Audio only
The Purple Diaries
Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930sBy Joseph B. EganNarrated by Bernadette DunneLength8h 44m
About this audiobook
The year 1936 was a great year for the movie industry. The financial setbacks of the Great Depression were subsiding, so theater attendance was up. Americans everywhere were watching the stars, and few stars shined as brightly as one of America’s most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor.
But Astor’s personal story wasn’t a happy one. Born poor and widowed at twenty-four, Mary Astor had spent years looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.
The marriage had been rocky from the start, and both were unfaithful, but they did not divorce before Mary Astor gave birth to little Marylyn Thorpe.
What followed was a custody battle that pushed the Spanish Civil War and Hitler’s 1936 Olympics off the front page all over America. Although Astor and Thorpe were both ruthless fighters, Thorpe held a trump card: the two diaries Mary Astor had been keeping for years. In these diaries, Astor detailed her own affairs as well as the myriad dalliances of some of Hollywood’s biggest names. The studio heads, longtime controllers of public perception, were desperate to keep such juicy details from leaking. At risk from the information in those diaries was an entire fledgling industry.
With the support of the Astor family, including unlimited access to the photographs and memorabilia of Mary Astor’s estate, Joseph Egan presents a portrait of a great film actress in her most challenging role―a determined mother battling for her daughter regardless of the harm that her affairs and her most intimate secrets could do to her career, the careers of her friends—or even Hollywood itself.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (1.5K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreBiography and Memoir, History
Length8 hrs 44 mins
Narrated byBernadette Dunne
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateNov 22, 2016
LanguageEnglish
Matters of the HeartJacinta Nampijinpa Price9h 35m4.8 (359)$29 · $0.00
How to Test Negative for StupidJohn Kennedy8h 13m4.7 (9.7K)$28 · $0.00
Defying JihadEsther Ahmad8h 50m4.7 (4.8K)$20
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m4.7 (2.8K)$24 · $0.00
Send MeMarty Skovlund, Joe Kent8h 10m4.7 (1.6K)$26 · $0.00
Left for DeadEbony Canion5h 34m4.7 (2.2K)$17
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Annotated)John Muir10h 13m4.7 (1.1K)$0.99 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m4.7 (3.2K)$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m4.7 (5K)$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
A Bridge Not Too FarDeepak Ohri4h 55m4.8 (179)$15
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m4.6 (9.3K)$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m4.7 (343)$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
Scandal Between the Sheets & Stranded with the Tempting StrangerBrenda Jackson9h 22m4.8 (141)$24 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith3h 8m4.7 (7.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The Redeemer’s ReturnArthur W. Pink13h 18m4.7 (589)$20
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America (Annotated)Howard Irving Chapelle, Tappan Adney13h 9m4.8 (150)$0.99 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
Saving My EnemyBob Welch9h 11m4.6 (2.3K)$20
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
The Red Record (Annotated)Ida B. Wells-Barnett5h 19m4.8 (102)$0.99 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin2h 25m4.6 (159.1K)$15
EnduranceAlfred Lansing6h 1m4.6 (40.8K)$20
You may also like
JUDE THE OBSCURE (World's Classics Series)Thomas Hardy18h 9m4.0 (93.8K)$2 · $0.00
The Old Wives' TaleArnold Bennett22h 56m4.1 (21.5K)$10 · $0.00
The Complete Clayhanger Family NovelsArnold Bennett63h 46m4.2 (284)$2 · $0.00
A Woman of Thirty (Annotated)Honoré de Balzac9h 14m3.6 (7.8K)$2 · $0.00
The Mill on the FlossGeorge Eliot22h 15m4.0 (114.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Where Angels Fear to TreadE. M. Forster4h 57m3.7 (25.1K)$14
The CounterlifePhilip Roth12h 14m3.9 (6.2K)$20
Divided SoulDavid Ritz6h 38m4.2 (3K)$14
Niels LyhneJ. P. Jacobsen7h 59m4.1 (3.7K)$2 · $0.00
The Well of LonelinessRadclyffe Hall18h 11m3.9 (27.7K)$1 · $0.00
The Dry Grass of AugustAnna Jean Mayhew9h 31m4.0 (27.5K)$20
Howards EndE. M. Forster11h 4m4.0 (117.8K)$21
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other StoriesLeo graf Tolstoy7h 51m4.1 (4.8K)$2 · $0.00
The Burning SecretStefan Zweig2h 41m4.0 (16.6K)$2 · $0.00
JUDE THE OBSCURE (World's Classics Series)Thomas Hardy17h 59m4.0 (93.3K)$2 · $0.00
Vincent van GoghVictoria Charles3h 16m4.1 (334)$16 · $0.00
Washington SquareHenry James7h 15m3.7 (30.3K)$12 · $0.00
Nina BalatkaAnthony Trollope8h 11m3.6 (726)$2.30
The Best of D. H. Lawrence (Annotated)D. H. Lawrence201h 12m4.3 (22)$2 · $0.00
4 Novels by E.M.Forster (Annotated)E.M. Forster37h 35m$1.49 · $0.00