Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip

by John Gilmore

A powerful chronicler of the American Nightmare through his gripping examinations of near-mythic Southern California murders (the Black Dahlia, Tate-La Bianca), John Gilmore now draws upon his personal experiences to turn his sights on our morbid obsession with Celebrity and the ruinous price it extracts from those who would pursue it. With caustic clarity and 20/20 hindsight, Gilmore unstintingly recounts his relationships with the likes of Janis Joplin, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Jane Fonda, Jean Seberg and Lenny Bruce on the way up and at the peaks of their notoriety. In baring his role in James Dean's attempts to push the bounds of sexual experimentation, Gilmore explores the actor's legendary fascination with speed and death. With hip, vivid prose, Gilmore describes his illuminating and often haunting first-hand encounters with Hank Williams, Ed Wood, Jr., Briggite Bardot, Sal Mineo, Eartha Kitt, Charles Manson, Jayne Mansfield, Vampira, Steve McQueen and many other denizens of the 20th century's dubious Pantheon.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, Biography

250 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 1997

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

John Gilmore was born in the Charity Ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital and was raised in Hollywood. His mother had been a studio contract-player for MGM while his step-grandfather worked as head carpenter for RKO Pictures. Gilmore's parents separated when he was six months old and he was subsequently raised by his grandmother. Gilmore's father became a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, and also wrote and acted on radio shows, a police public service (the shows featured promising movie starlets as well as established performers like Bonita Granville, Ann Rutherford, the "jungle girl" Aquanetta, Joan Davis, Hillary Brooke, Ann Jeffreys, Brenda Marshall and other players young John Gilmore became acquainted with. As a child actor, he appeared in a Gene Autry movie and bit parts at Republic Studios. He worked in LAPD safety films and did stints on radio. Eventually he appeared in commercial films. Actors Ida Lupino and John Hodiak were mentors to Gilmore, who worked in numerous television shows and feature films at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Universal International studios. During the 1950s, through John Hodiak, Gilmore sustained an acquaintanceship with Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood, then in New York, where Gilmore was involved with the Actors Studio, transcribing the lectures of Lee Strasberg into book form. Gilmore performed on stage and in live TV, wrote poetry and screenplays, directed two experimental plays, one by Jean Genet. He wrote and directed a low-budget film entitled "Expressions", later changed to "Blues for Benny." The film did not get general release but was shown independently. Gilmore eventually settled into a writing career; journalist, true crime writer and novelist. He served as head of the writing program at Antioch University and has taught and lectured at length.

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Gilmore was a champion hang-out artist in old Hollywood and has a story to tell about every celebrity.Thank God he put it all down on paper! According to Gilmore Janis Joplin was a skanky old barfly who had hot pants for him, Dennis Hopper brown-nosed James Dean to death, Steve McQueen was scared of his own shadow, acting classes were filled with psychos, Barbara Payton was a pig and Roddy McDowall was the coolest queen Hollywood ever saw. I don't even care if half this shit is true, Gilmore tells a great story.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think John Gilmore was mostly full of crap. To hear him tell it, he either slept with or was chased by some of the biggest names in old Hollywood; wrote the script that became Easy Rider (and was ripped off for credit, natch); and was friends with everyone you’ve ever heard of, and all of those people are complete assholes. It rang false to me throughout the whole book—not to mention an L.A. writer pal of mine, who has mutual friends with the late Gilmore, also told me he’s known as a liar.

I’m interested to read Gilmore’s true crime efforts, but I’m not into fantasy spun as memoirs.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was boring! I figured it'd be a memoir of Hollywood and the lives destroyed but there was no point. Gilmore goes on these bizarre philosophical rants and discusses James Dean every chance he gets. He'll mention celebrities but it's usually told in "they did this and then this happened" to the point that I kept spacing out. There were a lot of people he mentioned that I didn't even know, and I'm quite the celebrity watcher. It's a bland biography from someone who was a hanger-on, oddly enough he makes a slew of disparaging remarks about other hangers-ons...takes one to know one.

