Blog Post incl Guestpost & Giveaway: E.J. Russell – Silent Sin

 

Thank you, Dani and Love Bytes, for hosting me on release day for Silent Sin, my very first historical novel! I’m thrilled to be here and can’t wait to share this book with everyone. So let me tell you a little bit about it.

Billy Haines

 

The first person list in my acknowledgements for Silent Sin is best-selling romance author Suzanne Brockmann. Now, I have many things to thank Ms. Brockmann for—her book, Prince Joe, was the first modern romance I read; two characters from her Troubleshooters series, Jules and Robin, were the first gay couple I’d read in a mainstream romance who got their HEA; her speech at the 2018 RITA® ceremony where she was honored with an RWA lifetime achievement award was both inspiring and kick-ass.

 

But the specific thing I mention in the acknowledgements is my gratitude for her play, Looking for Billy Haines. She mentioned it somewhere online back in the day, and without the mental lightbulb that clicked on as a result, I probably would have never written Silent Sin.

Never heard of Billy Haines, you say? Before Ms. Brockmann spoke about her play, I hadn’t either—which is both surprising and unsurprising simultaneously.

William Haines won Goldwyn Pictures’ “New Faces of 1922” contest and moved to Hollywood with a contract starting at $40/week. He remained under contract with MGM from 1922 through 1933, where he was a top-five box-office draw from 1928 through 1932. His persona was based on his first bona fide hit, Brown of Harvard, where he played a wisecracking college athlete—which wasn’t too far from his real-life personality. Well, except for the college part. And the athlete part. But the wisecracking part? Yeah, irreverence was baked into Haines’s bones.

 

For instance, at a costume party at Hearst Castle, newspaper mogul W.R. Hearst’s San Simeon estate, when Irving Thalberg (MGM’s vice president in charge of production) and his wife, actress Norma Shearer, arrived dressed in identical West Point cadet uniforms, Haines goosed Thalberg—then winked and apologized with, “Sorry, Irving. I thought you were Norma.”

But poking Thalberg in the ass wasn’t what prompted Haines’s separation from MGM. Nope. That was something else.

 

Billy Haines would not play the game. The studio’s game. Louis B. Mayer’s game.

 

Billy was gay. Not only was he gay, but he’d been living openly with his lover, Jimmie Shields, since 1926. They appeared in public together, attending parties, appearing at premieres. While Haines’s biographer, William Mann, says there’s no way to know exactly what happened between Billy and Mayer in 1933, it’s well known that A) Mayer disliked queers, at least in front of the camera; and B) wanted all his stars to be married (see A).

 

One story has Mayer demanding that Billy get married, to which he replied, “I’m already married.” Another has Mayer demanding that Billy give up Jimmie to marry a woman, with Billy’s response that he’d be happy to give up Jimmie—as soon as Mayer gave up his wife.

Billy essentially sat out the rest of his MGM contract, which wasn’t renewed—and Louis B. Mayer did his not inconsiderable best to erase him from film history.

 

One of Billy’s closest friends in Hollywood was Lucille LeSueur (whom you may know better as Joan Crawford, although Billy always called her Cranberry after she complained about her studio-assigned screen name). Joan stood by him through all his challenges and helped him reinvent himself as an interior designer. His company, William Haines Designs, still exists today.

Billy and Jimmie, characterized by Joan Crawford as “the happiest married couple in Hollywood,” were together until Billy’s death in 1973.

 

It was their story—which I wouldn’t have discovered without Suzanne Brockmann—that inspired me to write Silent Sin. Their story showed that it was possible for two men to have a long and rich life together—although not without cost—in a Hollywood controlled by studio morality.

Silent Sin

A novel of early Hollywood

 

When tailor Marvin Gottschalk abandoned New York City for the brash boomtown of silent-film-era Hollywood, he never imagined he’d end up on screen as Martin Brentwood, one of the fledgling film industry’s most popular actors. Five years later a cynical Martin despairs of finding anything genuine in a town where truth is defined by studio politics and publicity. Then he meets Robbie Goodman.

Robbie fled Idaho after a run-in with the law. A chance encounter leads him to the film studio where he lands a job as a chauffeur. But one look at Martin and he’s convinced he’s likely to run afoul of those same laws—laws that brand his desires indecent, deviant… sinful.

Martin and Robbie embark on a cautious relationship, cocooned in Hollywood’s clandestine gay fraternity, careful to hide from the studio boss, a rival actor, and reporters on the lookout for a juicy story. But when tragedy and scandal rock the town, igniting a morality-based witch hunt fueled by a remorseless press, the studio brass will sacrifice even the greatest careers to defend their endangered empire. Robbie and Martin stand no chance against the firestorm—unless they stand together.

 

Buy links:

Amazon US

Amazon Universal

Retailer Universal

Note: Silent Sin will remain in wide distribution until March 10, 2020, when it will be exclusive to Amazon and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

About E.J.

Multi-Rainbow Award winner E.J. Russell—grace, mother of three, recovering actor—holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business intelligence consultant (as one does). She’s recently abandoned data wrangling, however, and spends her days wrestling words.

 

E.J. is married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, CH loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).

 

E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.

 

Connect with E.J.:

Newsletter: https://ejrussell.com/newsletter

Facebook group (Reality Optional): https://www.facebook.com/groups/reality.optional

Website: https://ejrussell.com

 

Follow E.J. on:

Bookbub: @EJ_Russell

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/ej_russell

Instagram: @ej_russell_author

Facebook author page: https://facebook.com/E.J.Russell.author

Twitter: @EJ_Russell

EJ brought a giveaway just for us!

have a chance to win one of EJ’s backlist titles plus a $5 Amazon gift card

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