(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)
Hollywood is sort of a fairyland. People flit around unseen, ensuring dreams come true. Offer the fairies what they like, and they look out for you, make sure you have everything your heart desires. But, cross them and they become vengeful and set out to ruin your life. Author Kathleen Rooney uses the myth of fairies as a metaphor for the life and career of actress Doreen O'Dare, a fictionalized version of real life silent film star Colleen Moore.
The most apt way to descibe Colleen Moore's stardom is to evoke Jennifer Aniston at the height of Friends fame. When Colleen Moore bobbed her hair, thousands of young girls across the country followed suit (remember begging your stylist for The Rachael?)
Colleen Moore represented the perfect flapper - a modern woman, free to do what she liked, unencumbered by society's expectations. But Colleen Moore soon grew weary of the roles that pigeonholed her, unable to show off that she could be as dramatic as she was comedic. Colleen Moore ended her film career to become - of all things - a financial advisor. Her hobby was collecting miniature items and she decided to build a fairy castle, made of real gold silver and gemstones to house all of her miniatures.
Rooney's heroine, Doreen O'Dare begins life as Eileen Sullivan, daughter of Irish immigrant parents. She is close with her grandmother who tells her stories of their homeland of Ireland and the fairies within. Eileen Sullivan is a dreamy girl. Taken to see Peter Pan as a young lass, she decides that the only future for her is on the stage. An uncle, owed a favor by film impresario DW Griffith offers her a screen test and at just 14 years old Eileen becomes Doreen O'Dare, nascent Hollywood icon. She cultivates a career that fosters friendships with Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Marion Davies, and early female screenwriting legend Frances Marion. Doreen survives a tumultuous marriage to an alcoholic producer and after a lengthy career and the advent of talkies she retires to focus on the fairy castle she compiled bit by bit over the years of her career. From Dust to Stardust is an honest and heartfelt look at what life is like in the fairy tale realm of stardom, and how harsh reality is when the fairy dust rubs off.
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