Hollywood: the town is a metaphor for ambition, success and glamour. Nowhere in the world do people put so much effort into creating glamorous perfection as they do in this City of Dreams. And nowhere in the world is the pursuit of fame such an integral part of a city’s fabric.
Hollywood Lives tests the temperature of Hollywood in 2007. It goes behind the scenes to offer an insider’s view of the professional and personal costs of reaching for fame. For the celebrities who make it, the price may be worth paying for: money, power, success and sex. But for those who fall by the wayside, the impact of drastic measures such as state-of-the-art surgery – or simply a high-octane lifestyle – is heavy. But crucially this series doesn’t just look at contemporary Hollywood.
It also tells a mini history of Tinseltown’s last 15 years. By catching up with some of the characters from the past, Hollywood Lives discovers if they have survived the shifting sands of this fame-obsessed city. In doing so it personifies the light and shade that inevitably exits within Hollywood. This week’s episode focuses on the cult of the Hollywood wannabe, in the town where ‘fame is an epidemic’ and people will ’sell their souls’.
Hollywood Lives updates the story of a wannabe first featured in the early 1990s who had just ’stepped off the bus’ from the Mid West. Anna Nicole Smith was yet another Playmate of the Year with Hollywood ambitions and the programme looks at how her life turned into a real life Tinsel Town soap opera. Ultimately, the Hollywood vultures swooped on this naïve, but very wealthy newcomer. Her best friend explains how she was controlled and manipulated by those who surrounded her and the programme shows how now, even in death, Anna Nicole is being sold and exploited. Also, the show follows the latest young British hopeful trying to break Hollywood and reveal the ways the unscrupulous prey and exploit the fresh faces – and bodies – as they try and seek fame and fortune in La La Land.
Thursday, 29th May at 10pm on Prime TV