Hadleigh, Boze 1954- (George Hadley-Garcia)

PERSONAL:

Born May 15, 1954, in Syria; son of a professor; married October 5, 1975. Education: University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A., 1975; San Jose State University, M.S., 1976. Politics: Liberal. Religion: Buddhist. Hobbies and other interests: International travel (more than sixty countries), languages (speaks five).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Beverly Hills, CA; Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

CAREER:

Author.

WRITINGS:

(Under pseudonym George Hadley-Garcia) The Films of Jane Fonda, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1981.

Conversations with My Elders, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1986, reprinted with new foreword as Celluloid Gaze, Limelight Editions (New York, NY), 2002.

(Under pseudonym George Hadley-Garcia) Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1990.

The Vinyl Closet: Gays in the Music World, Los Hombres Press (San Diego, CA), 1991, updated edition published as Sing Out! Gays and Lesbians in the Music World, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Leading Ladies, Robson Books (London, England), 1992.

The Lavender Screen: Gay and Lesbian Films, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1993, updated edition, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

(Compiler) Hollywood Babble On, Birch Lane Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1994.

Hollywood Lesbians: Conversations with Barbara Stanwyck, Agnes Moorehead, Marjorie Main, Nancy Kulp, Patsy Kelly, Edith Head, Sandy Dennis, Capucine, Dorothy Arzner, Dame Judith Anderson, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 1994.

Bette Davis Speaks, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Hollywood Gays: Conversations with Cary Grant, Liberace, Tony Perkins, Paul Lynde, Cesar Romero, Brad Davis, Randolph Scott, James Coco, William Haines, David Lewis, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 1996.

(Compiler) Hollywood and Whine, Birch Lane Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1998, revised edition, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

Celebrity Feuds!, Taylor Publishing (Dallas, TX), 1999.

(Compiler) In or Out: Gay and Straight Celebrities Talk about Themselves and Each Other, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Celebrity Lies: Stars, Fibs, Fabrications, Myths and Little White Lies, Barricade Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Holy Matrimony! Better Halves and Bitter Halves, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 2003.

Celebrity Diss and Tell, Andrews McMeel (Kansas City, MO), 2005.

Broadway Babylon, Back Stage Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Mexico's Most Wanted, Potomac Books (Dulles, VA), 2007.

Contributor to dozens of periodicals.

Hadleigh's books have been translated in more than a dozen languages.

ADAPTATIONS:

Nearly half of Hadleigh's books have been adapted for television or film in the United States and abroad; these include the 2002 documentary film The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in American Cinema, based on the book Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author Boze Hadleigh began his career as a freelance journalist, eventually publishing in hundreds of periodicals in the United States and abroad on a wide variety of topics, from health and travel to history, pop culture, and Hollywood. His books, however, have mostly focused on the entertainment world, its impact and its behind-the-scenes workings. Several of Hadleigh's books have been firsts in their subject matter, including works that examine the homosexual and bisexual presence in and contributions to show business, particularly motion pictures.

Hadleigh, a "smart, resourceful, and daring conversationalist," to quote a Film Quarterly contributor, wrote four question-and-answer interview books, commencing with Conversations with My Elders. The subjects were gay men of cinema: designer Sir Cecil Beaton, actors Rock Hudson and Sal Mineo, and directors George Cukor, Luchino Visconti, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Hollywood Gays: Conversations with Cary Grant, Liberace, Tony Perkins, Paul Lynde, Cesar Romero, Brad Davis, Randolph Scott, James Coco, William Haines, David Lewis and Hollywood Lesbians: Conversations with Barbara Stanwyck, Agnes Moorehead, Marjorie Main, Nancy Kulp, Patsy Kelly, Edith Head, Sandy Dennis, Capucine, Dorothy Arzner, Dame Judith Anderson are also collections of interviews. Columnist Liz Smith of Newsday called Hadleigh's interviews in Hollywood Lesbians "fascinating." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted: "An enlightening picture emerges of Tinseltown, different from that presented by the Fanzines."

Bette Davis Speaks is based on numerous interviews taped over the years with the screen legend, as well as briefer interviews with Davis's associates and intimates. Booklist contributor Charles Harmon predicted that the actress's fans would "purr with delight" while reading this book by a "world-class interviewer." Leading Ladies is a non-question-and-answer collection of profiles of British stage and screen stars, from Dames Edith Evans and Sybil Thorndike to Elsa Lanchester, Joan Greenwood, and Estelle Winwood. "The main pleasure comes from the leading ladies' own words," observed Sight and Sound reviewer Geoffrey Macnab, who found "Hadleigh's enthusiasm" to be "infectious, if wearing."

Two of Hadleigh's books, The Films of Jane Fonda and Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures were published via a familial pseudonym. The Lavender Screen: Gay and Lesbian Films—an illustrated genre overview, like Hispanic Hollywood—was called a "clever, entertaining, and shameless compendium" by Films in Review correspondent John Nangle. In The Lavender Screen, Hadleigh showcases approximately fifty films featuring major gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters, also describing the behind-the-scenes conflicts, "closetings," and censorship involved in their production. Sing Out! Gays and Lesbians in the Music World, originally published as The Vinyl Closet: Gays in the Music World, was, according to Hadleigh, the first overview of gay men in music, from Tchaikovsky to Cole Porter, to Johnny Mathis, Boy George, George Michael, and Leonard Bernstein, who penned the foreword. One of the chapters spotlights the many lesbian and bisexual women singers who predated K.D. Lang and Melissa Etheridge.

