Charles Casillo

In the 1950's Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift were some of the hottest stars in Hollywood. This book follows their careers, friendships, and deaths. I had a hard time with this book. I found both Elizabeth and Monty to be very unlikeable. They were both very spoiled, inconsiderate vain people. I also thought the book was extremely repetitive. Every chapter gave a brief recap of Monty's drug use and accident, which became very monotonous after time. Overall, not a book I would reread or recommend.… (more)

The devoted friendship between Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift is one of the most famous relationships in Hollywood history so I was very excited to get my hands on a book that focused on it. It quickly became apparent that the title is misleading in two ways: first, most chapters are about Taylor or Clift; and second, basically everything Casillo writes about has been covered in other biographies of the actors.

What we have here is mostly repeated rumors (did we really need another book speculating on the size of Clift's genitals?), highlights of Taylor's romantic entanglements, salacious gossip about Clift's sex life and his years-long decline, amateurish "insights," and repeated statements about the stars' physical attractiveness, with the occasional chapter about Taylor's and Clift's friendship thrown in.

The only thing that keeps this book from being another Hollywood Babylon is Casillo's obvious sympathy for his subjects, but that's really not enough to recommend it.

Received via NetGalley.… (more)

I am adding to this review to mention that I did finally finish this book, it gets somewhat better in the middle. I am going to keep it at 2 stars because this was just a gossip re-hash. Nothing new here. Salacious is the word for this book. I learned more about the sex lives of these characters than I really ever wanted to know. This is one of the reasons I stay away from biographies-I find that the author/s usually have their own agenda and I'm generally not going to embrace it.

I am reading this as an ARC and wonder if the editing got any better with the books that the Goodreads winners have gotten? I know I'm not supposed to be mentioning editing problems (because this is an ARC), but at this late date, the book should have been somewhat readable. I've even found inconsistent dates that are extremely important. I genuinely hope that this book eventually finds a competent editor, or at least I hope the author invested in Grammarly to help out!!!

This book was one of the biggest disappointments in reading that I have ever come across. Had I known that this would be only about Montgomery Clift and his many, many lovers, addictions, and all-around disgusting behavior, with so much less about Elizabeth Taylor, I would never have picked up this biography. If you like sex in all of its down and dirty ways, if you like hearing the sordid gossip of old-time dead actors who are also drug addicts and mentally deficient, then this is the read you have been waiting for.

Now I know why I have always stayed away from gossip rags while I was younger (and still do) - I don't want to know who is screwing who and how. I don't want to know about the stars' penis size or actually the lack of such.

I have made it to the 30% mark, and I don't know how I will get any further. I will rewrite my review if the book gets any better/clearer.… (more)