The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret--Female Stars Who Loved Other Women

nGreta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Barbara Stanwyck--to name a few--maintained their images as glamorous big-screen sex symbols complete with dashing escorts, handsome husbands, and scores of male admirers, thanks to studio publicity departments. But off the set, all three box office divas were involved in lavender marriages (marriages of convenience, often to gay men) or remained stoically single. They, and several other Hollywood starlets of the era, were members of a discreet women's club called the Sewing Circle, Hollywood's underground lesbian society. Madsen takes a candid look at the very complicated dual lives these great stars led and the impact their preference for same-sex relationships had on their movie careers. nn