INTRODUCTION

Almost exactly eleven months ago, I got bored. I got very, VERY bored. Stuck in a creative slump, my mind was crowded with information about Montgomery Clift, Clara Bow, Alfred Hitchcock, and Errol Flynn. Many names, many faces, many facts and scandals, and nothing to do with them...

I have been fascinated with Hollywood from an early age. Not just as a movie lover, but as a curious soul deeply drawn to human complexity. I am interested in celebrity: the construction of, dissolution of, and destruction of. I am equally intrigued by the duality of Hollywood in general: who people pretend to be vs. who they really are, the beauty before the camera vs. the beast behind, the projection of a film on the movie screen vs. the projections the audience places upon what they see. It's a barrel of lies, but one we all literally buy into with movie tickets, rag mags, and trash t.v. cable bills. And we know. We willingly deceive ourselves that the perfect images we see are true, then we get pissed off when they prove to be too human and flawed. In the end, this makes us the liars, doesn't it?

This game is old and has been played since the dawn of cinema. We raise up our Gods on a pedestal, then we tear them down, shame them, or just plain forget them. Looking at Hollywood as an exaggeration of human nature proves that things are always infinitely more fascinating behind the scenes. Then, if we look deeper, we find that our own personal reflections as spectators are more compelling than the martyr burning before us in celluloid Hell. But, perhaps I get too poetic. The point is, Hollywood doesn't lie. It tells the truth. It shows all of the heart and soul, blood and guts, and human glory and mayhem in black, and white, and technicolor.

As I said, I became obsessed 11 months ago, and because it is difficult to find a way to segue conversation with friends into the disaster of Hollywood history, I decided to exercise and exorcise my personal absorption by devoting a MySpace page to all of the information I was gathering (www.myspace.com/lilygarland). Each month, I featured a different actor/actress/filmmaker, and I generated a decent following of "friends" equally intrigued by the same subjects as I. Through bios, youtube videos, and pictures, I was finally able to share my knowledge with others. By un-crowding my mind, I figured that I would be able to think more clearly in terms of what I would do with the things I'd learned, for I truly wanted to find a way to delve into my mish-mash of factoids and emerge with a solid and engrossing movie to end all movies about Hollywood. I think it has helped. So, I shall continue my quest by adding this blog to my monthly purge session.

There is much to be learned, I believe, from the stories I will share, and I share all out of love. Now living in Hollywood, I find that I am at last at home. This is where I belong, among the stones of my fallen idols, and walking upon the stars that glowed so brightly before they burnt out. This is the place where dreams are made, and broken, and then made again. After every disaster, there is a renaissance, where we emerge in a newer world, but I fear we do not always take the knowledge of what we've witnessed with us. This blog will be my way to remind us of what was, and is, and probably always will be: broken hearts as broken records. As we embrace new faces and new martyrs, let us always remember the old-- the pioneers, warriors, saints, and devils who helped to build this glorious and ghastly place called L.A. La Land. Happy hunting...