PLATINUM DOLL by Anne Girard-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date January 26, 2016

It’s the Roaring Twenties and seventeen-year-old Harlean Carpenter McGrew has run off to Beverly Hills. She’s chasing a dream; to escape her small, Midwestern life and see her name in lights. In California, Harlean has everything a girl could want; a rich husband, glamorous parties, socialite friends; except an outlet for her talent. But everything changes when a dare pushes her to embrace her true ambition :to be an actress on the silver screen. With her timeless beauty and striking shade of platinum-blond hair, Harlean becomes Jean Harlow. And as she’s thrust into the limelight, Jean learns that this new world of opportunity comes with its own set of burdens. Torn between her family and her passion to perform, Jean is forced to confront the difficult truth; that fame comes at a price, if only she’s willing to pay it. Amid a glittering cast of ingenues and Hollywood titans: Clara Bow, Clark Gable, Laurel and Hardy, Howard Hughes, Platinum Doll introduces us to the star who would shine brighter than them all.

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REVIEW: PLATINUM DOLL is a fictionalized account of Jean Harlow’s rise to stardom. The ‘Roaring 20s’ and the invention of the ‘talkie’ are the backdrop to Harlean Carpenter McGrew’s life in Hollywood along with her marriage to first husband Chuck McGrew at the age of sixteen; her overbearing stage mother who lived vicariously through the success of her daughter; and heartbreaking ‘miscarriage’ as she started to climb the ladder of success.

PLATINUM DOLL covers but the first few years of Jean Harlow in Hollywood up to her infamous handprints at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, using historical information and fictionalized events surrounding the tumultuous personal life of the ‘Platinum Blonde’. Jean’s introduction to Hollywood begins at an early age (told through flashbacks and memories) as her mother traverses the studios and hot spots hoping to be noticed, while her only child is discovered on a back lot, waiting for a friend.

The story line covers but five years in the life of the Platinum Blonde-from a seventeen year old newlywed to Hollywood’s acknowledgement in wet cement. Because PLATINUM DOLL is a fictionalized story of Jean Harlow’s life, many of the personal and private events should not be taken at face value or to heart. PLATINUM DOLL reads like a movie script or journal documenting Jean Harlow’s rise to stardom.

Copy supplied by the publisher.

Reviewed by Sandy