Australia's Sweetheart with Michael Adams

It's Oscars Season! To celebrate, we're hosting Michael Adams in-conversation with James Jennings, editor of Empire Magazine, as they discuss Michael's new book Australia's Sweetheart, the fascinating story of Mary Maguire, a 1930s Australian ingenue who sailed for Hollywood and a fabulous life, only to have her career cut short by scandal and tragedy.

About the Book

Packed with celebrity, history and gossip, Australia's Sweetheart is the amazing story of forgotten Hollywood star Mary Maguire. Mary was Australia's first teenage movie star and she captivated Hollywood in the mid 1930s. She lived on three continents and was celebrated in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Los Angeles and London. Her life was lived in parallel with seminal incidents of the twentieth century: the Spanish Flu; the Great Depression; the Bodyline series; Australia's early radio, talkies and aviation; Hollywood's Golden Era; the British aristocracy's embrace of European fascism; London's Blitz; and post-war American culture and politics. Mary knew everyone, from Douglas Jardine, Don Bradman, Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan, to William Randolph Hearst, Maureen O'Sullivan and Judy Garland.

About the Author

Michael Adams is an author, journalist, TV producer and screenwriter with a broad and deep knowledge of film. His memoir Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies is about a year-long search for the worst movie ever made. His book Shining Lights is a profile of Australian Oscar winners, based on interviews with Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush.

Michael also contributed to The 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema, edited the AFI yearbook, and hosted Showtime's Movie Club and SBS's The Movie Show. For a decade Michael was reviews editor of the Australian edition of Empire and has written extensively on film and pop culture for Men's Style, Yen, Rolling Stone, Rottentomatoes.com and Movieline.com. He most recently worked as a writer and researcher for a TV show about Australian inventors for the History Channel.