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old hollywood must-have’s for your bookshelf
24 items
By
Amanda Driggs
Must-haves for any old Hollywood lover’s bookshelf, from a film historian who studied film in higher education ✨
5
Sections
5
Memoirs
Biographies
General Nonfiction
Fiction
Coffee Table Books
Memoirs
In the stars words themselves…
One of the best memoirs I’ve read. Captures her love story with Humphrey Bogart in all its angst.
One of the funniest and insightful
My Autobiography (Neversink) by Chaplin
An amusing, insightful, and brutal look at early Hollywood by a silent screen icon
Lulu In Hollywood: Expanded Edition
Written by Bette Davis’s one-time assistant, who was with her towards the end of her life
Miss D and Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis
Funny, smart, I love reading costume designers memoirs
Women I've Undressed: Fabulous Life & Times
Biographies
New biographies, old stars
A recent addition and an all encompassing biography that is impossible to put down.
Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention ...
A new perspective on Anna May Wong
Not Your China Doll by Katie Gee Salisbury
There’s a lot of books about Charlie Chaplin, but dare I say this one is not only a new perspective, but also extremely hard to put down?
Charlie Chaplin vs. America | Book by Scott Eyman
One of the best books I’ve ever read
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century
Amanda Driggs
Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart
Amanda Driggs
The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography
A insightful biography about one of the world’s first movie stars
Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood by Eileen Whitfield
General Nonfiction
History of specific areas of Hollywood’s past
A definitive read on New Hollywood
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
Another definitive look at 1960s Hollywood
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
One of the best nonfiction books I’ve read in the past 5 years
Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World
From the voices of those who’ve made Hollywood, ranging from silent film legends to modern legends
Hollywood: The Oral History | Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson
A well researched deep dive into one of old Hollywood’s most notorious crimes
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
A great overview of one of the biggest film studios that made so many of our favorite musicals
The MGM Effect: How a Hollywood Studio Changed the World
Compiled using interviews from the silent film stars and crew members themselves
The Parade's Gone By... by Kevin Brownlow
Fiction
If you think The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is overrated
Magical realism where Hollywood producers are (maybe) literally monsters…
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
A recently published, very unique look at at a director working before, after and during WWII
The Director | Book by Daniel Kehlmann
Coffee Table Books
A wonderful, thorough overview of Hollywood costume designers and full of beautiful images
Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers
Beautiful, stunning look at one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and beloved designers
Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion
A interesting overview from the dawn of film to (nearly) the present.
Celluloid Skyline: New York & Movies by Sanders
