The Skyrocket

St. Johns, Adela Rogers.

Published by A.L. Burt, 1925

About this Item

THE SKYROCKET, a novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns, hardcover with dust jacket (price not printed on inner flap), 1925. BOOK CONDITION: very good. The text block is in fine condition with no tears, dog-ears, or marks. The pages and endpapers are age-toned. There is no bookplate nor signature of a prior owner. Not a library book or remainder. The brown cloth boards are in very good condition (light corner scuffing and edge wear, bumped spine slightly cocked). The dust jacket is intact but in poor condition (chipping and tears along top and bottom edges, age-toned inside with other marks, rubbed covers, faded spine). 7 ½ x 5 ¼, 322 pages, 13 ounces. XX [From the dust jacket] Story of a Movie Cinderella, The Skyrocket by ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS. Sharon Kimm's childhood is spent in squalor. From a rebellious mother she has inherited a passion for beauty and luxury which it seems can never be gratified. Only such a fairy godmother as lives in Hollywood these days could wave the wand which changes obscure, ignorant, tawdry, little Sharon into a brilliant star, fascinating even to the great director, who discovered her. In one way William Dvorak, powerful and suave, dominates Sharon; but it is Mickey Reid whom she loves. Romance blooms naturally on the meeting of these two creatures. That is in the days when Sharon is just a "red-headed extra girl." But the rapid rise of the "great Sharon Kimm" changed all that. Mickey sees his love swept away by pleasure, flattery and fame. The author draws the reckless, gay motion picture world to the life? sometimes with excruciating accuracy and always with a wealth of vivid detail. The heart of one woman is revealed in "The Skyrocket," as it can be only by another woman. In "The Skyrocket" one who has seen it all at close hand, takes you behind the scenes. [From Women Film Pioneers Project] Adela Rogers St. Johns delighted in the fact that James Quirk of Photoplay called her ?the mother-confessor of Hollywood.? Her California birth, close association with William Randolph Hearst, and unconventional upbringing gave her an unusual vantage point on the social mores of Hollywood as was born in the 1910s and assumed its mature form in the 1920s. Indeed, St. Johns may be said to have been the most influential of the chroniclers of the Hollywood story of rise and fall in as much as she wrote the narrative that became the template for the motion picture What Price Hollywood? (1932) and its later iterations as A Star Is Born (1937, 1954, 1976). She both reported on Hollywood and fictionalized the lives of the stars she covered; thus her significance was as an observer of Hollywood rather than as a participant in it. St. Johns was evidently one of Hearst?s favorite reporters and he gave her important assignments beyond the motion picture industry. Her fiction explores the background that is acknowledged only to be disavowed in the coverage of individual stars and the industry. If one is inclined to read St. Johns?s novels as containing portraits of recognizable figures, one does not have to go far to find a savage picture of Cecil B. DeMille, the original for director William Dvorak in 1925 novel THE SKYROCKET. Whatever her attitude toward DeMille, however, the insight of THE SKYROCKET is that the problems of Hollywood are collective rather than individual, that the film industry creates an environment in which it is difficult to live sanely, a motif endlessly present in her fiction as well as in her several autobiographies. Seller Inventory # 001765

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Skyrocket

Publisher: A.L. Burt

Publication Date: 1925

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Poor