[Doug Brunell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Road To Nowhere At 600 MPH

I don't do trigger warnings, as I think they are pointless, but I feel the need to do it for this book because I know there are some people who are really sensitive when it comes to reading about acts of homosexuality. They are in this book. They are handled casually. If you aren't really all that worldly, you may be surprised by how normal it all comes off. You may even learn something. If you can put on your big boy pants to read this, snowflake, you are going to find a fascinating trip into old world Hollywood. Sex. Murder. Music. Mayhem. It's all here as told by someone who was in the thick of it all.

Don't expect feel-good family friendly gossip that seems at home in People magazine. This is public bathroom sex, self-castration, dope shooting, mental insanity, and motion pictures. It's all the stuff Disney prefers to think never existed.

Enjoy it. Revel in it. Bask in the fury of the old. Gilmore is on fire here, and we get to witness Babylon burn. (And don't forget about the scary homosexuals, snowflake. They may be coming for you!)

[morris elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had zero expectations when I started this book. I was expecting another boring rehash of played out Hollywood urban legends. Thank the Goddess this is not that! This is balls to the wall, down and dirty personal history by the author. He was there and holds nothing back. I spent half my time thinking this dude is a tool, but I kept turning the pages because he can write his ass off. I can only imagine PC and Woke idiots trying to process raw truth like this and losing their little minds! I grew up watching a lot of the people he talks about and all I can say is WOW. It bogs down sometimes into psych 101 bullshit but I give him props for laying everything out there and not giving a crap what anybody thinks. Read this book.

[Sara Whizbanger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird and fun, if a bit uneven. He's as thoughtful as he is conspicuously absent at times. If I could have read past the name-dropping filler, I'd have enjoyed it more.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fly on the wall memoir of a 20th century flâneur/would be actor who saw it all, buddy. I expected someone whose main talent seemed to be “knowing EVERYONE” (Janis Joplin, James Dean, Steve McQueen [with whom his exwife was cheating on him], John Hodiak, Jean Seberg, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, and on and on) to be less of a writer, but I was quite wrong on that point. Compelling written and compulsively readable, my only problem with the book besides a healthy dose of skepticism as to how much of it was true-true, and how much of it was dishy embellishment, is how negatively he portrays each of his many celebrity acquaintances. Everyone besides the author himself is, in the author’s opinion, a fool, a dolt, a drunk, washed up, a phony, a sell out, a loser— with the notable exception of Jane Fonda. The memory of his brief New York affair w the future pop culture icon is related with nothing but kindness, which struck me as odd in the midst of such dour remembrances. All in all, a great book to not take too seriously, and an enjoyable ride.

