Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon, Max Eastman, and Charlie Chaplin

In 1919, Florence Deshon--tall, radical, and charismatic--was well on her way to becoming one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Embroiled in a clandestine affair with Charlie Chaplin, she continued to remain romantically involved with the well-known writer and socialist Max Eastman. By 1922, she was found dead in a New York apartment, rumored to have committed suicide.

Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon, Max Eastman, and Charlie Chaplin uses previously unpublished letters between Deshon and Eastman to reconstruct their relationship against the backdrop of the ＂golden age＂ of Hollywood. Deshon’s tragic life and her abuse at the hands of powerful men--including Chaplin, Eastman, and Samuel Goldwyn--resonate with the concerns of today’s MeToo movement. Above all, though, this is a book about an extraordinary woman unjustly forgotten: a brilliant writer and campaigner for women’s rights, driven both by her ambition to succeed and a boundless desire for life.

Rich in tantalizing detail, Love and Loss in Hollywood chronicles crucial years of American film history, overshadowed by the pervasive fear of Bolshevism after World War I, the Red Riots, and the emergence of the big studios in Hollywood. This beautiful edition features dozens of unpublished photographs, among them six mesmerizing full-length portraits of Deshon by Adolph de Meyer, Vogue’s first fashion photographer.

Christoph Irmscher is Provost Professor of English and Director of the Wells Scholars Program at Indiana University Bloomington. A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, he is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Max Eastman: A Life and Stephen Spender: Poems Written Abroad.