A place “where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul,” per Marilyn Monroe; the “market where lies are bought,” according to Bertolt Brecht. Where else but Hollywood—the name understood to refer to the popular American film industry as a whole more than to one Los Angeles neighborhood—the “city” that loves to self-hate, as evidenced in this series of cinematic poison pen letters. Stars past their sell-by date (Sunset Boulevard, Maps to the Stars), pernicious producers who’ll stop at nothing to succeed (The Bad and the Beautiful), actresses looking for a big break who wind up broken (Mulholland Drive)… You’ll find all these, and lots of beautiful people doing hideous things, when you go sifting through the tawdry detritus of Tinseltown in What Price Hollywood?
