 Design inconsistencies aside, this celebrity dossier is still one hell of a gossip bible, writes Barry Lowe.
I love a good gossip as much as anyone and when it comes to rumours
about celebrity cock size and who is fucking who then you’ve got my
undivided attention. So the prospect of a new version of Kenneth
Anger’s Hollywood Babylon
and its sequel, which took gossip and innuendo to new heights when
first published in the 1980s, although it had allegedly circulated in
samizdat form since the 1950s, was exciting indeed. These books were
riddled with (often erroneous) accusations about famed celebrities
(usually dead) from Tyrone Power (shit-eating grin took on added
frisson in his case) and Lupe Velez, often accompanied by graphic
photographs such as Jayne Mansfield’s death and the Black Dahlia murder
victim’s body parts.
Now Blood Moon Productions has given us a third volume, Hollywood Babylon - It’s Back!
by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince. And they tantalisingly threaten
further books as this one is labelled ‘Volume #1’. The edition has been
slammed by critics for its mistakes – the authors state they were told
Nick Adams was giving Elvis a blow job as he watched the moon landings
– only if Elvis was into necrophilia as Nick had died the year before.
And speaking of necrophilia, the authors tell a wonderfully bizarre
story about a group of gay necrophiliacs ‘kidnapping’ the body of Judy
Garland to pay their respects by masturbating over her corpse. There
are also a few mistakes in editing, there’s repetition (it’s like the
chapters were written over time by different people with scant regard
for what has been said previously), and a couple of captions are wrong.
Who cares! Critics of the books are now treating the original HB books
as if they were great literature instead of the lurid error-ridden
trash they were.
Okay, this book has miniscule reproduction of the dick shots and is
preoccupied with celebrity cock size to the extent that even I wished
they’d move on. Its lay-out is irritating although I’ll give them the
benefit of the doubt that they wanted the pages to be as jumbled and
erratic as old scandal sheets such as Confidential.
But in the end it’s the salacious revelations that appeal. In this
technological age a lot of the material is available on the net but if
you want that material collated for you with the added appeal of some
first-hand ‘beanspilling’ from co-author Darwin Porter, who seems to
have been Johnny-on-the-spot in a lucky number of occasions, then this
book is for you!
It’s the more outrageous ‘accusations’ that linger in the mind: that
James Dean was having it off with a 12-year-old boy, Cary Grant was
fucking his step-son, Bette Davis killed her second husband when she
caught him in bed with Ann Sheridan, Nick Adams was murdered because he
was writing a tell-all autobiography, Errol Flynn raped his son Sean,
Marcello Mastroianni was regularly blown by Pope Paul VI, Elvis not
only was bisexual but was also screwing his mom, Lucille Ball was a
hooker, and (sadly) Tony Randall was a self-loathing ‘faggot’. I
particularly like the tongue-firmly-in-cheek chapters on Tom Cruise and
the implied relationship between Mathew McConnaughey and Tour de France
cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Some of the chapters are puerile. The one about Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe’s nude appearance on stage in Equus,
and the story of Ivor Novello and Winston Churchill has been
regurgitated so many times it’s old news. But, as the book’s cover
trumpets: Hot, Unauthorized, and Unapologetic! All Those Celebrities!
All Those Scandals! All That Nudity! … and All That Sin!
I can hardly wait for Volume #2.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
