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Contact: Greg@gregorymank.com
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EXCITING NEWS!

Just learned that my book Of Mice and Men: Mental Enfeeblement, Racism, and Mercy-Killing in 1939 Hollywood, is a nominee for the Richard Wall Memorial Award, which honors books on Film and Broadcasting. This award is given by the Theatre Library Association, c/o the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts. The winning book is selected by committee and will be announced in the fall of 2023.

Researching and writing this book, published by BearManor, was a joy for me and it's great to see it receiving this recognition.

Of Mice and Men was a Best Picture Oscar nominee 
in 1939, “Hollywood’s Greatest Year,” and shattered 
taboos that film producers had never dared to 
challenge. Via access to studio archives that had 
been crated away for 80 years, the project became a 
virtual time machine back to the controversial casting 
and production of this haunting, heartbreaking film. It 
also covers the private lives of its three brilliant stars 
– Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, and Lon Chaney, Jr. 

Of Mice and Men: Mental Enfeeblement, Racism, 
and Mercy-Killing in 1939 Hollywood is available 
from BearManor Media at OMM-BearManor and 
Amazon at OMM-Amazon 

PORTER DOWN HOLLYWOOD MYSTERY #2

Platinum Widow: Who Killed Jean Harlow’s Husband? the second in my Porter Down Hollywood Mystery series, is scheduled to be published within the next four months! 

Hollywood’s Golden Age lives again with a vengeance in this manic mix of fact and fiction!

The death of Paul Bern, 65 days (and nights) after his marriage to Platinum Blonde Bombshell, Jean Harlow, is perhaps the most infamous of Hollywood's unsolved deaths. P. I. Porter Down witnesses the "true" events of the sordid and heart-breaking saga involving many historical Hollywood (and gangster) personages who were involved in some way with what happened during Labor Day weekend 1932. And ultimately, the book offers a fictional - but credible - solution to Bern's death based on the real-life events of 90-years-ago.

I’ll keep you updated when I have a publication date from the publisher, BearManor Media.

MONSTER BASH CONVENTION – JUNE, 2023 
and
MID-ATLANTIC NOSTALGIA CONVENTION – SEPTEMBER, 2023

I'll be giving a power-point presentation on Of Mice and Men at both the Monster Bash Convention (my talk is scheduled for 4 P.M. on Saturday June 17, 2023 at the Marriott Pittsburgh North, Cranberry Township-Mars, PA) and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention (my talk is scheduled for 8 P.M. on Friday September 8, 2023 at the Hunt Valley Delta Marriott, Hunt Valley, MD).  

I will be selling copies of Of Mice and Men: Mental Enfeeblement, Racism, and Mercy-Killing in 1939 Hollywood, Platinum Widow: Who Killed Jean Harlow’s Husband? as well as others of my books, at these conventions.

Hope to see you at either (or both!) of these events.

NEXT UP

Meanwhile, I am working on my third “Porter Down Hollywood Mystery” for BearManor Media. As yet untitled, it involves a vampire (?) killer amok in 1935 Hollywood during the filming of the Bela Lugosi/Lionel Barrymore/Elizabeth Allan/Lionel Atwill/Carroll Borland classic film Mark of the Vampire.


I continue to submit magazine articles: for Fangoria, I have completed and submitted “Dwight Frye and the Curse of Renfield” for April publication in Fangoria Vol. 2 # 19, and I will have published an article on the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi film The Raven for The Age of Thrills 1930s/1940s. I am contracted to write several more articles in 2023 for this same British magazine. 

Plus, I continue to work on a collaboration for BearManor Media with my good friend, ace Film Historian Tom Weaver.

Busy, busy, busy!

Hope you come back here soon!

Greg