The Brat

It's not easy being a child star in Hollywood, especially when you're beginning to suspect that you're gay. The Brat is set in the glittering golden age of Hollywood-the 1930s and early 1940s-and chronicles the life and times of two child actresses, who just happen to be best friends.Helen Payne is cool, reserved, and decidedly hetero. Her best pal is the spunky, outspoken, "tomboyish" moppet Millie Macon, who reigns for a time as America's most beloved child star.Both girls struggle to make sense of a world that seems intent on exploiting their talents for enormous profit, while ignoring their emotional well-being. Yet together the girls maintain a friendship, which serves to protect them from the slings and arrows of outrageous movie fortune.If you're fascinated by Hollywood, you will love The Brat.

Ruth Rouff researched much of The Brat at the Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in Los Angeles. She was raised in southern New Jersey, and attended Vassar College on scholarship, majoring in English. She currently works as a teacher in the Philadelphia public schools.