Hollywood Babylon is indeed a book written by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger that purports to describe the controversies involving notable Hollywood residents from the 1900s through the 1950s. The book got banned in the United States immediately after its initial publication in 1965, and then it stayed inaccessible until it had been reissued ten years later. “If a book such as this can be called to have appeal, it rests in the reality that there is a book without a single redeeming feature,” The New York Times remarked of it upon its second edition in 1975. Anger’s book, according to The Daily Beast, is “Basically, it’s a work of fiction. There’s no question that many, if not all, of the stories in Anger’s small bible, are false.”
Kevin Brownlow, a movie historian, slammed the book, quoting Anger as claiming that his research style was “mainly mental telepathy.”
The first American version of Hollywood Babylon was released in 1965 by Associated Professional Services of Phoenix, Arizona. It was initially published in French in 1959 by J.J. Pauvert (Paris) as Hollywood Babylone. After a series of copyright disputes, a second US edition was produced by Rolling Stone’s Straight Arrow Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster in 1975.
Charles Chaplin, Lupe Velez, Mary Nolan, Rudolph Valentino, Marie Prevost, Mary Astor, Wallace Reid, Olive Thomas, Jeanne Eagels, Thelma Todd, Errol Flynn, Frances Farmer, Juanita Hansen, Mae Murray, Alma Rubens, John Gilbert, Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, Jean Harlow, Carole Landis, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, and Marilyn Monroe are among the celebrities featured in the book
The Fatty Arbuckle–Virginia Rappe controversy, William Desmond Taylor’s murder, the Hollywood Blacklist, Sharon Tate’s murder, as well as the Confidential magazine litigation were all covered in detail in Hollywood Babylon.
The 1975 edition of the book included graphic images such as the scene of Jayne Mansfield’s traffic accident, a photograph of Carole Landis within a week of her suicide, images of director and screenwriter Paul Bern upon his suicide, a photograph of Lewis Stone as he lay dying on a sidewalk, as well as unfiltered images of the Black Dahlia’s body.
Despite the fact that many of Anger’s claims have indeed been debunked since the book’s first release, it is still the source of several urban legends. It claimed, for example, that Clara Bow had sex with the whole USC football team, including a teenage John Wayne, a claim that has already been refuted several times.