Mary Astor's Purple Diary ─ The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936

After ripping up the linoleum on the kitchen floor of his Manhattan apartment, a young illustrator by the name of Edward Sorel discovered copies of tabloid newspapers from 1936, detailing the lurid Mary Astor child-custody case, thus beginning a half-century obsession that reaches its culmination with Mary Astor’s Purple Diary. The Astor sex scandal started when the actress sued for custody of her daughter and her ex-husband leaked her diary to the press. In those pages were details of numerous adulteries, most notably with silent-screen star John Barrymore and Broadway producer and playwright George S. Kaufman, and at the heart of the trial was the disposition of this lurid “Purple Diary,” where she kept track of her trysts. Featuring ribald and rapturous art throughout, Mary Astor’s Purple Diary becomes cause for us to celebrate one of the greatest American caricaturists of all time.