Nobody gets a free pass in Hollywood, but a room at the Garden on Sunset can get your foot in the door. She’s going to need some help keeping everyone in line. She’s hoping the same succulent lips the guys want to kiss will land her more than a bit part on a casting couch. Gwendolyn Brick is a sweet Southern beauty who’s come a long way to try her luck on the big screen.

To make it in this town, she’ll need some serious moxie. When she takes off with her typewriter, determined to become a newspaper reporter, she finds that breaking into the boys’ club is tougher than breaking free of her bossy mother. Kathryn Massey’s childhood was a grinding routine of auditions, but she couldn’t care less about being a movie star. Can a smart, sensitive guy find his own voice in a town that’s just learning to talk? He flees Pennsylvania for Hollywood with his mouth shut and his eyes open, and begins to write the lines all those starlets will say out loud. Marcus Adler has a lot to prove after his father catches him and the police chief’s son with their pants down. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.īut the real story of the Garden of Allah begins with its first few residents, three kids on the brink of something big. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night.

Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel.

The Garden on Sunset by Martin Turnbull