Changes

It was 1935 and Loretta Young wanted fame and success in Hollywood. Part of it was being young (just twenty -one) and beautiful but she was also conscious that the money she brought in mattered to her family. She was hungry for love too: her father had left when she was young. Her step-father had done little better and there was a ''need'' for a man she could love and look up to. She developed a reputation for falling in love with her leading men: first , it was Spencer Tracy but on the set of ''The Call of the Wild'' she fell for Clark Gable - and he for her.

So far, so very much as it happened. It's perhaps not one of the best-known love stories of the golden age of Hollywood, but it was the stuff of gossip if not legend and Adriana Trigiani brings the story to life and makes the people involved so much more than characters on the big screen. It's a delight to watch the maturing of Loretta Young, from ingenue to a woman with responsibilities to people other than herself, to see the way in which her Catholic faith and her loyalty to her family affects, if not informs, all that she does. I expected to dislike Clark Gable: his womanising ''was'' the stuff of legend, but his feelings for Loretta were obvious, even if that didn't ''necessarily'' mean that he saw any need to be faithful to her. As with the situation on the film set, real -life mean that opportunity was all too readily available.

For a completely non-fiction look at Hollywood, have a look at [[Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford by Donald Spoto]]. For more fiction from the same period, try [[The Forgotten Lies by Kerry Jamieson]]. We also have a review of [[Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani]].