Blonde Shadow: The Brief Career and Mysterious Disappearance of Actress Linda Haynes

by Tom Graves

(PLEASE This long-form journalism article is now available as a long chapter in the book "Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers." This 400-page book contains much more as well and is available on amazon.com) Blonde, beautiful, mysterious -- a female James Dean. Linda Haynes, an actress who made only nine films in the 1970s disappeared from Hollywood in 1980, never to be heard from again. A hardcore group of her fans, which included film director Quentin Tarantino and author Tom Graves, spent years trying to find her. It took the deep pockets and obsessive tracking of Tarantino to finally locate her, but only one of them was admitted to her Florida home to get the story. Part mystery, part biography, and a total appreciation of an uncelebrated talent, Blonde Shadow attempts to get to the bottom of the enigma that was Linda Haynes. Included in the book is a Photo Gallery of film stills and personal photos.

63 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 14, 2011

Reviews

[Rich P · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lovely, very talented actress who made the rounds of B-films during the wide-open filmmaking days of the 70s and then dropped out of sight: there is a story here, and, no doubt, a supremely interesting one. However, this e-book, which is briefer than Haynes's far-too-short career, is not it. With all due respect to Mr. Graves, who seems a tremendously capable writer, this has all of the appearance of the written journal of someone who tracked down the "crush" of his youth. (Actually, there's a story in that, too. Maybe the focus should have been changed.)After an excellent appraisal of Linda Haynes's films, the book glosses over his attempts to find her and drops the name of Quentin Tarantino, whose office was able to provide her number. (This way, Tarantino's name can appear on search engines and lead you to this book.) After several long interviews with Ms. Haynes he states that he feels he would be breaking her trust if he reveals exactly what was going on with her during those years and why she left the film industry. While this respect for a woman with whom he obviously finally developed a friendship is very commendable, it takes the meat out of the story. What was going on - with her and the industry - at the time? We hear enough about the "classics" - most notably the book "mad as Hell," about the making of "Network" - but really do not read that much and get much insight into the B-exploitation films of the era and those who made a living at it. The very likely powerful story here is simply dropped and all that remains is a glowind pean to the forgotten Linda Haynes.

[Betty Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book did not read much about her family life or her son did not have much pitcher's of family did talk much about life in Hollywood or her young life it was not a good book to read i went not recommend the book to anyone

I did not like the book it did not talk much about her family or life all it talk and read about was her movies and maybe some one else would like the book to read I like biography