Dimensions
127 x 198 x 23mm
This book reveals the sinister true story of the Mafia in Hollywood: it strips away the veneer of the movie studios' American Dream. Crammed with legends, myths, murders, madness, mayhem, superstar tantrums, super-sexed starlets, power brokers and politics, it is an ambitious account of Hollywood's hidden history, from the rogue cops who took on the Mob on the streets of Los Angeles to the stars who became stars because Mafia Godfathers said they would.
In The Dark Heart of Hollywood, veteran crime and entertainment writer Douglas Thompson reveals how all is masterminded by the money-obsessed Mafia, for whom everything and everyone is simply a commodity. The intense saga charges across America: from Hollywood bedrooms to the Oval Office, from California's twenty-first century computer capital to the cocaine-connection HQs stretching from the Sunset Strip to Marseilles, Milan, Moscow, Tokyo and Beijing.
It is an intriguing coincidence that superstar mobster Lucky Luciano was born in the same year, 1897, and place, Sicily, as the magical film director Frank Capra, who promulgated the fantasy and romance of the movies. With the American Mafia, Luciano helped create the world's most powerful crime organisation. Meanwhile, Capra's best-known film,It's a Wonderful Life, was made the year Luciano was deported back to Italy.
Both men's legacies remain in Hollywood, unveiled as Tinseltown without the tinsel in this magnificent and highly compelling volume.
