TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD AND VINE:

The Lives and Legends of America's Celluloid Aristocracy

For roughly the past 85 years, the term “Hollywood” has been synonymous with glitz, glamour and a singular form of aristocracy – the movie star. More than a mere section of Los Angeles, “Hollywood” is a state of mind, an island of fantasy in a sea of reality. It has been both the arbiter of style and the target of opprobrium, the focus of dreams and the scapegoat for many of society's ills. It has turned otherwise normal people into larger-than-life icons, paragons and demigods. For better or for worse, “Hollywood” has been in the headlines for nearly four generations.

These four stand-alone lectures examine some of Hollywood's most interesting people: the lives they led, the studios and films they created, and the scandals that plagued them. It offers a unique look behind the gossamer curtain of idealization.

Lectures (Four):

  1. How the Jews Invented Hollywood: How a group of impoverished Jews from Eastern Europe built the great studios, thereby transforming America and single-handedly created a multi-billion dollar industry.

  2. Enter Will Hays: The Great Hollywood Scandals: From 1920 through 1925, Hollywood was beset with one salacious scandal after another. Facing censure and declining revenues, the studio moguls were forced to bring in a “morals' Tsar,” Postmaster General Will Hays.

  3. “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been . . .?” Starting in 1940, Hollywood had to fight off charges of harboring, supporting and disseminating Communists, Communism and Communist ideology. A look at an unseemly chapter in Hollywood history.

  4. How Hollywood Destroyed Orson Welles: The Story of Citizen Kane: Arguably, the greatest movie ever made in America, Welles' “Citizen Kane” was also the target of one of Hollywood's most vicious campaigns. This lecture will explore how a 25-year old wunderkind came to write, produce, direct and star in a film that had all America's attention even before it first hit the theater.