Like Venus Fading by Marsha Hunt

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Like Venus Fading by Marsha Hunt

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Summary

A rags-to-riches-to-rags tale of black Hollywood sex goddess, Irene O'Brien. Propelled out of poverty by her ambitious mother, she wins fame and fortune. But as she ages she loses everything. Her "death" is the turning point from which she rises to tell her tale and live in peace.

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Like Venus Fading by Marsha Hunt

A great rollercoaster rags-to-riches-to-rags tale about the first black Hollywood sex goddess. * Like Elvis, like Marilyn, the first black film superstar didn't die tragically, but lives among us still, changed out of all recognition...* Propelled out of Depression-era poverty by the ambition of her mother and her own talents, young Irene O'Brien finds she attracts attention easily -- both welcome (she is talent-spotted from Mississippi to Harlem to Hollywood) and unwelcome (at six, a fat, over-friendly storekeeper gets altogether too excited when she sits on his lap...) * She blazes a trail no other black performer has taken before and becomes an international sex symbol in the 1950s -- 'the black Monroe' * Fame and fortune come running: she is the first black woman to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. But happiness eludes her: her celebrity marriage never works; her daughter is autistic; and the studios soon tire of her as she ages * Her descent into drunkenness and derangement ends with her very mysterious 'death' in the mid-1960s at the age of forty-three. But, beaten but not bowed, Venus Johnson rises from the ashes of Irene O'Brien to tell her tale and live out her days in tranquillity...
'A tragic, sometimes brutal story told with the delicacy of an angel's breath' Irish Independent 'A beautifully told and unusual variation on the familiar fictional theme of a starlet's progress.' Nicola McAllister, Daily Telegraph
Marsha Hunt was born in 1946 and grew up in Philadelphia. She studied at the University of California in Berkeley during the student riots of the 1960s but soon left for Europe. In London she made her name in the hit musical Hair. She has been an actress, singer and more recently an acclaimed novelist. She has one daughter and now lives with her partner in Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780006550990
ISBN 10 0006550991
Title Like Venus Fading
Author Marsha Hunt
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Year published 1999-07-19
Number of pages 304
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note Unavailable