The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women

New York: Carol Publishing Group - A Birch Lane Press Book, 1994. First Printing - Reference Edition . Trade Paperback. Fine. 6" x 9. Freese, Robert - Book Design. 240 Pages Indexed. No defects noted and interior text pages are near flawless. Documents the double life of The Sewing Circle, a group of lesbians and bisexuals that included such famous figures as Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy and Agnes Moorehead. By the author of Stanwyck. The focus is Hollywood's pinnacle decade., the thirty years stretching from the dawn of the talkies in the late 1920s to the collapse of the studio system and the anticommunist witch hunt that was so harrowing to nonconformists. This is a book about appearances, about denied attachment, and emotional and the mocking of mystery and allure. It is the documented story and affectionate close-up of exalted lives and furtive appetites. When Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich had enough of men, artifice, and glamour, they sought solace, strength, and understanding in clandestine, feminine friendships. Onscreen, they were incarnations of turbid fantasies. Offscreen, they depended on women who loved women, like the poet-playwright Mercedes de Acosta, whose bed they shared in succession. Catholicism and Judaism -- the predominant faith of showbiz people -- are explicitly antagonistic toward same-sex love. The mores of the Golden Era enforced two-way secrecy. Not only did lesbians live hidden lives, the public at large averted its eyes. Nobody wanted to now.