Originally published in hardcover as The Sewing Circle, Forbidden Lovers was renamed to appeal to the paperback audience. Providing an overview of same-sex romances among some of the greatest female stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Forbidden Lovers is arranged chronologically from the silent era through the fall of the studio system. Madsen uses both eyewitness accounts from survivors of this closed circle and varied star biographies as source material for this book. Since most of the legendary women led extremely guarded lives, the author frequently can provide only the scantiest of details of these private affairs. Offering 24 pages of predominantly publicity photographs, which tend to feature these icons in their most manly of costumes; plus a scant two compromising shots of Garbo and Crawford. Not fully succeeding as either a scholarly text or as a lurid exposé, Forbidden Lovers is best left to the completist. JAT

Publisher: Carol
Paperback: 240 pages
Illustrated

Another one bites the dust. “It was a secret he had kept from the world for the previous five years… the singer’s gaunt, gray face, bearing no resemblance now to the proud one that had stared down from millions of posters, lay perfectly still on the pillow. His breathing had slowed and his brown eyes saw only the mist flooding the huge bedroom, which occupied much of the third floor of his exquisite home. Next to him sat just one of his most faithful friends, ‘60s pop heartthrob Dave Clark, who was gently holding his hand… He lay there, little more than a corpse, oblivious to the beautiful antiques, Japanese paintings and French Impressionist masters he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on over the years, building a collection that was the envy of art lovers… His death was finally announced at midnight.” The queen of Queen, born to Persian parents as Farokh Bulsara and raised in Zanzibar and Bombay, goes out in a bohemian rhapsody. GR

Publisher: Carol
Paperback: 202 pages
Illustrated