Books
‘Truly, Madly’ full of dish, glam, and eccentricities
Exploring the fiery romance of Olivier and Vivien Leigh

‘Truly, Madly’
By Stephen Galloway
c.2022, Grand Central Publishing
$30/406 pages
“Real passion — I’ve only seen it that once,” actress Jill Esmond told her son Tarquin. “If you are ever hit by it, God help you.”
Esmond, the first wife of actor Laurence Olivier, was speaking of the fiery romance of Olivier and the actress Vivien Leigh.
Decades before paparazzi trailed the tempestuous trysts of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, there was the love-struck coupling of Hollywood royalty Olivier and Leigh.
You might think love and passion are only dramatic in Shakespeare or movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. But “Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century” by Stephen Galloway, former executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter, tells a story as steamy and spellbinding as any of Will’s tales or Tinseltown’s plots.
Much has been written about Olivier, who lived from 1907 to 1989, and Leigh, who died in 1967 at age 53, – from Donald Spoto’s superb 1992 biography of Olivier to Alan Strachan’s engaging Leigh bio “Dark Star.” Olivier wrote two memoirs “Confessions of an Actor” and “On Acting.”
Yet Galloway, now dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, provides a fresh take on this well-trod ground.
It’s tempting to view Olivier and Leigh as Tinseltown mavens who had it all. But Galloway makes it clear that there was much pain in the midst of the glittering surface of their relationship.
Olivier, born in Dorking, Surrey, England, was renowned for his work on stage and screen. “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Entertainer” were among his many acclaimed productions in the theater. He received numerous honors, including a Best Actor Oscar for his role in “Hamlet.” In 1947, he was knighted.
Leigh was born in India. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she married Leigh Holman. She took her stage name “Leigh” from him. Leigh and Holman had a daughter named Suzanne.
Leigh is remembered most for her portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” and her performance as Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She won the best actress Oscar for both movies.
Olivier became transfixed by Leigh when he saw her perform on stage in 1935. For two years, “Day in and day out, they would sneak off the set of their new movie,” Galloway writes, “or sit lost amid a swirl of dreams, real-life versions of the lovers they would later play, Romeo and Juliet.”
In 1937, Olivier and Leigh ran away together, though they were both married to other people. The couple carried out their affair at a time when divorce wasn’t common. Then, Hollywood wanted its stars’ extra-marital liaisons to be kept secret.
After Esmond and Holman divorced them, Olivier and Leigh got married in 1940.
Katharine Hepburn was the maid of honor and writer Garson Kanin was the best man at their wedding. Kanin’s account of the nuptials (Hepburn says she’s a “prude” – the newlyweds talk is too “racy” for her) is laugh-out-loud funny.
“Truly, Madly” is full of dish, glam and eccentricities. Celebs from Noel Coward to Marilyn Monroe appear. Along with a lemur named Tony. Olivier gives Tony to Esmond to cheer her up when their marriage is on the rocks.
Galloway doesn’t shy from or overly emphasize speculations about sexuality. Friends talk of Esmond having “liaisons” with women. Despite Olivier’s denials, Spoto and others claim that Olivier had affairs with Danny Kaye and Noel Coward.
Though they adored each other, Olivier and Leigh’s marriage wasn’t a Coward cocktail party.
Leigh had bipolar disorder. At that time, there wasn’t the treatment for this condition that there is today, and there was much stigma around mental illness. It’s easy to romanticize or sensationalize mental illness. By talking with Kay Redford Jamison and other mental health experts, Galloway avoids these pitfalls.
A friend visited Olivier shortly before he died, Galloway reports. Olivier was watching Leigh in one of her movies. “This, this was love,” Olivier told his friend.
“Truly, Madly” is a fab read. Warning: have a handkerchief in hand.
Books
From genteel British wealth to trans biker
Memoir ‘Frighten the Horses’ a long but essential read

‘Frighten the Horses: A Memoir’
By Oliver Radclyffe
c.2024, Roxane Books/Grove Atlantic
$28/352 pages
Finding your own way.
It’s a rite of passage for every young person, a necessity on the path to adulthood. You might have had help with it. You might have listened to your heart alone on the quest to find your own way. And sometimes, as in the new memoir, “Frighten the Horses” by Oliver Radclyffe, you may have to find yourself first.

