Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years by Cari Beauchamp

From the Publisher

This is the extraordinary story, told for the first time, of Joseph P. Kennedy’s remarkable reign in Hollywood, in which he ran three movie studios simultaneously, led the revolution in sound pictures—and made the fortune that became the foundation of his empire.

Kennedy saw filmmaking as “a gold mine” when movies were an idea one week, in front of the camera the next, and in theaters within the month.

It was 1919; Kennedy was thirty-one years old.

Between 1926 and 1930, Kennedy used his talents to position himself as a Hollywood leader. He ran Film Booking Offices (FBO), was brought in to run Pathé and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theaters, and became the chairman of their boards. Within months, he was asked to head First National film company. By 1928, Kennedy—merciless, electrifying, a visionary—was running three studios at once.

In Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, Cari Beauchamp writes about the genius behind Kennedy’s profiteering and his importance in changing the way Hollywood conducted business. As one of the first nonfamily members to be given access to Kennedy’s personal papers, Beauchamp, through years of meticulous research and countless interviews with those close to Kennedy, has dug through the maze of deals and the files of memos and notes, only recently made available, to tell in full how he made it all happen: how he charmed, cajoled, and bullied; how he juggles various backers—and managed to line his pockets with millions.

Beauchamp writes about the movies Kennedy produced and the stars he made, about the studios he razed and those he reorganized, about the jobs that werelost and the careers that were ruined (among them, that of silent film cowboy star Fred Thomson—one of America’s top box-office draws).

Beauchamp tells for the first time the full story of Kennedy’s affair with the feisty Gloria Swanson, the “reigning Queen of Hollywood”—an extravagant escapade that became legend and that triggered one of Hollywood’s biggest financial fiascos. It began with Kennedy taking over Swanson’s personal and professional life (“Together we could make millions,” he promised), and ended with his first failure (personal and public) and her career on the brink of ruin, a million dollars in debt.

Beauchamp writes as well about the Hollywood titans surrounding Kennedy: William Randolph Hearst (Kennedy was a welcome guest at “the ranch”) . . . Cecil B. De Mille . . . David Sarnoff, who, with Kennedy, masterminded the unprecedented deal that resulted in the founding of RKO, and that made Kennedy millions.

A fascinating tale of business genius and personal greed that brings to light not only the way Joseph P. Kennedy made his fortune, but how he forever changed the business of movie-making.


From the Hardcover edition.

The New York Times - Thomas Mallon

Cari Beauchamp's smart…new book, suggests that nothing in Kennedy's long career of banking, stock manipulation and New Dealing prepared him for presidential politics the way his time in the picture business did.

Publishers Weekly

The legendary financier and Kennedy-clan patriarch impressed even Hollywood with his heartlessness, according to this meticulous but chilly narrative of his stint as a movie mogul. Entertainment journalist Beauchamp (Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood) follows Kennedy's 1926-1931 sojourn in the movie industry, when he amassed several studios and theater chains that became the nucleus of RKO Studios. Beauchamp's Kennedy is a charming, ruthless snake with a " 'dollar sign implanted in his heart,' " who used, betrayed and discarded a string of investors, stockholders, friends, employees and stars, including his longtime mistress, Gloria Swanson. That's Hollywood, but Kennedy, in Beauchamp's portrayal, lacked a crucial redeeming feature-the eye for talent and feel for moviemaking that led other studio chiefs to nurture great films along with great fortunes. Caring more about the biz than the show, he gutted his studios' creative potential through ruthless cost cutting and layoffs; the author's styling of him as a "visionary" empire builder rings hollow given how casually he disposed of his squeezed-dry holdings. Beauchamp adds a touch of Tinseltown glamour to her account of Kennedy's byzantine deal making and financial schemes, but he's not a lead that audiences will warm to. Photos. (Feb. 3)

Library Journal

Joseph P. Kennedy, father of JFK, was also a fascinating businessman: in the late 1920s, having already established himself in Boston as a banker and entrepreneur, he sought and found success as a Hollywood producer. Here, Beauchamp (Without Lying Down) draws on contracts, letters, and memos to tell the story of Kennedy's career, projects, and relationships during this time. Pam Ward's (The Sky Took Him) narration is clear and expressive; the reedy Boston accent she employs when voicing Kennedy is dead-on hilarious. Recommended for those interested in the Kennedys and for movie history and popular culture buffs. [Audio clip available through www.blackstoneaudio.com; the review of the Knopf hc deemed this "the first in-depth look at [Kennedy's] years in Hollywood," LJ 1/09.—Ed.]—Barbara Valle, El Paso P.L., TX

Kirkus Reviews

Beauchamp (Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, 1998, etc.) uncovers the largely untold story of the Kennedy patriarch's adventures in the early days of Hollywood. Kennedy demonstrated preternatural business instincts, ambition and self-promotional flair in his hometown of Boston, winning fame as "America's youngest bank president" by the age 25 before being seduced by the spectacular profits to be made in the movie business. Employing his enormous personal charm, financial acumen and public-relations savvy, he quickly moved to the head of three movie studios and began amassing a personal fortune that would help establish him as one of the richest men in the country. Beauchamp's exhaustive research details Kennedy's every stock manipulation and cost-cutting measure, but the meat of the story is in the tyro's ruthlessness and single-minded pursuit of the bottom line. This approach led to, among other things, the death of vaudeville, as Kennedy's purchase of the K-A-O theater chain left that medium's performers without a venue for their art; the ruined career of cowboy star and Kennedy friend Fred Thomson, who represented competition for Kennedy's new hire Tom Mix; and the spectacular career flameout of Gloria Swanson, superstar and Kennedy paramour. The section dealing with Swanson's epic, uncompleted fiasco Queen Kelly, hemorrhaging money as out-of-control director Erich von Stroheim descended into autocratic perversity, is a riveting account of filmmaking in the nascent sound era. It also provides a welcome bit of color in a narrative that, owing to Kennedy's relative lack of interest in the creative side of the business, tends toward adryness in its dogged reportage of wheeling and dealing. Beauchamp doesn't attempt a psychological investigation of Kennedy; he appears simply as a predatory animal, a grinning shark instinctively improving his position without sentiment for those suffering in his wake. An engrossing, important forgotten chapter in the history of Hollywood and America's premiere political dynasty. First printing of 40,000. Author tour to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.

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