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Eleanor Moscatel at home in Beverly Hills

Beverly Thrills: 12 Famous Faces Past & Present

Several celebrity stories didn’t make it into The Bastard of Beverly Hills. Too many to count! But since they didn’t propel the narrative, they were left on the cutting room floor. However, here are a few anecdotes from some of those stories for fans of the book, or just the curious, starting with one about “Uncle Milty” Milton Berle.

Carolyn Jones of The Addams Family-2

Lost Secrets of The Addams Family

Die-hard fans of The Addams Family probably know that Vic Mizzy composed the show’s catchy theme song and directed the actors in its opening credits. And you may be familiar with the musician’s first wife, Mary Small, a celebrated radio singer known as “The Little Girl with the Big Voice.” But what you might not know is that Vic Mizzy had a secret grandson whose daughter gave him up for adoption with the aid of an infamous attorney.

Michael Landon Secret Best Friends

Michael Landon’s Secret Best Friends

Actor Michael Landon, best known for his portrayal of Charles Ingalls on television’s Little House on the Prairie was my parent’s closest friend and confidant for nearly three decades. Their friendship was full of highs and lows, marked by a great tragedy, and it’s a fabled story that has never been told. I’ve tried my darndest to bring their incredible relationship back to life in the pages of a colorful new memoir, The Bastard of Beverly Hills, available May 23rd from JIA Publishing. It’s a raw and unapologetic, coming-of-age book that intimately explores a range of sensitive topics from adoption to addiction, faith and cancel culture, and one that I hope readers will be able to both relate to and learn from.

Bildungsroman Titles

The Bildungsroman and the Transformation of a Literary Genre

Explorations of emotional development, self-formation, and coming-of-age themes are universal and timeless when it comes to literature. They’re central themes in many outstanding works and can be traced from before the Greeks into the modern-day. However, examining personal growth and life experiences within a new canvas and genre, the Bildungsroman provided post-colonial writers with an entirely new palate from which to draw insight and a unique opportunity to portray widely different protagonists responding to modern challenges. Perhaps the most recognized features of the form, dealing with education, rebellion, and reconciliation, are exemplified in Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic gothic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the author so extraordinarily deconstructed the bildungsroman, that his masterpiece fundamentally transformed the genre.