The untold history of Beverly Hills and how, against all odds, it remained an independent, exclusive, and glamorous enclave through the efforts of Hollywood’s film pioneers.

If you look at a map of the sprawling city lines of Los Angeles, you’ll notice a distinct hole in the middle. That is Beverly Hills, and there’s a reason why it remains an island in the sea of LA. It’s a tale inextricably linked with the dawn of cinema, a celebrity couple using their reputation to get what they wanted politically, and of course, the age old conundrum of California: water.

For film stars who moved out to California in the early 20th century, Beverly Hills was a refuge from tabloid-heavy Los Angeles. It was also a societal blank slate: unlike Los Angeles, saddled with the East Coast caste system, Beverly Hills’ developers were not picky about who settled there. It was the perfect place for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks who both came from mixed-ethnic, impoverished backgrounds. It allowed them to become among the first actors to reach ‘superstar status’ through hard-work and keen entrepreneurial instincts—and to keep their steamy affair out of the press.

Today, listening to a celebrity advocating a cause doesn’t raise an eyebrow. But in 1923, it was something new. This is the story of how the stars battled to keep their city free from the clutches of a rapacious Los Angeles and lay the groundwork for celebrity influence and political power. With a nuanced eye and fantastic storytelling, The Battle for Beverly Hills is an irresistible tale of glamour, fame, gossip, and politics.

About Nancie Clare

Nancie Clare has been a Southern California-based journalist and writer her entire career, which includes eleven years as an editor at Los Angeles Magazine and most recently Editor in Chief of the award-winning LA, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, where she edited such best-selling and award-winning writers as Annie Jacobsen, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Don Winslow and T. Jefferson Parker. Additionally, she edited essays by such celebrity-authors as Larraine Newman and Common.

After the Los Angeles Times shuttered the magazine, Clare wrote the text for Assouline’s In the Spirit of Beverly Hills, the publication of which was timed to the city’s centenary in 2014, and has contributed articles to The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Review of Books, NYU Alumni Magazine and Coast Magazine. Clare is the chief interviewer for the podcast Speaking of Mysteries.

Nancie Clare lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two dogs and one cat.

Why I Wrote The Battle for Beverly Hills

When I was doing the research for In the Spirit of Beverly Hills for Assouline, I came across the story of the proposed annexation of Beverly Hills to Los Angeles and how the celebrities who had moved to Beverly Hills had campaigned for its defeat. In spite of being an almost lifelong resident of Los Angeles as well as a journalist who covered the region, I had never heard of the attempted annexation. I thought I should like to read a book on the proposed annexation. There wasn’t one and I thought there should be.

It’s a story that has some pretty profound implications. For one, Beverly Hills looms large in the collective imagination of the world. No Beverly Hills, no Beverly Hillbillies, no Beverly Hills Cop, no Beverly Hills 90210. Had it been annexed, at most it would be a named suburb of Los Angeles like Hollywood, which had been a separate city and voted to annex itself to Los Angeles in 1910. The other factor that fascinated me is that Beverly Hills campaign against annexation was the first time celebrities, who were a pretty new phenomenon themselves, had used their fame to influence politics.