Set in 1940, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s ‘Hollywood‘ premiered Friday, On Netflix. The show introduces various directors, actors, agents and executives and the hierarchical biases they face across gender, sex and race. Whereas some characters are based on real-life figures, others are purely made up. The show has an invented storyline which offers a fresh look at the Hollywood of the 1940s.
Are Archie Coleman and Jack Castillo based on real-life figures?
Though “Hollywood” features a good number of fact-based characters, neither Jack (David Corenswet) nor Archie (Jeremy Pope) are among them. The same goes for Claire Wood (Samara Weaving), Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss), Ellen Kincaid ( Holland Taylor), Jeanne Crandall (Mira Sorvino) and Avis Amberg (Patti LuPone).
Was Golden Tip Gas Real?
In the first episode, we see aspiring artists working at the Golden Tips Gas, which is a service station managed by Ernie (Dylan McDermott). The service station is only a front for a high-end brothel. It is actually based on Scotty Bowers, who was a U.S Marine turned Hollywood pimp. So, yes. There you have it.
Did George Cukor really throw wild pool parties?
Long story short- yes. Those steamy Sunday afternoon parties were real. As Baroness d’Erlanger worded it, “Mr. Cukor has all these wonderful parties for ladies in the afternoon. Then in the evening, naughty men come around to eat the crumbs!” So, yes. The director of “A Star Is Born” and “Dinner at Eight,” George Cukor, whose homosexuality was an open secret, did throw these wild, wild parties.
Pop quiz: First woman to lead a Hollywood Studio?
In the show, when Ace Amberg suffers a heart attack, Avis Amberg, his wife, takes over as the head of fictional Ace studios. In reality, however, Sherry Lansing wasn’t appointed until 1980, as the President of 20th Century Fox Productions, making her the first woman ever to head a major studio.
