Still Here: Memoirs of a Hollywood Legend

By Stephen Eliot

Book Overview

"Nobody is deader in Hollywood than an aging blonde."

An Academy Award-winning actress reflects on her life and career as half-sister to Marilyn Monroe as she seeks equality in a Hollywood run by men. Still Here is the story of a fictional actress who recounts the true history of Hollywood from 1947 to present- coming of age, the studio system, film financing, the women's movement, AIDS, and Broadway. It is the story of a talented woman who earned the right to sing Sondheim's Still Here.

After her sixth divorce, the aging Hollywood star is asked to perform a one-woman Broadway show. She has to decide whether she wants to reveal her career with directors Billy Wilder and George Cukor; actors and actresses such as Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Jane Fonda, Frank Sinatra, George Clooney; and other historical figures like the Reagans and Kennedys. She details twentieth-century history Hollywood and its finances.

Above all, she talks about the difficulties of being a woman in an era dominated by male executives, producers, and agents. "My world consisted of those who fed off people who made it and those who destroyed them." It was a world that dumped aging actresses. This is a struggle all women understand and an intriguing Hollywood story filled with pieces of history for those who love the movies.

Author Stephen Eliot lives in New York City. He received a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia University. He is author of Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School (St. Martin's Press), the acclaimed memoir of a boy that was published in the US and France with the following reviews:

"Exceptional ... Eliot recounts his story with lucidity and devastating humor." Elle magazine (France)

"The most detailed, moving, and persuasive account I have encountered about life at the school. It is also a completely believable and very touching account of the struggle of an intelligent yet seriously disturbed boy to conquer his problems and emerge into a full adult life ..." Robert Gottlieb, New York Review of Books

"The child who thought of himself as merely a pulsating brain invites us on a voyage back from the frontier of insanity. We return transformed." Marianne magazine (France)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0C2SG2DR1
• ISBN13: 9798218135065
• Release Date: April 2023
• Publisher: Stephen Eliot
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"