Hollywood Hoopla is a fascinating chronicle of the golden age of Hollywood publicity. The flowering of Hollywood's publicity and promotion in the 1930s and 1940s represents an inspiring story of self-promotion, when the movie studios claimed to have more stars than there are in heaven, and star portraits and movie posters were plastered everywhere to promote the relatively new medium of film.

Robert S. Sennett examines the incredible Hollywood promotional machine from all angles - from the studio publicity departments that groomed their ingenues like Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, and Shirley Temple to be exactly who the public wanted, to the gossip columnists like Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, who competed with each other for scoops of Tinseltown's juiciest scandals.

Packed with entertaining anecdotal material, and illustrated by over seventy vintage photographs of never-before-seen press books from the studios and of stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Loretta Young, Judy Garland, and Mickey Rooney selling their wares, Hollywood Hoopla provides not only a rich, entertaining history of the silver screen but also of the development of popular taste in twentieth century America.