Hadleigh, who once won 16,400 dollars on the game show Jeopardy, and donated a portion of it to a library in Australia damaged by fire, is also the compiler of celebrity quotations books, including the lesbian, bisexual, and gay collection In or Out: Gay and Straight Celebrities Talk about Themselves and Each Other. His first such book, Hollywood Babble On, contained only "star vs. star" quotations and led People contributor Alex Tresnowski to comment that Hollywood celebrities are "major-league trash talkers." In the same combative vein, the non-quotes book Celebrity Feuds! chronicles over two dozen feuds, from David Letterman versus Jay Leno to Sonny versus Cher. Celebrity Feuds! also contains a section on family feuds, including that of siblings Eric and Julia Roberts. Ilene Cooper described the work in Booklist as a "quick, funny read," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer called it a "sassy compendium of fights, feuds, and flying fur." Hadleigh noted that the book is as much about relationships—"why they sometimes sour and stay soured, even within families"—as about celebrities. "Hopefully, my books enlighten as well as entertain," Hadleigh once told CA. He added: "You can't always judge a book by its title!"

More recently Hadleigh added: "I imagine that most fiction writers write to escape into another world. I know that most nonfiction writers, including myself, write to delve deeper into this one. After nearly twenty published books, I've not yet explored fiction, except as a reader. As such, I can enjoy a novel—contemporary or historical (whose research makes it a cousin to nonfiction)—as much as a nonfiction book. It depends on the subject and how interestingly it's done.

"I've been fortunate not to have to write for the money, have enjoyed all my chosen subjects. But although I'm not a huge fan of Hollywood-themed books, several of mine have focused on the entertainment world; less, however, on the stars and glitz than the behind-the-scenes workings of popular culture: of how films, topics, trends, personalities and, yes, propaganda are marketed to an often gullible public. In every nation, including this one, still striving for actual equality of all its citizens and above-board government (for the measure of democracy isn't just voting, it's how the votes are counted), it's important to question and to seek the truth, to recognize the machinations behind entertainment, politics, religion, et cetera. What is more important—or more fascinating—than knowing how our world really works?

"All my books have sought to entertain and enlighten, necessarily in that order. To me, growing up in different cultures and languages, surrounded by books—some by my father and grandfather—the act of reading was always entertaining. Books were accessible and dependable friends and teachers; still are. There were always so many books and so much time that it didn't matter if you spent a week reading a purely escapist novel; the month still held three other weeks for more substantial fare. The main thing was to read (but not fiction only; when a rare person tells me that he or she reads only novels—let alone just one genre of novels—I have to wonder while inwardly shaking my head).

"The real world is too intriguing—in both senses of the word!—and too important to keep escaping it via novels, chemicals, indifference, et cetera. To me, the more one reads—and learns and questions—the more one wishes to write, to express oneself, to communicate. Communication is the key to human existence and well-being. I was pleasantly quite surprised when, months after earning my master's degree in journalism, I stared at the document for the first time and discovered that it wasn't actually in journalism, but in mass communications, and it was an M.S., not an M.A. You live and learn—hopefully in both senses of that excellent word."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1992, Charles Harmon, review of The Lavender Screen: Gay and Lesbian Films, p. 391; November 1, 1994, Ilene Cooper, review of Hollywood Lesbians: Conversations with Barbara Stanwyck, Agnes Moorehead, Marjorie Main, Nancy Kulp, Patsy Kelly, Edith Head, Sandy Dennis, Capucine, Dorothy Arzner, Dame Judith Anderson, p. 470; April 15, 1996, Charles Harmon, review of Bette Davis Speaks, p. 1406; October 15, 1999, Ilene Cooper, review of Celebrity Feuds!, p. 407.

Film Quarterly, fall, 1988, review of Conversations with My Elders, p. 64.

Films in Review, December, 1993, John Nangle, review of The Lavender Screen, p. 425; March-April, 1995, John Nangle, review of Hollywood Lesbians, p. 69.

Library Journal, October 1, 1996, Ed Halter, review of Hollywood Gays: Conversations with Cary Grant, Liberace, Tony Perkins, Paul Lynde, Cesar Romero, Brad Davis, Randolph Scott, James Coco, William Haines, David Lewis, p. 79.

Newsday, November 8, 1994, column by Liz Smith.

Observer (London, England), June 21, 1992, Peter Matthews, review of Leading Ladies, p. 59.

People, August 1, 1994, Alex Tresnowski, review of Hollywood Babble On, p. 26.

Publishers Weekly, October 17, 1994, review of Hollywood Lesbians, p. 73; September 9, 1996, review of Hollywood Gays, p. 73; October 4, 1999, review of Celebrity Feuds!, p. 56.

Sight and Sound, October, 1992, Geoffrey Macnab, "Preserved for Posterity," p. 41.