{"product_id":"9780007571659_like-venus-fading","title":"Like Venus Fading","description":"\u003cp\u003eA great rollercoaster rags-to-riches-to-rags tale about the first black Hollywood sex goddess.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLike Elvis, like Marilyn, the first black film superstar didn’t die tragically, but lives among us still, changed out of all recognition…\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePropelled out of Depression-era poverty by the ambition of her mother and her own talents, young Irene O’Brien finds she attracts attention easily – both welcome (she is talent-spotted from Mississippi to Harlem to Hollywood) and unwelcome (at six, a fat, over-friendly storekeeper gets altogether too excited when she sits on his lap…)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eShe blazes a trail no other black performer has taken before and becomes an international sex symbol in the 1950s – ‘the black Monroe’\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFame and fortune come running: she is the first black woman to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. But happiness eludes her: her celebrity marriage never works; her daughter is autistic; and the studios soon tire of her as she ages\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHer descent into drunkenness and derangement ends with her very mysterious ‘death’ in the mid-1960s at the age of forty-three. But, beaten but not bowed, Venus Johnson rises from the ashes of Irene O’Brien to tell her tale and live out her days in tranquillity…\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Marsha Hunt","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47275096178837,"sku":"9780007571659","price":7.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780007571659.png?v=1776889851","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780007571659_like-venus-fading","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}