Overview

Built in stages between 1830 and 1875, Magnolia House is a historic landmark on Staten Island, the least-visited Outer Borough of New York City. Set within a 10-minute walk from the (free) Staten Island ferry that accesses Manhattan, it's the headquarters of the widely distributed independent press, BLOOD MOON PRODUCTIONS, a feisty wordsmith noted for celebrity biographies that have been reviewed in THE DAILY MAIL, the New York DAILY NEWS, show-biz news reports, and literary journals across the country. Some visitors liken Magnolia House to a grande dame with a centuries-old knack for nourishing high-functioning eccentrics. Many of them have lived or been entertained here since New York's State Senator Howard Bayne, a transplanted Southerner, moved in with his wife, the daughter of the Surgeon General of the Confederate States of America, in the aftermath of that bloodiest of wars on North American soil, the War Between the American States. Since then, many dozens of celebrities--some of them notorious--have whispered their secrets and rehearsed their ambitions within its walls. They've included movie vamps from the silent screen, MIDNIGHT COWBOYS, dancers from the dance, BUTTERFLIES IN HEAT, a heavyweight boxing champ, writers from every hue, faded film goddesses, playwrights who crafted blockbusters for both Marilyn (Monroe) and Elizabeth (Taylor), ultra-avant-garde diarists, every known variety of prima donna and diva, including some from the world of opera, and a world-class Olympic athlete. They've also included Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince, who spent decades here renovating it and producing a stream of FROMMER TRAVEL GUIDES and award-winning celebrity biographies. This book illuminates Magnolia House's contribution to the American Century, when dozens of individual movers and shakers--some of them sane and emotionally stable, others not--visited Magnolia House. This book reveals what they did and what they revealed.

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9781936003730

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Reviews

This is high celebrity gossip at its best...strengthened by interview quotes, personal connections, and a personal familiarity with the entertainment industry that no outsider could have adequately conveyed. Blending autobiography with industry history, it's especially recommended for enthusiasts of vintage Hollywood and Broadway social and cultural history. Fans of celebrity gossip will relish the atmosphere, detail, and in-depth insights on personalities captured in this lively romp. Diane Donovan, for California Bookwatch and The Midwest Book Review.

This is high celebrity gossip at its best...strengthened by interview quotes, personal connections, and a personal familiarity with the entertainment industry that no outsider could have adequately conveyed. Blending autobiography with industry history, it's especially recommended for enthusiasts of vintage Hollywood and Broadway social and cultural history. Fans of celebrity gossip will relish the atmosphere, detail, and in-depth insights on personalities captured in this lively romp. Diane Donovan, for California Bookwatch and The Midwest Book Review. ***** I had the distinct pleasure of staying at Magnolia House on Staten Island in 2010, on my first trip to NYC, at the behest of Danforth Prince and Darwin Porter, and I do not exaggerate when I say I was enchanted the minute I walked through the door. Built in the mid-1800s and packed to the rafters with every book ever printed on movies and its stars, this is the ideal home for the notorious Blood Moon Productions and a must-stay air B&B for film, art, and pop culture buffs. It should be as well known as the Chelsea Hotel right across the bay, for the number of famous and infamous guests and residents, and Glamor, Glitz, and Gossip is certainly the ultimate if-these-walls-could-talk collection of show biz histories too outrageous not to be real. It's a packed digest of Blood Moon's previous dishy and irresistible bios, and the perfect intro to the work of the obvious heir to Hollywood Babylon's salacious legacy. Maggie Bloodstone, Seattle Gay News

Author Information

A former entertainment columnist for The Miami Herald, film historian Darwin Porter is the most prolific and widely reviewed author of show-biz biographies in the world. Formerly employed by the Paris Bureau of the New York Times and later, as co-author of many of The Frommer Guides, Prince is the president of Blood Moon Productions, a New York City-based publishing enterprise committed to salvaging and recording the oral histories of America's entertainment industry. He's also the award-winning innkeeper of a historic and media-centric AirBnb in New York City, MagnoliaHouseSaintGeorge.com.

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