Gloria and Joe
The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
The ultimate Hollywood story revealed: the sizzling relationship between Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of America’s most influential political family, and Gloria Swanson, one of the most prominent silent film stars of her day. Gloria and Joe were in love with each other and with the movies, especially Queen Kelly, which completed the real-life ménage à trois. Starring along with the star of the screen and the Boston Brahman in this exposé are Erich von Stroheim, Kennedy’s wife Rose, Swanson’s husband, and a cast of colorful hangers-on. Madsen recreates their love, scandal, and world, which in its extravagance and intrigue has never been surpassed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This dual biography calls to mind a collage, with large parts derived respectively from Gloria Swanson's Swanson on Swanson and from the multiple books on the Kennedy family. Moving back and forth in time, Madsen (Billy Wilder, John Huston) occasionally repeats the same information, most of it already well known. He details the love affair that began when Boston banker Joseph Kennedy met the screen star in 1927 and how they became partners in Gloria Swanson Productions, which they expected to make cinema history and huge profits. The relationship ended abruptly in 1930 with the collapse of the film Queen Kelly, a souvenir of Erich von Stroheim's brilliant but erratic directorship. Covering events in the lives of both principals until their deaths, the author also adds gossip about the Kennedy clan and members of the film colony.
