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384 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2019
“The stories that center on the Marmont—real and fictitious—span generations: Greta Garbo owned the place in secret (not true); Jean Harlow took lovers while resident with husband number three not long after the suicide of husband number two (pretty much true); Howard Hughes leased a suite simply to spy on the flesh available at poolside (true-true); F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a heart attack there during a midday tryst (not true); Vivien Leigh mourned the end of her marriage to Laurence Olivier in a suite plastered with photos of him (true); Rock Hudson met his first live-in lover there, the nephew of the hotel manager (not true); James Dean met Rebel Without a Cause director Nicholas Ray by entering his bungalow via the window rather than the door (not quite); Anthony Perkins used the phone booth in the lobby because he didn’t want the switchboard operator to listen in on his personal calls (sadly true); Jim Morrison climbed the ornate balconies and rooftops in drug-fueled antics (mostly, sorta); Led Zeppelin rode motorcycles through the lobby (nuh-uh); Scarlett Johansson and Benicio Del Toro hooked up in the elevator on Oscar night (Who can say?); Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up—and failing to pay—nearly $ 50,000 in charges in less than two months (all too true); and so on.”