By Cris Franco

Just in time for the holidays comes the perfect gift to bestow your hardcore cinephile friends, familia – or yourself! It’s the latest literary offering from Boze Hadleigh-Garcia (nom de plume “Boze Hadleigh”) and it’s a deliciously decadent look at Hollywood’s sordid underbelly, titled: Scandals, Secrets, and Swan Songs. As its name implies, this 269-pager gives us an extreme close-up on the public disasters, private disgraces and often tragic final days of many a screen legend. 

Hadleigh’s 27th book is delivered with his trademark Hollywood insider POV that replaces Hollywood’s legendary rumors with Tinsel Town’s unreal reality. Judiciously researched, three of the selections explore the exploits of La La Land’s darkest final bows by answering the burning questions: Who drove the original “Mexican Spitfire,” Lupe Velez, to take her own life and that of her unborn child? How did a misunderstanding with a male “escort” lead to the murder of silent film macho Ramon Novarro? What devastating disease slowly ended the life of the devastatingly beautiful Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino)? The aforementioned are only a few of the one-hundred matinee idols Hadleigh exposes with his masterful mix of historical journalism and movie-biz macabre.    

Cleverly organized into chapters with titles such as, “Drugs: John Belushi, River Phoenix, and Chris Farley”; “Fatal Obesity: Laird Cregar, Victor Buono, John Candy” and “Accidents: Susan Peters, James Dean, Jayne Mansfield, and Christopher Reeve,” Hadleigh cuts to the chase and brings us the bizarre backstories and dizzying ironies that brought mammoth talents the likes of Phil Hartman, Dorothy Dandridge, Carrie Fisher, John Belushi, Natalie Wood and Robin Williams to fall victims of their own fame, delusion and destiny. Hadleigh is a gifted biographer who has written a terrific (sometimes terrifying) book – a fascinating forensic look into the human wreckage strewn on the boulevard of broken dreams. Ah, Hollywood!

Scandals, Secrets and Swan Songs is available on Amazon.com and other places where books are sold.

Featured Photos: Author Boze Hadleigh-Garcia (Photo: Courtesy, self) / Book cover of ‘Scandals, Secrets, and Swan Songs’

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Latino Hollywood expert and historian Luis Reyes is featured as an on-camera guest programmer for Turner Classic Movies Hispanic Heritage month celebration on Wed., Sept. 15 with TCM host Eddie Muller.  

Reyes will discuss three films to be shown on the cable channel highlighting Hollywood Latino stars Academy-Award winner Anthony Quinn, silver screen goddess Rita Hayworth and the Golden Globe-nominated Puerto Rican actor Juano Hernandez who was a pioneer in Black cinema.

The first film will be Back To Bataan, a 1945 RKO World War II adventure set in the Philippines co-starring a young Quinn in one of his first leading roles alongside John Wayne. Quinn was an actor of Mexican descent whose real name was Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca. The movie will play at 8 pm ET, 5 pm PT.

Following will be The Strawberry Blonde, a 1940 Warner Bros. romcom starring a young Hayworth–whose real name was Margarita Carmen Cansino and who was Spanish on her father side. The actress made this film at the height of her stardom alongside Oscar-winning actor James Cagney and director Raoul Walsh, who was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film will air at 10 pm ET, 7 pm PT.

The third film, Intruder in The Dust, is a 1949 MGM drama starring Hernandez in a tale of a proud black man falsely accused of killing a white neighbor in a small Southern town. It will broadcast at 12 midnight ET, 9 pm PT.

Reyes is a frequent contributor to this trade outlet, Latin Heat. He is the author of five books on film including the seminal works Hispanics In Hollywood and co-author of The Hawaii Movie and TV Book. The Los Angeles-based writer is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Publicists Guild. The respected film historian has written numerous film-related articles for The Los Angeles Times, Hawaii Magazine, DGA Quarterly and Latin Heat. Reyes has lectured on film at UCLA, USC and New York’s Public Theater and Film Forum.

For more information, visit www.tcm.com.

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The second half of the 1970s saw Lynda Carter conquer America and the world in the title role of the TV live-action superheroine Wonder Woman series. Born Linda Jean Cordova Carter, the actress inspired young girls and women as one of few heroes with super powers on television and conquered the hearts of all with her signature look: dark brown, wavy hair, piercing blue eyes and voluptuous figure.

Now the actress who made Wonder Woman a household name makes a cameo as the Amazon named Asteria in the new film Wonder Woman 1984, starring Gal Gadot and now playing in theaters and streaming online.

After Wonder Woman the TV series ended in 1979, Carter went on to star in many movies for television, including a biopic about Rita Hayworth, and appear in various roles in TV series like Smallville and Supergirl. In the latter, Carter stills plays the recurring occasional role of President Olivia Marsdin. She has also lent her  voice to video games.

The Phoenix, Arizona native, who is of Mexican and European descent, also has a music career, recording  several jazz and blues albums. After all, music was her first passion, which led her to perform once in Las Vegas when she was still under 21 years of age. Her most recent album Red Rock N’ Blues came out in 2018. That same year she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring her television career.

In addition to sporadically playing the US president in Supergirl, Carter could soon be seen in the film The Cleaner, starring opposite Luke Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Stargirl) and Shelley Long (Cheers, Modern Family). The drama about a middle-age house cleaner who gets caught up in a violent crime is in post-production.

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