The New York Times Book Review - Lisa Schwarzbaum
…guaranteed to engross anybody with any interest at all in Hollywood, in movies, in #MeToo and in the never-ending story of men with power and women without…No matter how much we think we may know about Hughes—the millionaire, the aviator, the studio head, the filmmaker, the eccentric, the commitment-phobic womanizer whose strange allure entranced some of Hollywood's most famous screen goddesses—Longworth puts the man, the women and the whole flesh-peddling movie-biz circus in a new and timely perspective. She does this by giving each woman and girl, each star and starlet, each fresh hopeful and disappointed discard her own place on the page as a person with a soul of her own…Seduction is the valuable synthesis of [Longworth's] curiosity, her analytical strengths and her modern feminist orientation that results in a vibrant writing style poised between warm compassion and cool critical documentation of what ought to have been horrifying, and never was, in show business.
Publishers Weekly
09/24/2018
Longworth (Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor), creator and host of the Hollywood history podcast You Must Remember This, centers this deeply researched look at Howard Hughes around the famed aviator and film producer’s exploitative treatment of women. She relates that Hughes was born rich in 1905 to the Hughes Tools family and died at 70 in 1976, even richer but isolated and afflicted by physical and mental health issues. Longworth ably summarizes Hughes’s film career and notable productions, such as Hell’s Angels, Scarface, and, most pertinently, his scandalously risqué western The Outlaw. Most vividly, she anatomizes his obsession with “collecting” and controlling the women in his life and his films. In addition to his well-publicized romances with established stars, including Katherine Hepburn, Ida Lupino, and Ginger Rogers, Hughes was also given to signing unknown young actresses to contracts, installing them in bungalows with guards posted outside, and then stalling on putting them in his RKO films. Unfortunately, the narrative is weighed down by digressions into Hughes’s family, associates, planes, and erratic business sense, and by Longworth’s apparent determination to use every single item from her research. This lack of focus dilutes the effectiveness of what could have been a sharp and timely study of film industry misogyny. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Guaranteed to engross anyone with any interest at all in Hollywood, in movies, in #MeToo and in the never-ending story of men with power and women without.” — New York Times Book Review
“The stories Longworth uncovers—about Katharine Hepburn and Jane Russell, yes, but also Ida Lupino and Faith Domergue and Anita Loos—are so rich, so compelling, that they urge you to question how much else in history has been lost within the swirling vortex of Great Men.” — Atlantic
“A compelling and relevant must-read.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A first-rate work of cultural curation, in which Longworth combs the countless stacks of Hollywood memoirs and biographies, with a focus on the pathological predations of Howard Hughes, Texas millionaire, starmaker and film producer.” — USA Today (four stars)
“An astute and entertaining takedown of the movie industry, the press and the multimillionaire turned wannabe filmmaker Howard Hughes. Hardly anyone emerges from the pages of Seduction unblemished by selfishness and greed once they are touched by the movie business and its promise of wealth, power and fame.” — Associated Press
“From the force behind the You Must Remember This podcast comes a book exploring the glamour of classic Hollywood cinema through the lens of Texas business magnate, filmmaker (Hell’s Angels, Scarface), and notorious womanizer Howard Hughes—think a Harvey Weinstein–esque character decades before #MeToo.” — Vanity Fair
“Longworth blasts through the seductive narratives propagated by men in the film business to uncover the dark stories underneath.” — The Cut
“Vibrant… A compulsive page-turner… Much of Seduction reads like a long overdue act of redress, repositioning women into the more central positions where they belong.” — Los Angeles Times
“Longworth pulls back the curtain on Hollywood’s golden age to reveal, through the stories of some of the actresses pursued by legendary millionaire mogul Howard Hughes, its dark and lasting legacy of power inequity, harassment, and abuse.” — Bustle
“Seduction reads like a scandal sheet tempered with primary and secondary research.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“A candid portrait of the multifaceted millionaire…As his romantic tastes shifts from known quantities — like Hepburn, Rogers and Gardner — to powerless unknowns, Seduction reveals the root of Hughes’s interest in women: a desire to exert total control, rather than true affection.” — Washington Post
“Audacious and welcome.” — Sight and Sound
“Jam-packed with Hollywood scandal and history.” — Refinery 29
“Karina Longworth loves Hollywood the way it ought to be loved — mercilessly. She is a skeptic without cynicism, a feminist without apology, and in Seduction she has found the great subject that her essential podcast has long promised” — James Kaplan, author of Sinatra
“An entertaining and timely tour of early Hollywood mores and manipulation. No matter how much you think you know about golden age Hollywood, Longworth serves up fascinatingly fresh perspective on the ways male desire and power shaped movie mythology.” — Joy Press, author of Stealing the Show
“Full of insight...illuminating and memorable.” — Booklist
“A history that shows clearly how powerful men exploited actresses long before the #MeToo movement began. Hollywood historian Longworth has mined memoirs, biographies, magazines, newspapers, and archives to create an entertaining, gossip-filled portrait of the film capital’s golden age… A lively—and often sordid—Hollywood history.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Throughout this densely researched and lively book the siren song of the new medium of film is heard.” — Cineaste
New York Times Book Review
Guaranteed to engross anyone with any interest at all in Hollywood, in movies, in #MeToo and in the never-ending story of men with power and women without.
Entertainment Weekly
A compelling and relevant must-read.
