HOLLYWOOD HUSBANDS

by Jackie Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1986

Collins shifts into high, glitzy gear with this follow-up to Hollywood Wives (1983)--it's the good-naturedly smarmy story of the sexy, sleazy doings of Tinsel-town's finest. Sleek, bitchy television-goddess Silver Anderson (who bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain sibling of Collins') may be 47 years old and counting, but she looks ten years younger and is on top of the world with a hit soap-opera. All she needs now is what every one of Collins' bored, sophisticated women hunger for--a stud, not of the shirt-collar variety. She finds and marries one in the form of Wes Money, a slightly shady minor actor/hustler who moves into the mansion and begins directing her career between orgasms. The two are surrounded by a constellation of lesser stars: Silver's brother, talk-show host Jack Python, who yearns to dump his chilly lover (Oscar-winning actress Claire Browning) for unspoiled model Jade Johnson; muscled movie-star Mannon Cable; and hapless, cocaine-snorting studio-head Howard Soloman, who dreams of big projects while his scheming, baby-talking wife, Poppy, gives great lunch. Collins has what the likes of Judith Krantz and Gwen Davis lack--a sense of humor--and the novel is a parody of Hollywood that, like a scandal sheet, begins to resemble an elaborate, fascinating cartoon: her characters are overgrown children careening through life. Here, they finally careen onto the yacht of tycoon Zachary K. Klinger for a New Year's Eve party, at which the following are revealed: the name of the secret father of Silver's 17-year-old daughter, rock-star Heaven; who killed one of Claire Browning's young lovers in a fit of rage; and the identity of the mysterious pyromaniac/serial murderer the novel has been coyly flashing back to for hundreds of pages--the murderer comes to an ugly end, but Silver and her pals live on in tabloid heaven. Trash transcendent.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1986

ISBN: 0671724517

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION