Investigation Hollywood!

by Fred Otash

private detective stories

Genres: Nonfiction, Media Tie In

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Mediaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing 50-year-old book with criminal stories involving famous people that would be ripe for a true-crime podcast. The author is a former Los Angeles cop who became a private investigator. He works with and for millionaires, Mafia leaders, other law enforcement, old time celebrities, and disgruntled spouses of famous people.

There are a couple whopper stories in the book, the most important being a transcribed conversation between Rock Hudson and his then-wife about the star's homosexuality. This paints a different picture than the ex had portrayed in her book or than others had written about the couple. Hudson's name isn't used here but author Otash gives enough detail that you know exactly who it is.

There are also odd pro-Mafia and pro-Sinatra stories, a priest caught running off with a young lady that just came into millions of dollars, more dirt on the horrible political Kennedys, the writer's month spent living at the home of Judy Garland, and the sad story of married movie star Jeffrey Hunter (he played Jesus on screen) who got a woman pregnant and sent Otash to convince her to have an abortion in another country. Otash seems to brag about all of it, and in many cases takes credit that is a bit difficult to believe (he says he got Garland off alcohol and drugs cold turkey!). He also admits to providing secret information to someone who committed suicide after seeing it--I wonder how this guy slept at night?

While the book is fairly well written, the author comes across as a disgusting immoral pig willing to do anything to make a buck. He flip-flops on clients, sometimes ends up representing opposing sides, and uses his police contacts to do some possibly illegal things. It does reveal that those in law enforcement are easily corrupted and willing to use their power or connections to create outcomes that are neither fair nor sometimes legal.

There are enough stories in this that a podcaster needs to get on them and do some real investigation of Hollywood to see if they all are true.

[Richard Schaefer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even if you don’t know Fred Otash (though many fans of James Ellroy or old Hollywood will), you know his work. As a former LAPD officer turned private eye for (and against) the stars, he was involved in much of the gossip that came out of Hollywood in the 50s. He was one of Confidential magazine’s main informants, and he worked a number of movie star divorces. Otash was also, by his own account, quite a playboy, bagging starlets left and right. And that’s the sort of self-aggrandizement you can expect in Investigation Hollywood! Though his career was an exciting one, and he has the dirt on literally everyone, this book is only intermittently compelling. Sometimes it feels like a hardboiled riff on Hollywood Babylon, sometimes it feels like braggadocios stories he’d tell at a party. Some of the anecdotes are compelling, some rehash familiar tales, and some are too vague to leave an impression. I wish he’d invested the work with more psychological insight, as he did in one of the more compelling pieces, about Charles Schnee. Investigation Hollywood! is more interesting as an artifact than art, and even the gossip isn’t as juicy as you’d hope; we’ve heard these stories before, because Otash is the one who helped break them.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

good stuff, but I hope he has the real dirt memoirs stashed away, ready to release on some great Reveal Day in the future

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven. Some of it is great. And you really understand Ellroy's love of the man.