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KISS HOLLYWOOD GOOD-BYE by Anita Loos

KISS HOLLYWOOD GOOD-BYE

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Pub Date: July 8th, 1974
Publisher: Viking

More, a calculably charming more of A Girl Like I and the Hollywood of the '30's where Miss Loos who so casually had tossed off that once-in-a-lifetime success went on working in films and supported for years the husband who was sick and destructive and never recovered from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the whole world's preferring Anita. In her usually affectionate, random fashion -- she writes about the Huxleys and Jean Harlow (her tragedy -- the fact that she was ""a booby trap for male stupidity"") and the Hearsts and her strong feelings for Wilson Mizner in his last years; less affectionately but more revealingly about the Fitzgeralds during two of their messier (new to us) episodes or Norma Shearer, making two costume changes during Thalberg's funeral, or Clark Gable's store-bought image of virility to go with those false teeth. At the close she's a little more serious about the sentimental values we've lost since that time when a seven-second kiss communicated romance. A perky, disarming memoir by one of Hollywood's sweetheart roses.