Do Tell
Not very long ago, news from Hollywood captured the riveted attention of almost all Americans, from NYC tycoons to Kansas farmers’ wives. In the years before WWII, Edith “Edie” O’Dare is a poor girl from Boston who wins a contest and becomes a short-lived, mediocre actress. The studio releases her, and she finds a new calling as a gossip columnist, which allows her to stay.
Edie is well known from her actress days but only cautiously trusted among the Hollywood elite. Still, she seems to easily gain deep insight into the ongoing scandals occurring so frequently there. When one well-liked actor takes advantage of a very young up-and-coming actress at a bacchanalian party, Edie undertakes a mission to help the girl and subtly expose the scoundrel. She comes to discover career-ending secrets among some. Still, if she likes them, she protects them. She also comes to develop a love/hate relationship with a powerful studio Director of Publicity, which works to her advantage as she becomes exceedingly familiar to the reading public.
As a protagonist, Edie is difficult to like, but she remains interesting primarily by revealing her perspective in her own words. Her clever clips and humorous interactions with the people she covers are amusing. It’s fun trying to guess which famous actor or actress the author has based her characters on, if any. On the downside, the relentless gossip, even fictional, becomes tedious in the absence of significant or illuminating events. Do Tell may appeal strongly to fans of Golden Age Hollywood.
