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Prologue AT A HOUSE PARTY IN NOVEMBER 1988, I happened to meet an eager young writer named Sidney D. Kirkpatrick. fascinated by Hollywood's lurid past. especially the silent era, he had just written a bestseller , The Cast ffil/ers. I met him again a few weeks later, at Dutton's Bookstore in Beverly Hills, where the youthful author-celebrity was enjoying his first book launching and where I stood in line (something I had never done before) with the rest of the autograph seekers. When it came my turn, he wrote on the flyleaf of my book: "To frederica: who paused a few moments to teach a young author some new tricks. My very best, Sidney D. Kirkpatrick." That "pause," in truth, had been an entire evening of intense interrogation . When Sidney Kirkpatrick discovered my distant past. that I had been a Hollywood screenwriter during the twenties, thirties. and forties, he completely monopolized me for the rest of the evening, ferreting out every last detail of that almost forgotten time. It so happened that The Cast ffil/ers was about King Vidor and how he had solved the murder, after sixty years, of another great film director, William Desmond Taylor. In 1922, when the murder was committed. I was a tenderfoot in Universal's New York story department. The murder was a juicy scandal. and the newspapers had a field day. There were rumors of coverups. The head of Paramount Studioswas said to have burned a bundle of Taylor's papers in the fireplace, as the police looked the other way; a well-known actress reputedly searched his house for letters she claimed were hers. The cast of suspects included the actress Mabel Normand, a possible drug addict; the beautiful ingenue Mary Miles Minter; and Mary's domineering mother, Charlotte Shelby. All were thought to have had clandestine affairs with the slain director, a philanderer and playboy of the silent era. and it was generally believed that he received his just deserts when he was shot to death in his Los Angeles bungalow by an unknown assailant. Back in 1922, this had been heady, titillating stuff for xiv Prologue an impressionable neophyte in the film business. and I remembered it well. And. as Sidney Kirkpatrick learned in the course of our discussion. I remembered a lot of other things well. too. "Do you know Kevin Brownlow?" he asked me suddenly. as if everyone connected with the film business knew Kevin Brownlow. I had never heard of him. Since I had been removed from the celluloid scene for over forty years. Hollywood film historians or Hollywood anything were of little interest to me. "No:ยท I replied. "who is he?" I soon learned all about Kevin Brownlow. Within weeks of my meeting Sidney. Kevin set himself on my trail and insisted I grant him an interview . This man was responsible for well-known documentaries on Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. as well as another on Harold Lloyd. His book about Hollywood. The Parades Gone By, had received rave reviews. It was Kevin Brownlow who convinced me to write this book. He felt that I knew things no one else did and that I could tell stories as no one else could-and with credentials like his. I could scarcely argue. So I took pen in hand and began to set down my life in Hollywood as I remember it. Now. when you reach the august age that I have and try to remember what has happened in your life. you have a lot of ground to cover. I lived through two World Wars. the Great Depression. the McCarthy era. and eighteen different presidencies. Later. when I was well into my eighties . and after the death of my husband. I made two long. searching trips to Russia to visit the homeland of my parents. In all. this story deals with frustration. disillusionment. and heartache-times perhaps best left to lie fallow or not remembered at all. Certainly that is how I felt in 1950 when at last I bid farewell. without tears. to the Hollywood screen industry that had so entangled and entrapped me in its web of promises. I was determined then to forget and go on to other pursuits. I did. and never looked back-until now. ...

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