Book Review - Million Dollar Mermaid

I recently decided to start reading biographies of vintage Hollywood stars and first on my list was Esther Williams!
I'm sure most of you have heard of Esther Williams - "America's mermaid" - the competitive swimmer turned MGM movie star of the 40s and 50s. She passed away on 6th June this year at the age of 91.

This wonderful autobiography was filled with personal stories right from her childhood to her fourth marriage to Edward Bell.
Esther began competitive swimming as a teen and missed out on going to the 1940 Olympics as they were cancelled due to the outbreak of war. Her first big break came when she starred in the Aquacade alongside Johnny Weismuller who would chase her around the pool at the end of the show sans swimming trunks! After that she reluctantly signed with MGM, and the rest is history!
She shared lots of behind the scenes stories that told so much of how Hollywood operated  back then and of the stars that she worked and socialised with including Lucille Ball, Marlene Dietrich, Ricardo Montalban, Gene Kelly and Joan Crawford. My favourite chapters include how she met Clark Gable and how he was the first one to call her 'mermaid', and how she came back from having broken several vertabrae in a scene in Million Dollar Mermaid when she took a dive with a crown on her head.

It was really interesting to read how her childhood shaped her decisions as she looked back on her life with the benefit of hindsight.  Unfortunately, as happened to so many Hollywood starlets, one of her husbands spent all of her money on gambling, alcohol and bad business decisions and all her years of moviemaking amounted to was a BIG tax bill!

I had trouble putting this book down and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the heyday of Hollywood.

Book Review - Max Factor, The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World

Max Factor

The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World

This book tells the story of Max Faktor who was born in Poland and worked as a beautician and wigmaker to the Russian Imperial Family in the 1900s. He brought his expertise to America after he fled Russia with his family.

Max Factor was a magician with hair and cosmetics and brought make-up to the average woman, who previously thought only stage performers and prostitutes painted their faces.

The book contains numerous stories of how Max's transformations of actors and actresses helped them to become huge stars including Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Rudolph Valentino and Rita Hayworth. In 1930, his transformation of Jean Harlow from a natural blonde to a platinum blonde launched a national craze.

 It also tells of his genius in developing new technologies in makeup to keep up with the changes in the movie making industry. In 1926 he developed water-proof makeup as it was needed for a spy film Mare Nostrum. This was later used in hundreds of productions including those starring Esther Williams. Bette Davis and Claudette Colbert actually refused to appear in Technicolour films as the public considered them a novelty and the Panchromatic makeup used in black and white films was unflattering on colour film. After several years of research, Max and his son developed the now famous Pan-Cake makeup, which the stars loved so much it kept disappearing from the dressing rooms!

This is an extraordinary story of how one man changed the face of Hollywood and the average woman and I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in makeup, pinup or vintage glamour and Hollywood movie stars.

Let me know if you have any favourite biographies of pinups, burlesque or Hollywood movie stars, as I am always on the lookout for a great read!