City of Nets by Otto Friedrich, a review from Boldtype by Joshua David Stein.
"Otto Friedrich's City of Nets is littered with bodies: somebodies, nobodies, congressional bodies, bodies of work, and even corpses. Hollywood from 1939 to 1950 ? the period covered in this 20-year-old book ? had scandals that make US Weekly and Star seem school-marmish by comparison. A few examples: Errol Flynn Flings with Fifteen-Year-Old Aboard Yacht, Calls Boss Jack Warner 'Jew Bastard'; Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin Held at Gun-Point by Stalker Starlet, Sued for Paternity; Wm. Faulkner and MGM Exec Found Drunk in Okie Camp after Ten-Day Whisky Binge. If all this sounds Brechtian in its lurid hedonism, that???s because it is." Read the entire Boldtype review.