Illeana Douglas’ new book Jungle Red! The Making of MGM’s The Women, published on Sept. 15 by Lyons Press, delves into the titular 1939 classic which boasted an all-star cast of actresses — among them Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine — and provided a template for modern female-driven projects like Sex and the City and The Real Housewives. In the following exclusive excerpt from the book, Douglas makes the case that the greatest Hollywood “feud” of all time did not involve Crawford and Bette Davis or sisters Olivia de Havilland and Fontaine, but rather Crawford and Shearer. If MGM had been…
