Who Is Evelyn Hugo Based On

Question

As a huge fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid's novels, I'm fascinated by how The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo feels so real. Is she inspired by one Golden Age Hollywood starlet, or several legends combined? The rumors about her being based on Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner have me digging deeper.

Kathy · Answer

One fictional character that has tried to tackle legacy of a powerful woman is Evelyn Hugo, the main character of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’. Hugo is a fictional character but was written with the glamour of old Hollywood in mind, mostly drawing from the lives of women like Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth. For another take on a powerful woman and her complicated legacy and public perception, ‘The Heiress Who Came Back’ follows a wealthy woman who has been away from her family’s empire for years. Now returned, she must untangle the complicated web of her family’s secrets in order to regain control of the empire she once left behind in this high-stakes drama laced with sharp social machinations.

Clara · Answer

There’s a reason why so many people love Evelyn Hugo. She’s a fictional character in a work of fiction, but she’s so realistic and amazing that there are many fans who speculate that she was inspired by real-life stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner. The way that Taylor went through husbands and had so much media attention was so much like Evelyn. Taylor Jenkins Reid got a lot of her inspiration for old Hollywood from real life, but what Reid made up about Evelyn’s life is so original and real that it feels like it could be true. I especially loved how Reid revealed Evelyn’s true self to readers, especially her sexuality. It reminded me of other Hollywood stars, like Rock Hudson, who lived and died with secret lives. But Reid’s portrayal of Evelyn was completely original. Instead of basing her on one real-life star, Reid stitched together many stars of old Hollywood to create her own, unique character.

Owen · Answer

Evelyn Hugo is one of those rare fictional characters who reads as completely real. The life of the protagonist in Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is fictional but it is drawn from the lives of some of the most iconic women in Hollywood. The life of Elizabeth Taylor with her eight marriages, the life of Rita Hayworth with her fire and drama, the life of Marilyn Monroe with her sex and her tragedy.

Evelyn Hugo is a Cuban woman and Reid uses that heritage to comment on the stereotypes placed on Carmen Miranda and María Félix. Using an aging movie star as the narrator of her life story is reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard and Norma Desmond. But in Reese’s skilled hands it’s more than just that. While Evelyn Hugo embodies the ghosts of past Hollywood stars, especially the ones who were silenced because they were bisexual, Reid has created someone entirely new and complex. Reid has given the reader a true Hollywood star in Evelyn Hugo.

Isaac · Answer

For me, Evelyn Hugo is a mosaic of so many contradictions of old Hollywood. Yes, she is somewhat like Ava Gardner in how she uses her beauty to get what she wants. And her marriages are clearly strategic to her career, like those of Elizabeth Taylor. The name Evelyn Hugo even references classic Hollywood stars, male and female, like Hedy Lamarr and Humphrey Bogart.

Reid doesn’t simply rehash old rumors of Hollywood starlets’ same-sex relationships (e.g. rumors that Greta Garbo was gay, or that Barbara Stanwyck had affairs with women). Instead, she provides the long denied, Hollywood- suppressed story of Evelyn Hugo’s love affair with another woman, and gives Evelyn the agency that real life starlets of the past rarely had. In this novel, Reid reworks the famous form of the celebrity interview, made famous in celebrity-driven 1970s and 1980s nonfiction by writers like Joan Didion. In Sloan’s novel, however, that celebrity is a fictional character who has taken control of the secrets of old Hollywood and is telling their story.

DMB DMB · Answer

A certain way in which this actress represented her heritage (by hiding her Cuban roots in order to be more of an all-American actress) links to the many Latino actors who have been erased throughout Hollywood’s history. Rather than being a reference to one actress, Evelyn is in this layer a representation of all the actors who have had to change their names, make themselves less Noticed, hide their true ethnicity and wear less ethnic costume and hair in order to get work in this industry and be accepted by it.

Clodualdo · Answer

Her shrewd business sense as a performer (negotiating for herself) and her later control of her image is so fascinating to me. It’s like Lucille Ball creating the “I Love Lucy” character and running with it while being an amazing business woman. Or Walt Disney creating an empire based off his brand. Her бизнес side is so impressive and does so much to round her out as a character while also showing her to be more than just a tragic figure. She’s a mogul. Respect.

Eze Chisom Favour · Answer

One of the less-discussed aspects of Exit, Exit is its homage to the by-gone era of Hollywood’s gossip columnist era and the people who inspired them – such as Lana Turner, Joan Crawford and Grace Kelly – and the scandals that surrounded them, including secret abortions, and studio-mandated dates. In many ways, Evelyn Hill is a fictional conglomeration of all of these stories – and, indeed, even the way that Reid has constructed fame in this novel is inspired by some of these long-standing mythologies of Hollywood. In short, Evelyn Hill is based on the legend of Hollywood, as well as one person, and these two layers are, for me, what make Exit, Exit such an astute and clever novel about fame.

Cyndi Frost-Petrilak · Answer

I finished reading The Book last night and my answer to the “based on” question is really that it doesn’t matter. The question kind of misses the point of why Evelyn Hugo works in the first place, and that is because she feels real. She is not a made-up character that was based off one person of Reid’s choosing. Instead, Reid took the common experiences of the many mid-century starlets and channeled them into this one character in order to explore a particular theme of legacy and how the truth gets revealed. Trying to pin down which one person she is “based on” feels reductive to me. The power of Evelyn Hugo is that she is a representation of all of the women like her of that time and of that industry. She is a product of the studio machine, but she is also a prisoner of it. Through her, we can explore a lot of different themes including sex, sacrifice, and self-invention. Those are the things that really matter about Evelyn Hugo.

Gertrude Kentile · Answer

I’m more interested in why this matters to me than I am in any answer to this question. Does grounding a work of fiction in the life of a real person make it more legitimate? Does reading about fictional events become more meaningful if one believes that similar events occurred in the life of a real person? I suppose this is a peculiarity of my cultural background. We distrust pure fiction and require some anchor of reality in order to process our emotions. Evelyn Hugo is a highly believable, entirely fabricated work of fiction.

Tabatha Summers · Answer

What I responded to most about the ending of the film was that Evelyn’s revelation of the truth wasn’t about her receiving forgiveness from others, but rather that she owned the truth of her experience. That motivation doesn’t feel like it’s from a 1950s star’s playbook. It feels modern. Perhaps that’s because Evelyn is based on a contemporary ideal of closure and accountability and she’s a 21st-century sensibility in a mid-century body. She’s had the opportunity to witness the #MeToo movement in full flower and has seen up close and personal the power of testimony to reveal the truth of an experience.

Who Is Evelyn Hugo Based On

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