If you had observed Oliver Radclyffe in a random diner a few years ago, you’d have seen a blonde, bubbly, but harried mother with four active children under age seven and a distracted husband. You probably wouldn’t have seen trouble, but it was there.
“Nicky,” as Radclyffe was known then, was simmering with something that was just coming to the forefront.
As a young child, Nicky’d been raised in comfort in a family steeped in genteel British wealth, attended a private all-girl’s school, and never wanted for anything. She left all that behind as a young adult, and embraced the biker lifestyle and everything it entailed. The problem now wasn’t that she missed her old ways; it was that she hated life as a wife and mother. Her dreams were filled with fantasies of “exactly who I was: a man on a motorbike, in love with a woman.”
But being a man? No, that wasn’t quite right.
It took every bit of courage she had to say she was gay, that she thought constantly about women, that she hated sex with men. When she told her husband, he was hurt but mostly unbothered, insisting that she tell absolutely no one. They could remain married and just go forward. Nothing had to change.
But everything had already changed for Nicky.
Once she decided finally to come out, she learned that friends had already suspected. Family was supportive. It would be OK. But as Nicky began to experiment with a newfound freedom to be with women, one thing became clear: having sex with a woman was better when she imagined doing it as a man.
In his opening chapter, author Oliver Radclyffe shares an anecdote about the confusion the father of Radclyffe’s son’s friend had when picking up the friend. Readers may feel the same sentiment.
Fortunately, “Frighten the Horses” gets better — and it gets worse. Radclyffe’s story is riveting, told with a voice that’s distinct, sometimes poker-faced, but compelling; you’ll find yourself agreeing with every bit of his outrage and befuddlement with coming out in a way that feels right. When everything falls into place, it’s a relief for both author and reader.
And yet, it’s hard to get to this point because this memoir is just too long. It lags where you’ll wish it didn’t. It feels like being burrito-wrapped in a heavy-weighted blanket: You don’t necessarily want out, but you might get tired of being in it.
Still, it remains that this peek at transitioning, however painful, is essential reading for anyone who needs to understand how someone figures things out. If that’s you, then consider “Frighten the Horses” and find it.
Books
‘Radiant’ an illuminating biography of Keith Haring
Author captures artist’s complexities in sympathetic new book

‘Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring’
By Brad Gooch
c.2024, Harper
$20/502 pages
“Radiant” is an illuminating biography of the talented artist Keith Haring, who made his indelible mark during the 1980s before dying young of AIDS. Brad Gooch, biographer of poets Frank O’Hara and Rumi, follows Haring from his childhood in Kutztown, Pa., to his early days in New York City painting artistic graffiti, to his worldwide fame and friendships with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The eldest of three children and the only boy, Haring learned to draw early on from his father. Art quickly became a lasting obsession, which he pursued fiercely. Growing up in a small, conservative town, he was drawn to countercultural movements like hippies and religious “Jesus freaks,” although he mostly found the imagery and symbols appealing.
He studied commercial art in Pittsburgh but later dropped out, spending several years working and learning at the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center, before moving to New York City in 1978. Studying painting at the School for Visual Arts, he also learned about video and performance art, making interesting projects. He also began drawing images on subways and blank advertisement backboards. One of his most distinctive was the Radiant Baby, a crawling baby shooting rays of light.
Gooch begins the biography with his own encounter with this public art, which felt colorful and “extremely urgent.” It had to be done guerilla-style, before the authorities could catch him, and they were frequently painted over. He was arrested a few times.
Ironically, a few years later Haring would be paid huge sums and flown around the world to create large-scale art on public property. People were amazed at how quickly he worked, even in terrible conditions. Sometimes at these events, while a crowd was gathered, he would draw and give away the artwork. Knowing that his art in galleries sold for incredible amounts, he enjoyed occasionally frustrating the art world’s commercial desires.
His Pop Shops also revealed Haring’s competing impulses. Opened in 1986, first in New York and later in Tokyo, they put his art on all sorts of merchandise, including T-shirts and posters. On the one hand, they allowed ordinary people to buy his work at reasonable prices. However, they also earned him more money and increased his public image.
He made art for everyone. His best-known pieces, featuring babies and dogs, are colorful and family friendly. Some even consider it “lightweight.” He eagerly created murals and artwork for elementary schools and neighborhoods. But he also made art with social and political commentary and sexual explicitness. “Michael Stewart – USA for Africa” depicts a graffiti artist’s strangulation by New York City Transit Police officers. He painted “Once Upon a Time…” for the men’s bathroom of New York City’s Lesbian & Gay Community Center.
Haring worked nearly right up to his death in 1990. The Keith Haring Foundation keeps his work in the public eye, while also funding nonprofits working with disadvantaged youth and AIDS education. Gooch captures Haring’s complexities; he befriended graffiti artists of color and dated working-class men, but was sometimes ignorant about how his wealth and fame affected these relationships. Well written and sympathetic, the book can sometimes overwhelm in detail about life in the 80’s and Haring’s celebrity friends.
Books
New book is a fun whodunit set in London drag world
‘Murder in the Dressing Room’ will keep readers guessing

