I feel like my general mood has put me into a reading slump but this, this was a book that was a shining light so I did want to talk about it.
Even though I know nothing about Creature from the Black Lagoon I do love old Hollywood and its untold stories and Milicent Patrick was a perfect balm.
FYI Milicent uses a couple of different names as mentioned throughout the book but this is the one on the cover that the author uses most so that’s what we’re going to go with.
And meanwhile I do somewhat miss the days when you could just put anything on your resume or tell people you were Italian royalty and get away with it and get given a chance. The true definition I suppose of fake it til you make it. Now you have to have a decade experience for absolutely anything and despite said experience you have to be willing to do it for peanuts.
But I digress.
Anyway Milicent was an artist and actress who would up working for the make-up department at Universal. At the time credit was not the same as it was today and the head’s of the department got the goods. Plus she happened to work for Bud Westmore a legendary make-up family scion and total asshole who, once he realized she was getting the glory basically fired and blackballed her.
But as Mallory O’Meara (a fan since she was a kid of the creature) finds out there was more to Milicent than meets the eye starting with a childhood in the shadows of the just being built legendary Hearst Castle.
I also appreciated the look into the research and investigation in writing the book. (I feel like I could find anyone in Hollywood these days.) Even the small details about the script for the film to the press tour to receipts. O’Meara is pretty much any of us that ever launched onto a film, or character or bit of Hollywood history and it was a fun journey to take.
I do hope to get around to watching the movie one of these days. I’ll go into it far better prepared than I otherwise would have!
Grinch-Meter: 9/10
Recommend: For fans of old Hollywood, monster movies, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (obviously), slice of life stories, and modern day investigations.