HOLLYWOOD DOUBLE AGENT

Sub-titled 'The True Tale of Boris Morros, Film Producer Turned Cold War Spy', here the Golden Age of Hollywood is the background to this story of a remarkable career. Boris Morros was a major figure in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood. A refugee from the Russian Civil War who had organised music for the last Tsar at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Boris rose through the ranks to become the Head of Music at Paramount Pictures. He was nominated for Academy Awards, then went on to produce his own films with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda and others, but as J. Edgar Hoover would discover, these successes provided a cover for one of the most incredible espionage tales in the history of the Cold War - Boris Morros was Stalin's man in Hollywood. Boris's assignments took him to the White House, the Vatican, and deep behind the Iron Curtain. The high-level intel he provided the KGB included military secrets and compromising information on prominent Americans. His Russian handlers even pushed Boris to interfere in American politics, attempting to swing a presidential election to their preferred candidate, but in 1947 Boris flipped, and the height of the McCarthy era, he played a leading role in a deadly serious tale. Jonathan Gill's book is an extraordinary story about Russian spies at the heart of American culture and politics who seamlessly wove together public and personal lives, making sure classical music luminaries like Gregor Piatigorsky and Jan Peerce were photographed at the 1947 wedding of Boris?s son, Dick. After going public and denouncing some of his oldest friends and colleagues as Soviet spies, Boris lived life to the fullest with his second wife Marion and they partied hard. Pink Millionaire Alfred Stern and his wife, the daughter of the US Ambassador to Nazi Germany from 1933-1937, provided the funds, and the fun, that supported Boris's career as a Soviet spy. Life is stranger than fiction. 323pp, well illustrated.