In the world before the internet, there was Hollywood gossip. It was a multi-million-dollar business that kept afloat the allure and recognition of some of the best film professionals in the age of the “greatest generation.” There were salacious rumors brought forth in the daily papers, the weekly gossip rags, and well-cultivated newsreels seen before the week’s feature film in any small town across the country.

The Hollywood publicity machine hid the fact that someone might be gay, not married but shacking up with someone, in trouble with the law, a card-carrying Communist, or a big dope smoker. Anything that passed for “irregular,” “illegal” or “immoral” behavior became the tightrope that actors, writers and directors had to walk in order to keep their high-paying, well-publicized jobs, their pools, their mistresses and their out-of-wedlock children.

"TRULY, MADLY is an eminently readable story with a snarky tone that takes you back to the past and then back to the future --- our future --- as our screens begin to make or break our lives. It gives one a lot to think about."

Does this sound like anything you’ve heard before? Take the selfie out of the picture, and you’ll see that not much has changed in the star-making machinery of big-money moviemaking. However, the consequences of all this attention on someone during their darkest hours were best exemplified pre-Marilyn Monroe by the men and women who were fighting battles with their mental health.

TRULY, MADLY is a fascinating and detailed look at the love affair between actress Vivien Leigh and her possibly bisexual husband, Laurence Olivier, who was the greatest stage actor of his time and a movie star to boot. Author Stephen Galloway has penned an elegant read about a salacious topic --- Olivier’s cruelty toward Leigh. He cheated on her all the time, even though he told her she was the love of his life, and eventually gave up on their love when her mental health struggles became too much for him to handle.

The pain of Leigh’s issues and heartbreak brings her to life for us, even though Galloway seems to have a less-than-stellar appreciation of her acting ability. The globe-trotting couple was unique, a marriage forged out of a very public affair and the breakup of their first marriages. They were equally famous post-Gone with the Wind. And they had friendships and working relationships with a bevy of Hollywood’s most glamorous and talented associates.

So TRULY, MADLY interweaves the intense and storied lives of these superstars with the famous vehicles with which their career highs were associated. But as Leigh starts to get tripped up by her ailing mind, Olivier ultimately decides to save his career rather than his beautiful wife.

Olivier and Leigh enjoyed their fame, but like today’s scandals, it never saved them from their toughest and most real-life stories. It is interesting to look at the gossipy response to their lives this week while the world watches Johnny Depp and Amber Heard unfurl the freak flag of their relationship for all to see in real time, live on camera. The stars of old tried to hide the details; they would be undone by social media and its attentiveness and judgment.

It is also worth noting that mental health is just now becoming a topic that can be almost compassionately discussed in public when it hits famous people, such as the Britney Spears conservatorship and the number of child actors growing up with substance abuse issues. This book speaks to how vehemently people of that time tried to keep those secrets under wraps. Their vulnerabilities were the talk of many a water cooler. Isn’t it crazy how little has changed since the early part of the 20th century?

Galloway has a slightly nasty tone when discussing the particulars in the couple’s life and seems to fall very distinctly on the side of “Larry.” This keeps us from getting a fully impartial telling of how their love began, rose and declined but never died. TRULY, MADLY is an eminently readable story with a snarky tone that takes you back to the past and then back to the future --- our future --- as our screens begin to make or break our lives. It gives one a lot to think about.