Lights! Camera! Book launch!
I’m thrilled to announce that Selznick’s Spotlight — Book 2 in my Hollywood’s Greatest Year trilogy — has arrived in a swirl of ambition, drama, and more backlot gossip than Hedda Hopper could shake a feathered hat at.
We’re heading back to 1939, when David O. Selznick wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends—he lit the whole thing on fire and called it Gone with the Wind. If you thought Book 1 — Selznick’s Girl Friday — was an enchanting peek behind the studio gates, wait until you see what happens when ambition, ego, and kaleidoscopic dreams collide in this next chapter of Tinseltown history. If you like your behind-the-scenes tales served with a side of intrigue, ego, and Technicolor dreams, then Selznick’s Spotlight is ready for its close-up.
SELZNICK’S SPOTLIGHT
A Novel of 1939 Hollywood
by Martin Turnbull
Book 2 in the Hollywood’s Greatest Year trilogy
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In the summer of 1939, Amelia Hartley is slinging hash and dishing sass at Schwab’s Pharmacy, but a girl can’t live on soda fountain shtick forever. When she learns of the planned revival of a long-forgotten film gem, Amelia seizes her chance for stardom—if she can convince the right people to believe in her.
At Selznick International, opportunity comes knocking when she’s offered the role of stand-in for a fast-rising redhead. But as Amelia works to make her mark, she uncovers an unexpected web of corruption stretching from Sunset Boulevard to Palm Springs. At its center stands a woman Hollywood cast aside—one whose secrets could upend Tinseltown.
As Gone with the Wind nears completion, Amelia must navigate studio politics while piecing together a mystery that threatens to ruin everything Selznick has built. In a town where facades mask hidden truths, Amelia’s about to learn what it takes to succeed in pictures.
From the author of the Hollywood Garden of Allah novels comes a tale of ambition, love, and betrayal set against Hollywood’s greatest year. This captivating adventure will transport you to a time when movies were larger than life, and dreams were made and shattered under the glare of the spotlight.
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Pick up a copy of Selznick’s Spotlight in your favorite format from your preferred retailer:
Audiobook – coming soon
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ALSO BY MARTIN TURNBULL:
The Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels
Book 1 – The Garden on Sunset
Book 2 – The Trouble with Scarlett
Book 3 – Citizen Hollywood
Book 4 – Searchlights and Shadows
Book 5 – Reds in the Beds
Book 6 – Twisted Boulevard
Book 7 – Tinseltown Confidential
Book 8 – City of Myths
Book 9 – Closing Credits
Chasing Salomé: a novel of 1920s Hollywood
The Heart of the Lion: a novel of Irving Thalberg’s Hollywood
The Hollywood Home Front trilogy:
Book 1 – All the Gin Joints
Book 2 – Thank Your Lucky Stars
Book 3 – You Must Remember This
The Hollywood’s Greatest Year trilogy:
Book 1 – Selznick’s Girl Friday
Book 2 – Selznick’s Spotlight
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Before finding this photo, I’d never heard of the Guardian Arms Apartments at 5217 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood at the corner of Harvard Blvd. So I don’t have much information to pass on, other than to admire the craftsmanship that went into apartment buildings back in the 1920s. (The building opened on June 30, 1928.) I love the arches along the ground floor, the four rows of bay windows, and the detailing along the top of the building, which is eight stories up so very few people would ever even notice. (Source: jhgraham.com)
This photo captures what I think of as being a very LA moment. In 1968, sculptor Howard Ball made a fiberglass mammoth to be placed into the La Brea Tar Pits, where natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years, only the last 100 or so of which has been known as the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Blvd. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved in the tar, so Ball’s sculptures were a way to remind people of the pits’ perilous history. In June 1968, it was ready to be installed, but of course they couldn’t simply throw it in, so it had to be lowered into place via helicopter. (Source: miraclemilela.com)
I’ve had my eye on this gem of an apartment building for a while, but have been waiting for a shot I liked. It popped yesterday on the Art Deco Facebook group. It’s known as the Mauretania and it stands at 520-522 N. Rossmore Ave in Hancock Park, which puts it one block north of the Wilshire Country Club. The Facebook post said it was designed by Architect Milton J. Black for 
This photo shows us the end of an era: the removal of the Red Car streetcars tracks along the Hollywood Freeway in 1953. We’re facing north heading into the Cahuenga Pass and I suspect that offramp on the left leads to the Hollywood Bowl. The dismantling of the streetcar network was a long, drawn-out event that reshaped Los Angeles. In a number of ways it was inevitable—the system had been very unprofitable for years—but it’s still rather sad to see the long, wide scar where those tracks had been for decades. (Source: Water & Power Associates)
Since its dedication in 1866, Pershing Square in downtown LA has been through many incarnations: La Plaza Abaja, St. Vincent’s Park, Los Angeles Park, 6th Street Park, Central Park, and then finally in 1918 Angelenos landed on a name that’s stuck: Pershing Square. This photo was taken in 1965, which is 13 years after the park was excavated in to build an underground parking garage. In that process it lost all its greenery and shade trees. Instead, it gained some lawn, a few new trees, and five-globe streetlights. That tower dominating the skyline behind it is the Pacific Telephone Microwave Tower, and the brown brick building with the white trim is the Biltmore Hotel. (Source: Reddit)
It’s not too hard to find photos of the exterior of the Ambassador Hotel at 3400 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, but interior shots are harder to come by. Well, apart from the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, that is. This photo’s caption put it as “circa 1920s” which was the hotel’s first decade, and which feels about right. That was the era when people were draping piano scarves/shawls with weighted tassels over their pianos. Apparently this piano sat near the 7th Street Garden entrance leaving me to wonder: Could anybody sashay in from outside, sit down, and start tickling those ivories?
This photo is a reminder of two things that Venice, California used to have: canals and oil wells. To be fair, there is still a handful of canals left in what is known as the Venice Canal Historic District. But there are certainly no more oil wells blanketing the area as we see in this circa 1930 photo. Without any landmarks other than the bridge, it’s hard to know where this photo was taken, but I do know that when Abbot Kinney envisaged loftily idealized “Venice of America,” he most certainly did not imagine it would be covered with stinky noisy oil wells.
I can only imagine (with this help of photos like this) what it must have been like to drive around Los Angeles in the 1930s. This is the Selig Commercial Building that went up on the northwest corner of Western Ave and 3rd St, four blocks north of Wilshire in 1931. The sight of those black and gold terracotta tiles shining in the sun must makes me wonder if it was inspired by the black-and-gold Richfield Oil building that went up in downtown Los Angeles in 1928. I don’t have a date on this photo, but by the looks of the cars on the far left, I’m guessing 1970s?