[Bob James · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Gilmore's life has encompassed what would be multiple lives by any other standard. Actor, Writer, Director, Journalist, you name it, he's not only lived it, but had an intimate experience with the lives of others, many of whom have become mythological over the passing of time. The common element is the search, the quest, the longing for meaning, for happiness, for transcendence, played through the pain and damage that these people, Gilmore himself no exception, had incurred in their lives. The journey that for so many of these was comprised of a path that led to self destruction, the promise of fame and fortune coming up bust, laid bare as a lie. Most didn't get out alive, and Gilmore comes out the survivor here, having somehow performed an ongoing act of alchemy, transforming his experiences into insights that while not always bringing clarity, kept him moving forward through it all to become the man he became. He has an uncanny ability to transport the reader to the places and times he gives an account of, often uncomfortably, disturbingly so. An industry so surface packaged with glitter and glamour, that has a rotten, poisonous, decimating core. The survivors are few, those who managed to keep their sanity and pursue their aspired to paths. The glitter and glamour of gossip, so hungrily consumed by those who view it with envy and attraction, is the gaudy mask of an animated pursuit of fatality and death. That some of the most gifted and talented people come to these nasty ends is fascinating and intriguing. It's as if the talents and gifts within them burn too brightly for the mortal vessels to contain them, or give them the clarity and balance to navigate their own emotional terrain. They provide the escape and identification for others who experience their art and work, but cannot free themselves. As Tex Williams said of Hank Williams, "He lives on in peoples insides, a real disturbance in other peoples souls". This is true of most of the personalities presented here. Their work lingers on like an immortal after image, taking on an immortal afterlife, while the truth of the collective insanity, pain, insecurity, and desperation that drove them fades beneath the romanticized mythology of the images and legacies that remain. John Gilmore was there, intertwined, interwoven, crashing into and alongside these "stars" as they rose and fell. His own life playing out amidst them. He's lived to tell the tale, and it's a tale that shatters illusions in its wake.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Gilmore, author of Cold-Blooded: The Saga of Charles Schmid, The Garbage People, Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder and more has always been associated in mind with telling and vivid analysis of true-crime, true-slime. Peripherally, I was aware of his Hollywood connections and career. Now his sordid lens reveals in this past self-destructive drug and alcohol use, murders, loveless and guilt-inducing homosexuality and the corrupting intoxication of the pursuit of fame. The book begins and ends with Janis Joplin's sorry reduction of humanity. The lion's share of the middle goes to James Dean and the gluttony of power emanating from the silver screen. Along the way, we stop to ogle at a broken, piss-stained Hank Williams, spineless and rudderless Dennis Hopper, conniving Lenny Bruce, rabid and unpredictable Steve Mcqueen and more, including Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Brigette Bardot, Sal Mineo, Eartha Kitt, Vampira and Ed Wood Jr. Easily, this text belongs on the shelf next to Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon. Gilmore evidences his cult status and ability to deliver the seamy goods by collecting back cover recommendations from punk rock columnist Gary Indiana, subculture icon Genesis P-Orridge and V/Search Publications honcho V. Vale.

[NeatMillieBliss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheers to John Gilmore for surviving Hollywood (Paris and New York and even Hawaii) and then writing about it. I found Gilmore's ability to see both the beauty and the tragedy in the desperately flawed individuals he writes about truly, well...for lack of a better word "human". A fascinating memoir; I can't imagine anyone calling this book boring. Comparisons to Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" can't be helped I suppose, but I tend to see Anger as more of poser than Gilmore. Speaking of Hollywood Babylon, I can't find my copy and can't get anything from Amazon other than the BookRags cliff notes type thing. Interesting that it is now out of print-anyone with an electronic copy they are willing to share please let me know, as I would like to reread.

Gilmore is a talented writer. His book "Severed" about the Black Dahlia murder is the most factual account I have ever read (and I'm quite well read on the subject.)

Gilmore has also written biographies of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe that I haven't read, because I was never that interested in either person, but I might have to pick them up after reading Laid Bare.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this a two, but I kind of liked all the salacious material and dope about actors, male and female, who Gilmore knew and claimed to have bedded. Jane Fonda, Susan Oliver, Ronnie Haran, Jean Seberg, and so many others. His main association, and the one most seem to have known hims for, was with James Dean, who he also seems to have had relations with. Some portraits are pretty cutting: Joplin, McQueen, Hopper. The level of drugs and sex was amazing, and it seems almost as if it was a small fraternity that knew everyone. And the secrets were not so secret. Some of the material is pretty explicit. His description of Hank Williams was hard to read about. So much talent around, and so much depravity. You just can't look away.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gotta admit this was more of a guilty pleasure read. I learned more about some of his subjects than I needed to. At times, Gilmore recollections of entertainers like Hank Williams are hauntingly beautiful. In most cases, his subjects are deconstructed to fragile people searching for an identity. At this point its the only book of his I've read but it seems to be a good overview his milleu.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this book are amazing, but mostly it's kind of a jumbled mess. But the parts that are good are REALLY good. Like the first three chapters. So basically, I highly recommend the first three chapters.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impressionistic, sleazy, gonzo memoir. Could not stop reading. This book should have had a thorough edit (not for length but for typos).

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this book a lot. john gilmore is a total character who was on the periphery of the hollywood scene in the 50s and 60s. he writes well he's very hyperbolic which is great.

[Ezekiel Tyrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great fun name-dropping sleazy read.

[Kathi Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love true stories, especially about Hollywood. This has some rough information so may not be good for some readers.