Passings of More than 125 American Movie and TV Idols

Full of inaccuracies, you have to fact-check every story. Quite a few grammar errors. Anyone who's been in the military will spot unlikely events. The information value is learning which stars died an unnatural death. After a while I just stopped reading the book's explanation and just went online for facts.

It was very disappointing. I thought I might learn something but it seemed like just a bunch of old news stories mashed together. Perhaps someone with no knowledge about the subject matter would find it interesting but I was bored. Only kudos I can give is that the author must have spent a lot of time researching.

The Hollywood Book of Death is heavily padded with excruciating background that seems lifted from allmovie.com. Strangely, many of the dead actor�s best work or more interesting aspects of their life are left out. Author James Robert Parish slummed writing this book. Half the book is dedicated to death by natural causes (yawn), while the Murdered, Drugs, Accidents and Suicide sections are stunningly short. I could name another dozen actors to add to each of those categories.
Hollywood Book of Death is okay if you are a novice to such trivia.

I have what is essentially two other copies of this book published under different titles that date back to pre-1994. This incarnation includes an index which matches cemeteries and their dead celeb residents. Beware that if you plan to use this as a cemetery tour book, there are some serious inaccuracies contained within.
What particularly irks me is that the author used bad sources for his information and didn't verify his information. This was not necessary as most of this information could have been verified online. Far better and more accurate information in print can be obtained by buying a recent book by Allen Ellenberg that covers LA County cemeteries. THE INFORMATION IN THIS BOOK IS ACCURATE AS OF ITS DATE OF PUBLICATION.
My biggest personal gripe with this book.....if you are going to repackage it as 'new', it would be really nice if an attempt were made to correct past errors. If this was done, it is not evident to me. As for the bulk of the book which contains stories of heartbreak and (eventually) death, this book is a good read. Parish is a good writer and manages to keep his reader hooked.

Very interesting look into the lives (and deaths) of the stars. Even at 67 years old, I don't know all of the celebrities, but most of them have had some impact on my movie watching over the years. It's a great book to read snippets of while you're waiting for something else!

This was interesting, but not enlightening. I don't feel the author brought any new information to each actor's stories. I think I was hoping for deeper research, and most of what is included in this book could be found with a Google search.

If you are planning to visit Hollywood and would like learn about a movie star including how they died and where they are buried, then you would love this book. This is not a morbid book detailing the tragic end of a person, but guides movie fans by giving a brief and useful bio of the stars, and the address of the house where the star lived, and the cemetery information. I have visited gravesite of several stars discussed in this book and paid my respect. This book describes stars whose death was strange, brutal, suspicious or natural, and the appendix and the cemetery info given at the end of the book comes in very handy. Much of the information given in this book is already discussed on television, books or many websites related to Tinsel town, but it is nice to have a copy of the book for immediate reference.

Of many stars discussed in this book, I found Janet Gaynor's bio was interesting. Her death due to complications arising from a car accident in San Francisco, and her burial in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood was helpful in relating to the movies she did. Other interesting bios I read included Grace Kelly, Carole Lombard, Jayne Mansfield, Will Rogers, and Ernie Kovacs; all of whom died in auto/plane accidents. Will Rogers was buried initially at a Los Angeles cemetery but later moved to Claremont, OK.

The celebrities who succumbed to alcohol and drug intoxication included; John Barrymore, Montgomery Clift, W.C. Fields, Judy Garland, William Holden, Veronica Lake, Barbara La Marr and Bel Lugosi. Some of the roles John Barrymore played were as an alcoholic, for example, in the movie "Dinner at Eight," his role reflected his true life. Bela Lugosi was strongly addicted to controlled substances that significantly affected his health, and poor choices he made in his career drove him to poor house. His last wish was that he was to be buried in his Dracula trademark black cape and tuxedo suite. For a small gathering attending the services, it was an eerie feeling to open the casket and see Dracula in the coffin. The story has it that the hearse left the mortuary parking lot, after driver lost control of the vehicle, and drove itself along the busy Hollywood Blvd and turned at Vine Street, the regular walking path of Lugosi.

A friend, after seeing W.C. Fields reading Bible, asked him why he chose to read the holy book, the comic quipped, "Looking for loopholes." Ramon Navarro, Sharon Tate, Rebecca Schaeffer, Haing Ngor (academy award winner for "The Killing Fields,") and Sal Mineo were murdered. The homicides of Tate and Navarro were especially brutal.

The deaths of Susan Hayward, John Wayne, Agnes Moorhead and Dick Powell occurred naturally. But many reporters believe that they were exposed to radiation that hovered over Utah filming site for the movie "The Conqueror." All of them developed cancer after the movie was shot in 1955.

The deaths of actor George Reeves, Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, and Bob Crane were perplexing. Much has been written on them and various theories still exist. Recently LAPD reopened the investigation of Natalie Wood's death. George Reeves death was attributed to suicide by LAPD, but some believe that his one time lover Toni Mannix hired a hit man to do the job. She had a motive; his last will and testament read that most of his assets were to go for Mannix and not his fiancée Lenore Lemmon. Clara Blandick, Dorothy Dandridge, Peg Entwistle, Carole Landis, George Sanders, and Lupe Velez committed suicide for either health or economic reasons. Peg Entwistle fell from the Hollywood sign (from letter H) 100 feet below. It has been rumored that this area is haunted by Peg (woman in white) who is restless and never found peace in her life. There is a picture of the suicide scene of Carol Landis in the book, where she is found lying in her house in a crouching position. Landis was in serious financial position and the actor Rex Harrison was the last to see her before her unfortunate decision to end her life on July 4 weekend of 1948.

