Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood - Paperback

by Karina Longworth (Author)

In this riveting popular history, the creator of You Must Remember This probes the inner workings of Hollywood's glamorous golden age through the stories of some of the dozens of actresses pursued by Howard Hughes, to reveal how the millionaire mogul's obsessions with sex, power and publicity trapped, abused, or benefitted women who dreamt of screen stardom.

In recent months, the media has reported on scores of entertainment figures who used their power and money in Hollywood to sexually harass and coerce some of the most talented women in cinema and television. But as Karina Longworth reminds us, long before the Harvey Weinsteins there was Howard Hughes--the Texas millionaire, pilot, and filmmaker whose reputation as a cinematic provocateur was matched only by that as a prolific womanizer.

His supposed conquests between his first divorce in the late 1920s and his marriage to actress Jean Peters in 1957 included many of Hollywood's most famous actresses, among them Billie Dove, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner. From promoting bombshells like Jean Harlow and Jane Russell to his contentious battles with the censors, Hughes--perhaps more than any other filmmaker of his era--commoditized male desire as he objectified and sexualized women. Yet there were also numerous women pulled into Hughes's grasp who never made it to the screen, sometimes virtually imprisoned by an increasingly paranoid and disturbed Hughes, who retained multitudes of private investigators, security personnel, and informers to make certain these actresses would not escape his clutches.

Vivid, perceptive, timely, and ridiculously entertaining, The Seducer is a landmark work that examines women, sex, and male power in Hollywood during its golden age--a legacy that endures nearly a century later.

Front Jacket

A wildly entertaining look at Hollywood's glamorous golden age via the cinematic life of Howard Hughes and the actresses who encountered him--and suffered the consequences

Howard Hughes's reputation as a director and producer of films unusually defined by sex dovetails with his image as one of the most prolific womanizers of the twentieth century. The promoter of bomb-shell actresses such as Jean Harlow and Jane Russell, Hughes supposedly included among his off-screen conquests many of the most famous actresses of the era such as Billie Dove, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Ginger Rogers, and Lana Turner. His marketing of male desire helped produce an incredibly influential, sexualized image of womanhood that has impacted culture ever since. But there was a price . . .

In Seduction, Karina Longworth draws upon an unprecedented trove of archival sources, diaries, and documents to produce a land-mark work of Hollywood history that is as effervescent as it is relevant. Seduction is not only about the murkier shades of golden-age Hollywood, but the ripples that still slither across today's entertainment industry and our culture in general.

--Refinery 29

Back Jacket

A wildly entertaining look at Hollywood's glamorous golden age via the cinematic life of Howard Hughes and the actresses who encountered him--and suffered the consequences

Howard Hughes's reputation as a director and producer of films unusually defined by sex dovetails with his image as one of the most prolific womanizers of the twentieth century. The promoter of bomb-shell actresses such as Jean Harlow and Jane Russell, Hughes supposedly included among his off-screen conquests many of the most famous actresses of the era such as Billie Dove, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Ginger Rogers, and Lana Turner. His marketing of male desire helped produce an incredibly influential, sexualized image of womanhood that has impacted culture ever since. But there was a price . . .

In Seduction, Karina Longworth draws upon an unprecedented trove of archival sources, diaries, and documents to produce a land-mark work of Hollywood history that is as effervescent as it is relevant. Seduction is not only about the murkier shades of golden-age Hollywood, but the ripples that still slither across today's entertainment industry and our culture in general.