Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood

Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them. Through interviews & the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown–a world unto itself, with unique rules & social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts & media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, & fashionable nightspots, & of course its own glamorous & brilliant personalities. 

Along with famous actors including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood’s most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne & the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, & the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. 

But Bogle also looks at other members of the black community–from the white stars’ black servants, who had their own money & prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, & architects–and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West. 

In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker’s classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory & Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood–and on all of America.

°°°