A Hollywood Life

Screenwriter and novelist Freeman ( A Hollywood Education ) writes with authority, revealing the inside scoop on Hollywood--and one Tinseltown denizen--through the eyes of ex-screenwriter Gabe Burton. When famous actress Carla Tate's body is found washed up on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., Gabe (Carla's friend, biographer-to-be and sometime lover) pieces together her whole, affecting history. Drawing on what she has told him and what he has observed, he fashions a reflective memoir. Born Karen Teitel, of a meek mother and a father whose lofty schemes are always unsuccessful, Carla appears in her first movie at the tender age of five days; a few years later she is the child star of a popular movie series. In her late teens, she gains the guidance and love of powerful lawyer and Hollywood insider Jack Markel, 30 years her senior and married. Their passionate affair outlasts her three marriages and ends only with her death. Despite years of immersion in the shallow and manipulative world of movie-making, Carla remains a smart and good person--although far from spirited. Although diminished by glib observations meant to be insightful, Freeman's sympathetic tale seems to get at the truth behind a life spent on screen. First serial to Journal of the Writers' Guild of America, West. (July)