Vanity Fair
From the force behind the You Must Remember This podcast comes a book exploring the glamour of classic Hollywood cinema through the lens of Texas business magnate, filmmaker (Hell’s Angels, Scarface), and notorious womanizer Howard Hughes—think a Harvey Weinstein–esque character decades before #MeToo.
Bustle
Longworth pulls back the curtain on Hollywood’s golden age to reveal, through the stories of some of the actresses pursued by legendary millionaire mogul Howard Hughes, its dark and lasting legacy of power inequity, harassment, and abuse.
USA Today (four stars)
A first-rate work of cultural curation, in which Longworth combs the countless stacks of Hollywood memoirs and biographies, with a focus on the pathological predations of Howard Hughes, Texas millionaire, starmaker and film producer.
Associated Press
An astute and entertaining takedown of the movie industry, the press and the multimillionaire turned wannabe filmmaker Howard Hughes. Hardly anyone emerges from the pages of Seduction unblemished by selfishness and greed once they are touched by the movie business and its promise of wealth, power and fame.
The Cut
Longworth blasts through the seductive narratives propagated by men in the film business to uncover the dark stories underneath.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Seduction reads like a scandal sheet tempered with primary and secondary research.
Atlantic
The stories Longworth uncovers—about Katharine Hepburn and Jane Russell, yes, but also Ida Lupino and Faith Domergue and Anita Loos—are so rich, so compelling, that they urge you to question how much else in history has been lost within the swirling vortex of Great Men.
|Los Angeles Times
Vibrant… A compulsive page-turner… Much of Seduction reads like a long overdue act of redress, repositioning women into the more central positions where they belong.
Joy Press
An entertaining and timely tour of early Hollywood mores and manipulation. No matter how much you think you know about golden age Hollywood, Longworth serves up fascinatingly fresh perspective on the ways male desire and power shaped movie mythology.
Booklist
Full of insight...illuminating and memorable.
Washington Post
A candid portrait of the multifaceted millionaire…As his romantic tastes shifts from known quantities — like Hepburn, Rogers and Gardner — to powerless unknowns, Seduction reveals the root of Hughes’s interest in women: a desire to exert total control, rather than true affection.
Cineaste
Throughout this densely researched and lively book the siren song of the new medium of film is heard.
James Kaplan
Karina Longworth loves Hollywood the way it ought to be loved — mercilessly. She is a skeptic without cynicism, a feminist without apology, and in Seduction she has found the great subject that her essential podcast has long promised
Sight and Sound
Audacious and welcome.
Refinery 29
Jam-packed with Hollywood scandal and history.
Washington Post
A candid portrait of the multifaceted millionaire…As his romantic tastes shifts from known quantities — like Hepburn, Rogers and Gardner — to powerless unknowns, Seduction reveals the root of Hughes’s interest in women: a desire to exert total control, rather than true affection.
Los Angeles Times
Vibrant… A compulsive page-turner… Much of Seduction reads like a long overdue act of redress, repositioning women into the more central positions where they belong.
Booklist
Full of insight...illuminating and memorable.
Associated Press Staff
“An astute and entertaining takedown of the movie industry, the press and the multimillionaire turned wannabe filmmaker Howard Hughes. Hardly anyone emerges from the pages of Seduction unblemished by selfishness and greed once they are touched by the movie business and its promise of wealth, power and fame.
The Atlantic
The stories Longworth uncovers—about Katharine Hepburn and Jane Russell, yes, but also Ida Lupino and Faith Domergue and Anita Loos—are so rich, so compelling, that they urge you to question how much else in history has been lost within the swirling vortex of Great Men.
Kirkus Reviews
2018-09-02
A history that shows clearly how powerful men exploited actresses long before the #MeToo movement began.
Hollywood historian Longworth (Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997, 2014, etc.) has mined memoirs, biographies, magazines, newspapers, and archives to create an entertaining, gossip-filled portrait of the film capital's golden age, from the 1920s through the 1960s. Central to the story is the enormously wealthy, paranoid, and erratic Howard Hughes (1905-1976), businessman and aviator, whose self-proclaimed goal was "to become the world's most famous motion picture producer" and whose leering desire for buxom young actresses represented the proclivities of many other men in the industry. These were women "whose faces and bodies Hughes strove to possess and/or make iconic, sometimes at an expense to their minds and souls." They were harassed, abused, surveilled, and, in some cases, imprisoned by a man with the money and power to make or break their careers. Hughes, writes the author, "was not the only mogul in Hollywood who profited off treating actresses as sex goddess flavors of the month, good for consumption in a brief window but disposable as soon as the next variety came along," but he acted "more crudely, and with even less of a regard for the person these actresses were before they came into his life." Those actresses range from the barely remembered (Billie Dove, Faith Domergue) to major stars: Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn (who shared Hughes' home for a while), Bette Davis, Ida Lupino (whose directing career Hughes supported), Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and Jean Peters (whom Hughes, uncharacteristically, married). Hughes was so famous that he could lure women merely by promising them future stardom: Choosing a young woman's photo from a newspaper or magazine, he sent a team of men to track her down, have his own photographer take new pictures, and, if he was pleased, invite her to Hollywood—and took control of her life. The media, dazzled by his self-created myth, perpetuated his image as an iconoclastic folk hero.
A lively—and often sordid—Hollywood history.
