Whatever happened to Hollywood?

by Lasky Jesse

Jesse Lasky, Jr. is the son of one of Hollywood's greatest pioneers, and his childhood and adolescence were spent in an era that was as fabulous (and is now as extinct) as the Roman Empire under Nero. With honesty and gusto and in a wealth of anecdotes, Lasky tells of these halcyon days and the Empire's decline and fall, when the stock market crashed, ushering in the hungry thirties, and his father was wiped out overnight. Lasky records his years of struggle to achieve success as a screenwriter. His boyhood friendships with the greats and near-greats were of no use to him at all, proving the old axiom that you can be forgotten in Hollywood if you take time out to cross the street. Some of his most turbulent experiences came at the hands of the legendary Cecil B. DeMille, his father's old business partner, who was a benevolent tyrant, a monster of egocentricity. Lasky became one one DeMille's top scriptwriters. This book is much more than the history of an era. It is the rich, zestful, fast and funny personal chronicle of one man's journey through an amazing never-never land of make-believe, peopled by con men, suckers, larger-than-life characters, has-beens and never-has-beens. It's a Hollywood script with a cast of thousands--and it's all true!

Genres: Memoir

349 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1973

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have any interest at all in the golden age of Hollywood, you'll probably love this book as much as I do. Lasky, Jr., the son of one of the founding father's of the movie industry, was there for it all and his remembrances are told with humility and humor.

[William Coates · Rating 2 out of 5]

You're better off reading his correspondence with his father. It's a meandering memoir.