Category: Hollywood Mysteries

  • The Hairpins and Dead Ends Address Book

    The Hairpins and Dead Ends Address Book

    Old Hollywood still exists, but you have to look for it. While researching Hairpins and Dead Ends, I spent a lot of time in the rat race that is Los Angeles 2017 trying to understand what it was like in, say, 1912 or 1926. As a biographer, it is important for me to visit the […]

  • Hairpins and Dead Ends is Waiting! Are You Ready for the Journey?

    Hairpins and Dead Ends is Waiting! Are You Ready for the Journey?

    You survived Dangerous Curves ‘atop Hollywood Heels, my 2011 book about ill-fated actresses of the silent screen . . . . . . but are you ready for the companion book, Hairpins and Dead Ends: The Perilous Journeys of 25 Actresses Through Early Hollywood? Get ready!  It’s here.   My new book takes you on […]

  • Interview: William J. Mann tackles murder, morphine, and madness in Tinseltown

    Interview by Michael G. Ankerich   William J. Mann serves up a delicious plate of M’s in his new book, Tinseltown. Mary, Mabel, and Margaret. Murder, Mystery, and Madness. Mary and Momma. I devoured every morsel of the buffet. The unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor in 1922 is one of the reasons I stepped […]

  • Lucille Ricksen, reincarnation, and my television debut

    By Michael G. Ankerich Destiny turns a dime, or so says the old Pam Tillis tune. Three months ago, in early May, I thought my weeks ahead were inked into my calendar. I was busy working on my new book, Hairpins and Dead Ends , and packing the house for a move across town. A […]

  • The world according to Fontaine La Rue and other upcoming Hollywood adventures

    By Michael G. Ankerich If you know me at all, you know that I have a thing for actress Fontaine La Rue. I can’t call her my favorite actress because I’ve never seen one of her films.  I like her as a personality and for so many other reasons. When I began searching for her about two […]

  • Hair Pins and Dead Ends, Ankerich’s new book, on the horizon

    Relax, friends, I have not pulled a Howard Hughes or Doris Duke on you and slipped into seclusion on some exotic island in the Pacific. If I ever became a recluse, it would be in Manarola, Italy, but that’s another story. I am hunkered down and working on my next book, Hair Pins and Dead Ends: […]

  • You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave

    I’ve been back from Los Angeles for over a month now, but I feel that part of me is still there. Like that line from Hotel California, “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” I first came to Los Angeles almost 30 years ago. In many ways, part of me […]

  • Who are you? Help me solve a 25-year mystery.

    The identity of these lovely ladies has haunted me for at least 25 years.       Take a closer look.  Please!   I bought it as an Anita Page photo.  I sent it off to for an autograph in the late 1980s.  She returned it with this note on the back.   Okay, so […]

  • Where are you, Fontaine La Rue?

    I admit that I’m a bit obsessed with Fontaine La Rue, the actress who started out in films in the mid-teens as Dora Rogers (Rodgers), a comedienne with Mack Sennett.  In the late 1910s, she changed her name to Fontaine La Rue and moved from comedy to vamps, vixens, sirens, and sorceresses. When I say […]

  • Interview with Author Michelle Vogel, Lupe Velez Biographer

    By Michael G. Ankerich From time to time, Close-ups and Long Shots will feature interviews with some of my favorite authors. The first interview is with Michelle Vogel, a writer whose work I really appreciate and follow. She selects subjects I would like to write about, those I’m interested in. I thought her books on […]