cover image Gloria and Joe: The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy

Gloria and Joe: The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy

Axel Madsen. Arbor House Publishing, $18.95 (328pp) ISBN 978-0-87795-946-5

This dual biography calls to mind a collage, with large parts derived respectively from Gloria Swanson's Swanson on Swanson and from the multiple books on the Kennedy family. Moving back and forth in time, Madsen (Billy Wilder, John Huston) occasionally repeats the same information, most of it already well known. He details the love affair that began when Boston banker Joseph Kennedy met the screen star in 1927 and how they became partners in Gloria Swanson Productions, which they expected to make cinema history and huge profits. The relationship ended abruptly in 1930 with the collapse of the film Queen Kelly, a souvenir of Erich von Stroheim's brilliant but erratic directorship. Covering events in the lives of both principals until their deaths, the author also adds gossip about the Kennedy clan and members of the film colony. (February 22)