I Lost My Girlish Laughter

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A lost literary gem of Hollywood in the 1930s, I Lost My Girlish Laughter, is a thinly veiled send-up of the actors, producers, writers, and directors of the Golden Age of the studio system. Madge Lawrence, fresh from New York City, lands a job as the personal secretary to the powerful Hollywood producer Sidney Brand. In a series of letters home, Western Union telegrams, office memos, Hollywood gossip newspaper items, and personal journal entries, we get served up the inside scoop on all the shenanigans, romances, backroom deals, and betrayals that go into making a movie. The action revolves around the production of Brand's latest blockbuster, meant to be a star vehicle to introduce his new European bombshell (based on Marlene Dietrich). Nevermind that the actress can't act, Brands' negotiations with MGM to get Clark Gable to play the male lead are getting nowhere, and the Broadway play he's bought for the screenplay is reworked so that it is unrecognizable to its author. In this delicious satire of the film business, one is never very far from the truth of what makes Hollywood tick and why we all love it.

Reviews

I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a must-read for any fan of classic Hollywood. The immense and hilarious insights about movie-making are ones that could have only been gleaned by someone who was in the biz. And the way the story is toldthrough studio memos, telegrams, letters and diary entriesmakes you feel as if youve been given a sneak peek into a secret world. A really fun book that you will not want to put down! Alicia Malone, host Turner Classic Movies

[The] inside look [of Hollywood] has the wonderful tang of reality, echoing the spirit of genial madness found in such savvy fictionalizations as F. Scott Fitzgeralds Pat Hobby stories and the opening sequences of Preston Sturges Sullivans Travels.Especially fascinating, and something that few if any otherworks from the period provide, is a sense of what it was like for women trying to make careers in Hollywood.Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

While Silvia Schulman may be a footnote in Hollywood history, she had a hand in one writing of the most overlooked novels about the movie business. Schulman worked as personal secretary to independent producer David O. Selznick in the 30s when he made hits such as A Star is Born and Gone With the Wind. She had stories to tell, and they werent glamourous. Selznick is fictionalized, warts and all, in I Lost My Girlish Laughter, the novel she co-wrote with help from playwright Jane Shore under the pseudonym Jane Allen. Mostly told in the form of letters and telegrams, the story goes down easy.Esquire

Hilarious! This is everybodys idea of the comedy version of old Hollywood. Is it true, or a clever hoax Either way its a wonderfully funny read and a great opportunity to play spot the real person being satirized. I cant wait to see it in movie form.Jeanine Basinger, author of The Movie Musical

This delicious satire of old Hollywood, originally published in 1938 and largely unknown even by cinephiles, gets a welcome reissue. . . .The characters and plot are so thinly veiled that the authors decided a single pseudonym was the wisest path to publication, as film scholar J.E. Smyth explains in her thoughtful introduction. This novel is a hell of a lot of fun.Kirkus (starred review)

Old-movie buffs and lovers of Hollywood gossip will geek out on this fun, satirical read. Booklist

First published in 1938, I Lost My Girlish Laughter recaptures the behind-the-scenes glamour, drama, zaniness and betrayal of the Golden Age of Hollywood. At the same time, this lost novelwritten under a pen name by a secretary to David O. Selznick, who produced the original A Star is Born, as well as Gone With the Windis as contemporary as todays headlines, proving that when it comes to silver screen dreams, human nature never changes. John Wiley, Jr., editor and author of The Scarlett Letters: The Making of the Film Gone With the Wind

Author Bio

SILVIA SCHULMAN LARDNER was born in New York City in 1913, the child of Russian Jewish immigrants. She attended Hunter College in Manhattan before leaving to work for RKO as a secretary. She later worked for MGM and Selznick International, as producer David O. Selznick's personal secretary. She cowrote a play with fellow Selznick staffer Barbara Keon in 1935 and worked on A Star Is Born (1937) and preproduction for Gone with the Wind (1939). She left Hollywood in 1937 and published her novel I Lost My Girlish Laughter, in collaboration with Jane Shore, in 1938. She raised two children and worked for many years as an interior designer and building contractor in California. She died of cancer in 1993. . . . J. E. SMYTH is professor of history at the University of Warwick (UK) and the author of several books about Hollywood, including Nobody's Girl Friday- The Women Who Ran Hollywood (2018).