cover image Rupert Hughes: A Hollywood Legend

Rupert Hughes: A Hollywood Legend

James O. Kemm, Kemm. Pomegrante Press (CA), $24.95 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-938817-49-9

The uncle of famed film magnate Howard Hughes had an extensive writing career that encompassed not only the screenplays for which he became best known, but novels, plays, magazine stories and serials, songs, an epic poem and a three-volume biography of George Washington. In the earliest days of Hollywood's movie industry, Rupert Hughes (1872-1956) worked for his friend Sam Goldwyn on many pictures, as a screenwriter and director, and socialized with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. His oeuvre includes The Old Nest and the Colleen Moore feature Come On Over. In the late 1940s and through the McCarthy era, he was one of the most outspoken forces in Hollywood against those in the business whose views he considered ""communistic."" None of Hughes's own published writings are quoted here, and many unanswered questions are raised by mention of his three marriages, one ending in divorce, one in suicide and the third judged an ""accidental"" overdose of sleeping pills, although police suspected suicide. Perhaps, as the grandson of Hughes's first cousin, Kemm avoided any information that might embarrass the wealthy family. Whatever the author's reasons, this book provides a fact-filled but lifeless and unsatisfying portrait of a man who was probably a fascinating character. Photos. (Oct.)