Jean Stein

A brilliant and unique biography of Andy Warhol's tragic muse, the 60s icon Edie Sedgwick‘Exceptionally seductive… You can’t put it down’ LA TimesOutrageous, vulnerable and strikingly beautiful - in the 1960s Edie Sedgwick became both an emblem of, and a memorial to, the doomed world spawned by Andy Warhol. Born into a wealthy New England Edie’s childhood was dominated by a brutal but glamourous father. Fleeing to New York, she became an instant celebrity, known to everyone in the literary, artistic and fashionable worlds. She was Warhol's twin soul, his creature, the superstar of his films and, finally, the victim of a life which he created for her. Jean Stein’s classic biography of Edie is an American fable on an epic scale - the story of a short, crowded and vivid life which is also the story of a decade like no other.‘Edie Sedgwick was the spirit of the sixties, and these pages capture her power to dazzle us… This is the book of the Sixties we have been waiting for’ Norman Mailer

Tells the story of Hollywood. This book takes us from the discovery of oil in the Twenties with the story of the tycoon Edward Doheny and traces the growth of corruption through the syndicates, the mob, and the movie studios - from the beginnings of the film industry to the end, with News Corp and Rupert Murdoch.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An epic, mesmerizing oral history of Hollywood and Los Angeles from the author of the contemporary classic Edie Jean Stein transformed the art of oral history in her groundbreaking book Edie: American Girl, an indelible portrait of Andy Warhol "superstar" Edie Sedgwick, which was edited with George Plimpton. Now, in West of Eden, she turns to Los Angeles, the city of her childhood. Stein vividly captures a mythic cast of characters: their ambitions and triumphs as well as their desolation and grief. These stories illuminate the bold aspirations of five larger-than-life individuals and their families. West of Eden is a work of history both grand in scale and intimate in detail. At the center of each family is a dreamer who finds fortune and strife in Southern California: Edward Doheny, the Wisconsin-born oil tycoon whose corruption destroyed the reputation of a U. S. president and led to his own son's violent death; Jack Warner, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, who together with his brothers founded one of the world's most iconic film studios; Jane Garland, the troubled daughter of an aspiring actress who could never escape her mother's schemes; Jennifer Jones, an actress from Oklahoma who won the Academy Award at twenty-five but struggled with despair amid her fame and glamour. Finally, Stein chronicles the ascent of her own father, Jules Stein, an eye doctor born in Indiana who transformed Hollywood with the creation of an unrivaled agency and studio. In each chapter, Stein paints a portrait of an outsider who pins his or her hopes on the nascent power and promise of Los Angeles. Each individual's unyielding intensity pushes loved ones, especially children, toward a perilous threshold. West of Eden depicts the city that has projected its own image of America onto the world, in all its idealism and paradox. As she did in Edie, Jean Stein weaves together the personal recollections of an array of individuals to create an astonishing tapestry of a place like no other. Praise for West of Eden "Compulsively readable, capturing not just a vibrant part of the history of Los Angeles--that uniquely 'American Place' Stein refers to in her subtitle--but also the real drama of this town . . . It's like being at an insider's cocktail party where the most delicious gossip about the rich and powerful is being dished by smart people, such as Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, Arthur Miller and Dennis Hopper. . . . Mesmerizing."--Los Angeles Times "Perhaps the most surprising thing that emerges from this riveting book is a glimpse of what seems like deep truth. It's possible that oral history as Stein practices it . . . is as close as we're going to come to the real story of anything."--The New York Times Book Review "Enthralling . . . brings some of L. A.'s] biggest personalities to life . . . As she did for Edie Sedgwick in Edie: American Girl, Stein] harnesses a gossipy chorus of voices."--Vogue "Even if you're a connoisseur of Hollywood tales, you've probably never heard these. . . . As ever, gaudy, debauched, merciless Hollywood has the power to enthrall its audience."--The Wall Street Journal "The tales of jaw-dropping excess, cruelty, and betrayal are the stuff of movies, and the pleasures are immense."--Vanity Fair"This riveting oral history chronicles the development of Los Angeles, from oil boomtown to Tinseltown."--Entertainment Weekly ("Must List")

When Edie was first published, it quickly became an international bestseller and then took its place among the classic books about the 1960s. Edie Sedgwick exploded into the public eye like a comet. She seemed to have it all: she was aristocratic and glamorous, vivacious and young, Andy Warhol's superstar. But within a few years she flared out as quickly as she had appeared, and before she turned twenty-nine she was dead from a drug overdose. In a dazzling tapestry of voices--family, friends, lovers, rivals--the entire meteoric trajectory of Edie Sedgwick's life is brilliantly captured. And so is the Pop Art world of the '60s: the sex, drugs, fashion, music--the mad rush for pleasure and fame. All glitter and flash on the outside, it was hollow and desperate within--like Edie herself, and like her mentor, Andy Warhol. Alternately mesmerizing, tragic, and horrifying, this book shattered many myths about the '60s experience in America.