A Hollywood Life

by David Freeman

Screenwriter and novelist Freeman ( A Hollywood Education ) writes with authority, revealing the inside scoop on Hollywood--and one Tinseltown denizen--through the eyes of ex-screenwriter Gabe Burton. When famous actress Carla Tate's body is found washed up on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Gabe (Carla's friend, biographer-to-be and sometime lover) pieces together her whole, affecting history. Drawing on what she has told him and what he has observed, he fashions a reflective memoir. Born Karen Teitel, of a meek mother and a father whose lofty schemes are always unsuccessful, Carla appears in her first movie at the tender age of five days; a few years later she is the child star of a popular movie series. In her late teens, she gains the guidance and love of powerful lawyer and Hollywood insider Jack Markel, 30 years her senior and married. Their passionate affair outlasts her three marriages and ends only with her death. Despite years of immersion in the shallow and manipulative world of movie-making, Carla remains a smart and good person--although far from spirited. Although diminished by glib observations meant to be insightful, Freeman's sympathetic tale seems to get at the truth behind a life spent on screen.

332 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1991

About the author

David Freeman is an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and journalist who studied playwriting and dramatic literature at the Yale Drama School and currently teaches screenwriting seminars in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife Judith Gingold.

Freeman wrote the last draft for Alfred Hitchcock's final project, The Short Night, a projected spy thriller which was never produced due to Hitchcock's failing health. Freeman wrote about his experiences in the 1984 book The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock, which includes his completed screenplay.