My Hollywood: When Both of us were Young by Patsy Ruth Miller.

A beautiful, large-format book which has 250 pages, this book was originally published some years ago and has been extremely hard to find in the recent past. BearManor Media has rectified this problem by republishing the book and therefore making it available once again, to the masses. The editor for this edition was BearManor Media author Philip J. Riley who has done a terrific job in making sure the book has been scanned and printed exactly as it was when originally published. I have not seen a copy of the original, but I doubt it is any different to the book I am holding in my hands at this very moment.

Let's take a look at the cover. As you can see the front is in a really sophisticated 1920's design and has a beautiful photograph of Patsy Ruth leaning her head on her hands. The back cover shows a film poster for 'So This is Paris,' which has a cartoon picture of the actress, dancing underneath a huge bouquet of balloons. The whole cover is very twenties; very beautiful and is a perfect accompaniment for the pages within.

You will see that on the bottom of the front cover it says there is an Introduction by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Having a contribution by such a Hollywood legend is worth the cover price on its own, and inside the book you will find that he has written a page of text about his friendship with Patsy Ruth Miller. He has signed and dated it, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, August 1988.

Before the book properly begins there is a Preface written by Patsy Ruth herself, which reads in part:

This book came into being because of the urging, pleading insistence and nagging of a young newspaper man from Tennessee named Jeffrey Carrier. For two years he kept after me to write abut 'My Hollywood' as it was back in the twenties and thirties. 'Do you realize,' he said, 'that you're just about the oldest living actress - except for Lillian Gish - who remembers when Vine Street had wooden sidewalks and pepper tree lined both sides of the dirt road?'

'Who cares?' was my snappy retort.

'Lots of people,' he insisted. 'They'd love to read about all those actors you knew - Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Mary Pickford...'

'Never mind the roll call,' I said. 'There have been books galore by practically everybody who ever set foot in a studio, even if it was to deliver the mail.'

Patsy Ruth's Preface continues, explaining that nothing she said would convince the journalist to go away. Finally she gave in, but warned that there would be no scandal in her book - 'just some stories about Hollywood and its people as I knew them back in those golden days - and a bit about myself too, while I'm about it.'

And that is exactly what the author delivers. Pages and pages of memories and stories of Hollywood and her contemporaries, such as Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo and many, many more. It goes right up to the 1980s and then includes a chapter dedicated to The Films of Patsy Ruth Miller, written by Jeffrey Carrier, the persistent young man who encouraged her to write the book in the first place.

The wonderful thing about this book is because Patsy Ruth made over 60 films, she was privy to many stories about Hollywood and knew almost everyone who worked there. She went to their parties, she saw them on set, and she listened and learned, and reported it all in the book for everyone to now read. She seems to have been a very popular woman and we as readers can see just how much she thought about her fellow actors and actresses by the way she talks in the book. As she mentions, she doesn’t do scandal; she wants to talk about the stories; and so she does, in a way that keeps the reader going from beginning to end.

One of the stars mentioned in the book is Gloria Swanson, who Patsy knew very well and even lived with for several months. In the book she recalls a time later in her life when Gloria came to visit her:

“Once she came out to visit us in Connecticut with her new husband, Bill something-or-other and a weekend supply of health food. It startled my husband, no end, he being a brawny Scot and a hearty eater. However, he went along with the gag until the day she offered to fix him a very special dish – a salad, he understood her to say – and he took a mouthful of it. “My God!” he exclaimed in horror. “It’s grass!” And so it was – dried grass. Even Gloria’s persuasive powers couldn’t get him to take another bite of it – if you can bite dried grass.”

It is impossible to say just how many photographs there are in this book but certainly there are hundreds, ranging from publicity stills such as the one below; candid shots; vintage advertisements; old Hollywood locations and much, much more. There are photos of other actors and actresses too, which really does make it a Who's Who of Hollywood.

The book takes the reader on a ride through the gates of the Hollywood studios and there are times when you really feel as though you are back in the golden age, hanging out with Gable and walking down the boulevards. In short, this book is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of Hollywood, the Golden Age of movies and everything in-between. Thank goodness for the young man who persuaded Patsy Ruth to share her memories with the world. Without him, we’d all miss out on the wonder that was Patsy, and the beauty of her words.

Michelle Morgan’s first self-published book in 1993, The Marilyn Monroe Address Book, led to the publication of Marilyn’s Addresses two years later (under the name Michelle Finn). She is currently a publicist for BearManor Media, and has written a second book on the iconic screen goddess, Marilyn Monroe: Private and Confidential.'

BearManor author Michael G Ankerich has written a wonderful article about Patsy Ruth on his blog. In it he talks about meeting the actress, and shows some beautiful photographs including one of both Michael and Patsy Ruth together.

The book is priced at 4.95 and has a great many rare photographs. To order a copy of the book, please visit BearManor's website.