The book reads wonderfully and many stories I found in this book are well researched

1. The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book: The Incomparable Guide to Movie Stars' Homes, Movie and TV Locations, Scandals, Murders, Suicides, and All the Famous Tourist Sites
2. Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes about the Stars and Legends of the Movies!
3. Hollywood: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie L.A.
4. Deadly Illusions: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern
5. Haunted Hollywood: Tinseltown Terrors, Filmdom Phantoms, and Movieland Mayhem
6. Ghosts of Hollywood: The Show Still Goes on
7. Haunted Hollywood: The Haunted Locations of Hollywood, California
8. Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Sixteen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story, from Tallulah Bankhead to River Phoenix

This book reminds us of what many tend to forget. That behind those timeless images on the silver screen are flesh and blood people, all too susceptible like the rest of us to the ravages of passing years. Not that the author's tone is morbid or gossipy. It's not. Instead, the prose is candidly matter of fact, without speculation or embellishment, and you won't come away feeling ghoulish or intrusive. Still and all, there's no apparent criterion for who gets included among the deceased 125, and who doesn't. So whether your own particular favorites are included remains something of a dice roll. Each entry receives one to four pages of bio sketch plus details of passing, which are grouped helpfully under headings indicating the nature of the demise, such as "Accidental", "Natural Causes", "Puzzling Deaths", et. al. Interesting features include: disposition of estate, amount of estate, and disposition of remains, along with interment sites as catalogued in the handy Appendix B. Naturally, such limited space has its drawbacks -- one being that the reader cannot be made to feel the emotional tone of the individual's life experience, the death thus coming as something of an abstraction. (Only full length biography can reach contextual depth.) All in all, however, Parrish's work stands as a welcome addition to that archive of Hollywood lore which sticks pretty close to the facts -- some of which for a tome this rich are inevitably wrong, e.g. James Dean was not "out for a spin" on that fatal day, but headed to take part in the races in Salinas; by the math Parrish provides, Harriet Nelson was 80 at death, not 84; Lurene Tuttle, not Paul Jasmin, provided the mother's voice in Psycho. But this is mere nit-picking. The book itself remains a fascinating read.

Celebrities. There has always been an incredible fascination with the ins and outs of a celebrity and everything that goes with it. It's been that way for decades and decades. While some may be interested in what they do or spend, nothing is more interesting and fascinating than the tale of a star who's time has come and gone and are no longer with this. This decent sized book tells the tale of over 125 celebrities who have passed on to that big silver screen in the sky. Some big names, some you have probably never heard of before in your life. The big name stars that are featured in this book like Mary Pickford, W.C. Fields, River Phoenix, Bela Lugosi, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and a ton of others, are always interesting to read about. But it is the people you are not familiar with that comes across as more intriguing. The book is divided into a couple of different categories dealing with the way of death. There is the first section, "Accidental Deaths", which is pretty much self explanatory. People in this section include Sonny Bono, Grace Kelly, Brandon Lee, and a dozen others. Then there is the "Alcohol And Drugs" section, where such celebs as Belushi, Barrymore, Farley, and Holden among others will be found. There is "In Obscurity", a section with lesser known performers, although Martha Raye is in here along with Clara Bow and Hedy Lamarr. This section deals with entertainrs who, well, went into obscurity. The book rounds out with "Murders", "Natural Causes", which does have a lot of people in it but does not fill up the book at all like an earlier review said. Plus, there is "Puzzling Deaths" and "Suicides". Some entertainers get a lenghty enough tribute, while some others don't. But I found each one to be appropriate to the level of star they were talking about and gave as good enough of information as there needed to be. There were definitley some doozies in here in regards to the person themself and their demise. Their is definitley bizarre and sordid stories in here as the title of the book says. While some may of died of old age or some other kind of natural cause, there is still usually enough interesting things and facts written about them that still makes it worthwhile, even when the ones that died normally, well, died normally. Plus you get fun little tall tales about people like John Barrymore. As legend has it, his body was borrowed from the morgue and taken back to Errol Flynn's house by his buddies and propped up making it look as though he didn't die. This, of course, sent Errol running out of the house. There are a few odds and ends like that here and there, and it's part of the fun that this book has between it's pages. The author, James Parrish, put together a nice and interesting book that is sure to be eaten up by any fan intrigued by the subject. I know I was.

For film buffs or those into the Hollywood/movie industry, or the casual observer who grew up with a television set in their home. Providing 100 years of Hollywood/LA and the actresses and actors that used to be.
As people have many ways of departing this world, the author broke chapters into the way in which they exited: natural, homicide, drugs & alcohol, puzzling (unexplained), suicide, and accidents i.e. This is not about death per se but even moreso of the life and career of these people. In addition to 125 people, hundreds of movie titles are listed. It's not gloomy or morose. One can learn more about recent and long-past actors/actresses and their works here. It's an easy informative read.
Those into movies are aware of likes of Jane Mansfield and Sal Mineo, but additional coverage into a hundred of others tie old and new Hollywood together back to the beginning of the 1900s. Strait-to-the-point insights into their professional and private lives, and street addresses of Hollywood and Los Angeles are presented where the end came for these folks. You can find where they are buried as well. From this book you can take a ride or stroll through the Hollywood area and know more of what happened and where in the past.
What became of Alfalfa from "The Little Rascals" and hundreds of others you've heard of. You can find out here.

I've actually been reading this during my lunch break via the Kindle app on my phone while waiting (I took advantage of the Kindle Trade In Offer) for my Kindle Paperwhite to arrive.

I completely agree with another reviewer's opinion that this book is best read in small snippets just because each person mentioned doesn't (at least reading on my phone) take more than a "page" swipe or two to finish.