Seduction cover art

Seduction

Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood

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Seduction

By: Karina Longworth
Narrated by: Karina Longworth
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About this listen

In this riveting popular history, the creator of You Must Remember This probes the inner workings of Hollywood’s glamorous Golden Age through the stories of some of the dozens of actresses pursued by Howard Hughes, to reveal how the millionaire mogul’s obsessions with sex, power, and publicity trapped, abused, or benefited women who dreamt of screen stardom.

In recent months, the media has reported on scores of entertainment figures who used their power and money in Hollywood to sexually harass and coerce some of the most talented women in cinema and television. But as Karina Longworth reminds us, long before the Harvey Weinsteins, there was Howard Hughes - the Texas millionaire, pilot, and filmmaker whose reputation as a cinematic provocateur was matched only by that as a prolific womanizer.

His supposed conquests between his first divorce in the late 1920s and his marriage to actress Jean Peters in 1957 included many of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, among them Billie Dove, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner. From promoting bombshells like Jean Harlow and Jane Russell to his contentious battles with the censors, Hughes - perhaps more than any other filmmaker of his era - commoditized male desire as he objectified and sexualized women.

Yet there were also numerous women pulled into Hughes’ grasp who never made it to the screen, sometimes virtually imprisoned by an increasingly paranoid and disturbed Hughes, who retained multitudes of private investigators, security personnel, and informers to make certain these actresses would not escape his clutches.

Vivid, perceptive, timely, and ridiculously entertaining, Seduction is a landmark work that examines women, sex, and male power in Hollywood during its Golden Age - a legacy that endures nearly a century later.

©2018 Karina Longworth (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
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What listeners say about Seduction

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  • Overall
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    5 out of 5 stars

Extremely detailed and well told

I’m a big fan of Karina Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This, and so this audiobook was like movie-history-nerd comfort food. I like Karina’s funny little choices of vocal tone, and I appreciate her insane amount of research for this book! I only wish it had included even more big-picture scope of how Hollywood changed over the decades, in addition to the riveting details of the poor women Hughes took advantage of for so many years…

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Loved this book!

Fantastic book, the author cleverly tells the bizarre story of Howard Hughes, bringing other famous and not so famous figures in and out of the story effortlessly. A superbly written book and narrated expertly by the author. Thank you Karina Longworth.

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sooooo good

I Love Karina Longworth and all of her work, this book lays a modern lens on story of Howard Hughes (but more importantly the women whose lives he touched/ruined).

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2 people found this helpful

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If you love 'You Must Remember This'...

Loved this well researched, fascinating depiction of the power of sex and money in Old Hollywood

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Loved it!

Great podcast and great book. And the author gives so much feeling to the stories. Great read.

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Fascinating

Excellent, really enjoyed this book, Longworth"s narration is impeccable and adds to an engrossing story of an iconic figure, definitely an audiobook I"ll be giving another listen to.

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Great!

if you like the podcast you must remember this you will love this book, I certainly enjoyed it

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With great privilege and fame comes no responsibility.

The narration was ok but it’s a long listen and Can be very school marmish.
The history I find fascinating, a 21st century lens very should make this unsettling. Raises questions about everyone that lived and enjoyed the Hollywood lifestyle of the golden era.

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