晨读英语美文参考内容

Hollywood suggests glamour, a place where the young star-struck teenagers could, with a bit of luck, fulfill their dreams. Hollywood suggests luxurious houses with vast palms-fringed swimming pools, cocktail bars and furnishings fit for a millionaire. And the big movie stars became millionaires overnight. Many spent their fortunes on yachts, Rolls Royces and diamonds. A few of them lost their glamour quite suddenly and were left with nothing but emptiness and colossal debts.

Movies were first made in Hollywood before World War I. The constant sunshine and mild climate of southern California made it an ideal site for shooting motion pictures. Hollywood's fame and fortune reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s, the golden days of the black and white movies. In those days Hollywood was like a magnet, drawing ambitious young men and women from all over the world. Stars were often typecast and if he or she appealed to the public as a lover, then he or she always played the part of a lover. A star who was a hit as a cowboy or a bad guy, got the same kind of role again and again. There are little arguing. Their studios' decided everything. Many studio chiefs were tyrants, determined to get their own way at all costs. Hollywood is no longer the heart of the world's motion picture industry. Most movies today are filmed on location, that is to say, in the cities, in the countryside, and in any part of the world that the script demands. Yet Hollywood has not lost all its glamour. Movie stars still live there, or in neighboring Bevetley Hills, and so do many of the famous and wealthy people who have made their homes in southern California.