Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon Max Eastman and Charlie Chaplin (Special Publications of the Lilly Library)

About this book

In 1919 Florence Deshontall radical and charismaticwas well on her way to becoming one of Hollywoods brightest stars. Embroiled in a clandestine affair with Charlie Chaplin she continued to remain romantically involved with the well-known writer and socialist Max Eastman. By 1922 she was found dead in a New York apartment rumored to have committed suicide. Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon Max Eastman and Charlie Chaplin uses previously unpublished letters between Deshon and Eastman to reconstruct their relationship against the backdrop of the "golden age" of Hollywood. Deshons tragic life and her abuse at the hands of powerful menincluding Chaplin Eastman and Samuel Goldwynresonate with the concerns of todays MeToo movement. Above all though this is a book about an extraordinary woman unjustly forgotten: a brilliant writer and campaigner for womens rights driven both by her ambition to succeed and a boundless desire for life. Rich in tantalizing detail Love and Loss in Hollywood chronicles crucial years of American film history overshadowed by the pervasive fear of Bolshevism after World War I the Red Riots and the emergence of the big studios in Hollywood. This beautiful edition features dozens of unpublished photographs among them six mesmerizing full-length portraits of Deshon by Adolph de Meyer Vogues first fashion photographer.