The Decline and Fall of the Love Goddesses

Between the covers of this book are ten faces that, like Helen of Troy, might have launched a thousand ships. These are the faces that sent men off to war, that hung in school locker rooms, that covered bedroom walls. faces that schoolgirls, their mothers, and grandmothers, imitated with arched eyebrows and shoulder-length hair. These are the faces of the Love Goddesses, those shimmering, dazzling, heart-stopping beauties who only yesterday, like brilliant comets, flashed before our eyes to brighten the quality of our days and our dreams. With photographs as poignant as his words, Patrick Agan presents the little-known stories of ten glamorous, internationally celebrated luminaries who made it to the top, who held the world in the palms of their hands-and let it all slip through their fingers. the victims of their own weaknesses, of changing times, of men who used them badly. From incandescent Rita Hayworth to uninhibited Jayne Mansfield to the most dazzling Love Goddess of them all, Marilyn Monroe, all of them are here-with a difference. For Patrick Agan has gone behind the newspaper that made each of them tick-and what made the ticking stop. He has interviewed husbands and ex-husbands, lovers, relatives, and friends. He has found information in unexpected places, and sorted through countless files and photographs-many published here for the first time; others heart-tuggingly familiar. All of them show these ten unforgettable women on the way up, at the peak, and on the way down. PATRICK AGAN, magazine columnist and author of the popular Is That Who I Think It Is? nostalgia series and Clint Eastwood: The Man Behind the Myth, lives on the West Coast, although he divides his time between Los Angeles and New York. He is currently at work on a roman a clef novel about the golden years of Hollywood. All orders shipped protected in a box. This is a large book and will require extra postage. Bumped top and bottom of spine. …