‘Murder in the Dressing Room’
By Holly Stars
c.2025, Berkeley
$19/368 pages
Your alter ego, the other half of your double life, is a superhero.
When you’re quiet, she’s boisterous. Your confidence is flat, hers soars. She’s a better dresser than you; she’s more popular, and maybe even a little smarter. By day, you live a normal existence but by night, your other side roars and in the new mystery, “Murder in the Dressing Room” by Holly Stars, both of you solve crimes.

Lady Lady had been a little off all evening.
As owner of London’s most fabulous, elegant drag club, she was usually in command but her protegee, Misty Devine, could tell that something was wrong.
She discovered how wrong when she found Lady Lady on her dressing room floor, foaming at the mouth, dead, poisoned by a mysterious box of chocolates.
Hours later, Misty de-dragged, morphing from an elegant woman to an ordinary, binary hotel employee named Joe who was heartbroken by the tragedy. Only employees had access to Lady Lady’s dressing room – ergo, someone they knew at the club had to be the killer.
Obviously, the London detectives assigned to the case had a suspect list, but Misty/Joe and their boyfriend Miles knew solving Lady Lady’s murder was really up to them. They knew who the killer wasn’t, but who had reason to kill Misty’s mentor?
Maybe Mandy, the club’s co-owner. The club’s bartender and bouncer were both sketchy. Lady Lady had spats with two employees and a former co-worker, but was that motive enough? When the dress Lady Lady was wearing that night proved to have been valuable stolen goods, Joe’s investigation list grew to include people who might have sneaked backstage when no one was paying attention, and a shady man who was suddenly following them around.
Then Misty learned that she was in Lady Lady’s will, and she figured the inheritance would be minor but she got a huge surprise. Lady Lady’s posthumous gift could make others think that Misty might’ve had reason to kill her.
And just like that, the suspect list gained another entry.
When you first get “Murder in the Dressing Room” in your hands, hang onto it tight. It’s fun, and so fluffy and light that it might float away if you’re not careful.
The story’s a little too long, as well, but there’s enjoyment to be had here, and authenticity enough to hold a reader’s attention. Author Holly Stars is a drag performer in London and somewhat of a murder maven there, which gives her insight into books of this genre and the ability to string readers along nicely with solid characters. If you’re unfamiliar with the world of drag you’ll also learn a thing or two while you’re sleuthing through the story; drag queens and kings will like the dual tale, and the settings that anchor it.
As a mystery, this is fun and different, exciting, but tame enough for any adult reader. If you love whodunits and you want something light, “Murder in the Dressing Room” is a double delight.
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