Martin Turnbull is the author of the Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels, set at the real-life Garden of Allah Hotel which sat on the corner of Sunset Blvd and Crescent Heights Blvd from January 1927 to August 1959. To put it another way, the hotel opened at the dawn of the talkie era and closed at the dusk of the Hollywood studio system.
He has worked as a private tour guide showing both locals and out-of-towners the movie studios, Beverly Hills mansions, Hollywood hills vistas and where all the bodies are buried. For nine years, he has also volunteered as an historical walking tour docent with the Los Angeles Conservancy. He worked for a summer as a guide at the Warner Bros. movie studios in Burbank showing movie fans through the sound stages where Bogie and Bacall, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and James Cagney created some of Hollywood’s classic motion pictures.
From an early age, Martin was enchanted with old movies from Hollywood’s golden era–from the dawn of the talkies in the late 1920s to the dusk of the studio system in the late 1950s–and has spent many, many a happy hour watching the likes of Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Ann Miller, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Orson Welles go through their paces.
When he discovered the wonderful world of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs, his love of reading merged with his love of movies and his love of history to produce a three-headed hydra gobbling up everything in his path. Ever since then, he’s been on a mission to learn and share as much as he can about this unique time.
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Martin moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s.
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Visit him online at: www.MartinTurnbull.com
and also at:
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Book 1: “The Garden on Sunset”
Book 2: “The Trouble with Scarlett”
Book 3: “Citizen Hollywood”
Book 4: “Searchlights and Shadows”
Book 5: “Reds in the Beds”
Book 6: “Twisted Boulevard”
Book 7: “Tinseltown Confidential”
Book 8: “City of Myths”
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