the money maker for the family. The husband Franklyn Thorpe wanted to keep the money, the house, and the baby. From there we have our scandal and the personal life of a star was on display for the nation for the first time. Egan does he best to help the reader see both sides but it is hard to be sympathetic to Dr. Thorpe as he was a hard man who did some very questionable things before, during, and after the marriage. The child's best interests are at the heart of the story but that can get lost in the details of this, at the time, sordid tale. If you are interested in classic Hollywood history, then you should look this book up.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.