Marcia reviewed THE SEWING CIRCLE last week:
The Sewing Circle
The Sewing Circle is the book I read this week. Axel Madsen wrote it.
Do I seem unexcited? I am.
I was enjoying it. It's a look at lesbians in Hollywood during the early days of movie making. And it's lively and it's interesting and . . .
Is any of it true?
I ask because the book tells us that George Cukor and William Haines were among a group chased out of town and it was reported with their names and that ended Haines' career. I wondered, since the book tells me it got press coverage, how did it not ruin Cukor?
Because Cukor wasn't at the 1936 June event.
And writing about the transition from silent films to 'the talkies,' he writes about how various actors didn't survie the transition and then comes this sentence: "Milton Sills became the first suicide."
But?
According to Wikipedia:
Sills had begun to make the transition to sound pictures as early as 1928 with the part-talking The Barker. His final appearance was in the title role of The Sea Wolf (1930), a performance called "incisive" by The New York Times.[9]
Death and legacy
Sills died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1930 while playing tennis with his wife at his Brentwood home at the age of 48.[1] He was interred at Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago. In December 1930, Photoplay published a poem found among his personal effects.[10]
So which is it?
Too often, The Sewing Circle reads great but when I look up something, it's not accurate.
To be clear, I wasn't trying to fact check the book. I was looking up things I found interesing in the book to learn more.
I repeatedly learned (I have twelve more examples) that what was in the book wasn't accurate.