William J. Mann is the author of Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood, winner of the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, as well as Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, How to be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, and several other best-selling titles. His biography Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines won the 1999 Lambda Literary Award. He divides his time between Connecticut and Cape Cod.

SCREEN SIRENS

In an exclusive excerpt from ‘How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood,’ William J. Mann reports on her vodka-fueled battles and the role she was born to play.