title: Only Make-Believe
author: Ross, Clarissa
description: The Tarnished Silver Screen
  
  Nita Nolan came to Hollywood in 1921, star-struck, beautiful and broke, like thousands of other young girls who dreamed of becoming the next Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, or Theda Bara. Nita made her first appearance as a pie-throwing cutie in a comedy two-reeler, but soon, with the help of comedian Billy Bowers, she became a member of the dazzling, glamorous movie-star world she'd only read about.
  
  Nita learned, however, that Hollywood's glittering surface concealed a morass of depravity and violence unlike anything she'd ever experienced. Drugs, bootleg booze and sexual permissiveness threatened to destroy both her movie career and the new love she'd found with screen idol Eric Gray!