Nonfiction is a genre that a lot of people struggle to read. What I have found helpful is to pick a book whose premise absolutely grabs your attention. If you are eager to find out more about the topic, it is much easier to read nonfiction. What also makes it easier is if the nonfiction reads more like fiction. Or has sections that make you feel like you are reading a gossip magazine.

Even if you are a fan of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, or Tallulah Bankhead, there is bound to be something in this book that you didn’t know about these legendary early film stars.

From the shy and aloof Garbo to the strategic and seductive Dietrich to the absolute insane in the best of ways Bankhead, these vibrant women leap off of the page. Their shared lovers are just the tip of the iceberg. From their childhoods, their anxieties, their love of the arts, they actually had a lot in common. You feel like you are beginning to understand not only the time period better, but these women who lived their lives in the spotlight or rather in the…

There is a reason that their names endure, even today, almost a hundred years after their first movies. It is hard to choose your legacy. And some of them may not have been comfortable with the image they left behind.

But that image endures, and with it some pretty damn good movies.

Want to learn some early Hollywood and early LGBTQIA+ history? Then click the link below.