The Sewing Circle: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and Thorough
Review: This book did a good job of capturing a time when the film and the art world hadn't completely disconnected, the biggest stars were women, and to be a movie star was still considered a little shady. The studios covered up drug addiction and homosexuality and other scandals and arranged marriages for their stars so they could appear normal to the public.
This book focuses a lot on Greta Garbo and her girlfriend Mercedes de Acosta, (a woman who really got around, female movie star-wise), but it also devotes chapters to familiar names like Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Barbara Stanwick, and Joan Crawford. During the 20s and 30s, most of them were able to carry out discreet affairs much like many male homosexuals as at that time Hollywood was such a different place, full of artists and forward-thinking people. "The Sewing Circle" focuses on a fascinating era in film hustory that existed before the forced conformity and communist wicth-hunting of the 1950's.