Several of his books deal with pop culture and/or entertainment history, and how the media and status quo shape and manipulate audiences' perceptions and opinions. Six of his eighteen books are exclusively about the LGBT presence in and contributions to entertainment; Hadleigh himself is gay. Some of Hadleigh's books are quotes collections, some are histories and overviews, and some are interview books with noted personalities in movies; several portions of these interviews, as with Rock Hudson, were published in periodicals before the subjects died. The author had committed himself not to out any of his subjects against their will ... at least as long as they were living. Some interviewees agreed to speak only on condition that the published result be posthumous. Nearly all the interviews were recorded; a few individuals, like director Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Mae West, however, refused to speak if they were recorded...which was their policy with other interviewers as well. The author is frequently cited in many books and biographies dealing with gay and lesbian actors in Hollywood.
Selected (and selective) reviews
Hadleigh's second book,
Conversations With My Elders (republished as
Celluloid Gaze) includes interviews with actors Sal Mineo and Rock Hudson; directors George Cukor, Luchino Visconti, Fassbinder, and designer, photographer/author Cecil Beaton.
Their frank conversations with the author reveal much about the lives and careers of these celebrities and how their homosexuality affected both. According to
Midwest Book Review, the book
"is a ground breaking collection of interviews with six men who share a common and unusual trait relevant to their success in the movie-making industry: they were gay, and during their lifetimes, they concealed their sexual orientation from the public. Yet these interviews are remarkably open and candid about how these men's sexuality affected their lives and careers. ... Celluloid Gaze
is an informed and informative contribution to Film History and Gay Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists, as well as highly recommended reading for fans of the film work of Sal Mineo, Luchino Visconti, Cecil Beaton, George Cukor, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Rock Hudson."
- Hollywood Gays is a collection of interviews with prominent film personalities, such as Liberace, Anthony Perkins, Randolph Scott, and several others, most of them widely known as homosexual. Publishers Weekly said about the book:
- Hadleigh (is) evidently taking up where the great gossip columnists of yesteryear left off.
- [A] touching interview with producer David Lewis, who talks freely about his longtime companion James Whale, director of the classic 1931 films Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, who committed suicide in 1957.
- [A] talk with William Haines, whose career was destroyed by Louis B. Mayer after Haines refused to marry a woman, and was later caught with another man in his cot at a YMCA. The book's style is suitably straightforward, though Hadleigh's banter often verges on the cute or leering.
- Hollywood Lesbians, according to Movieline "deliciously dishy", is a collection of frank interviews with ten lesbians in the entertainment industry. Publishers Weekly wrote: "Fans of Hollywood's golden age will find this collection of interviews conducted over many years revealing though hampered. The principal problem is not so much that all of the subjects - director Dorothy Arzner, designer Edith Head, actresses Judith Anderson, Marjorie Main, Barbara Stanwyck, Nancy Kulp, Capucine, Patsy Kelly, Agnes Moorehead and Sandy Dennis ... are now deceased, but that almost all were raised in a generation terrified of voicing support for fellow homosexuals, let alone daring to come out of the closet ... Even with carefully couched questions from Hadleigh (Conversations With My Elders), the respondents dance around the subjects of sex and sexuality. Still, an enlightening picture emerges of Tinseltown, different from that presented in the fanzines. Stanwyck kicked him out of her house and his claim that Moorehead is a lesbian has been heavily contested. In his interview with Dennis, he claims that Truman Capote performed fellatio on him after an interview."
- Hollywood Babble-On: Stars Gossip about other Stars (1994) includes dish and juicy comments by stars on other stars.
Questions of authenticity
The veracity of Hadleigh's books and his claims both as to the sexual orientation of his subjects and whether the purported interviews actually occurred have been questioned. One reason is that Hadleigh would have been a teenager at the time of some of the purported interviews in the early 1970s.
Publisher's Weekly wrote:
"There's nothing very surprising about his choice of subjects ... Paul Lynde, Liberace, Randolph Scott, et al. ... all of whom, conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased."
