Hollywood's BAD old days: The movie mogul who need hypnotism before sex. Carey Grant's penchant for dressing up as woman and why Gore Vidal wanted to murder his own mother 

Carey Grant's penchant for dressing up as woman revealed

Jean Stein's absorbing oral history of Hollywood from expert witnesses. Her book, West of Eden, features the direct, ungilded words from Arthur Miller, Lauren Bacall, Jane Fonda Stephen Sondheim and Warren Beatty among other household names, but also of gardeners, manservants, lawyers, even a bishop and, of course, of the bedroom hypnotist Jackie Park, who she interviewed over the years. Stein teases great candour from her subjects and the book offer unprecedented insight into life in Tinsel Town.

On the run: The modern day Afghanistani Romeo and Juliet forbidden to marry because they came from different tribes

©Kiana Hayeri

Ali and Zakia were born in the Bamiyan valley and met in 2010. The two teenagers were childhood friends, and they fell in love, but they could never marry.

The war was over - but the sex carried on: Germany's heartbreaking aftermath of war brought disease, starvation and death

Actress Marlene Dietrich surrounded by two sailors, a soldier & a Marine as new photographer Ray Howard hones in w. his Speed Graphic camera at U.S.O. in the Astor Hotel..  (Photo by Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

When actress Marlene Dietrich returned to her homeland in 1945, she was shocked by the hell that was a ruined, defeated Germany. She actress had taken American citizenship.

Why a real man would never eat chicken:Ttricks used by advertisers and marketers to get inside your head

A Rhode Island Red hybrid hen chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) on a farm in Lincolnshire, England

Persuasion is a business, maybe the world's largest and most profitable. Advertisers, politicians and spin doctors are all trying to get into our heads.

PICTURE THIS: A History Of Britain In 50 Buildings

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The seeds for The Landmark Trust were sown in the early Sixties when some 400 listed buildings a year were demolished. Sir John wanted to create a charitable organisation.

Torture, castration, rampant sex, murders galore and dwarf tossing. Were Russia's Tsars the nastiest royals in history?

Were Russia's tsars the nastiest royals in history?

As we know from the stupendous BBC adaptation of Tolstoy's epic novel, War And Peace, the Russians are very good at war, not so pie-hot when it comes to peace. Military parades, manoeuvres and a good scrap are what they like best - and as Simon Sebag Montefiore says in The Romanovs: 1613-1918y, to Tsar Nicholas II, even World War I, in which Russia fielded more than 1.2 million men, was nothing more than 'a bracing national rite'. Pictured, Tsar Alexei (main), Peter the Great (top left), Alexander II (top right), Nicholas I (bottom left) and Catherine the Great (bottom right).

You know you're a grown-up when tea beats a skinny dip: Actress Isy Suttie on remaining a twentysomething forever

E45ABC Rear view of naked mid adult woman running into the sea on El Matador Beach, Malibu, California, USA

On New Year's Day on a freezing Welsh beach, Isy Suttie decided to surprise her friends by suddenly stripping naked and pelting into the sea.

How to cure a hamster of jet lag - give it Viagra! Would-be inventors were thought to be mad - and told their plans won't work

They laughed at galileo

The 20-year-old Guglielmo Marconi wrote in 1894 to the Italian Minister of Post and Telegraphs, Pietro Lacava, to outline his plans for wireless telegraphy and request government funding.

Happiness is simply a box set and tidy socks: A deceptively simple guide to living a less complicated life

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This book contains 52 small steps that will lead you to happiness. Advice columnist Bel Mooney loves the simple suggestions in the book. She thinks that they're practical, useful steps.

How to tell your art from your elbow: Mix up Monet and Manet? You're in good company

BEN44375 Detail of the Three Graces and Mercury, from the Primavera (tempera on panel) (detail of 558) by Botticelli, Sandro (1444/5-1510); Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy; Italian,  out of copyright

Do you ever get your big cultural names a bit muddled up? If so, the good news is that you're not alone. During one wartime lunch, Winston Churchill was introduced to Irving Berlin.

PICTURE THIS: Becoming Cindy Crawford

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As a youngster, model Cindy Crawford always felt self-conscious about the mole near her lip. The football team at school once shouted at her: 'Hey, little Crawford, you have chocolate on your face!'

Why we all need a walk on the wild side: Everyone has a sacred place in their minds where they feel peace and parity with nature

EACP4E Portrait of African Elephant in Chobe National Park, Botswana. True wildlife photography

You might think of it as Eden or Narnia, the golden memory of a childhood picnic or a turquoise-lapped beach fantasy.

Shameless shopaholics: The lust for clothes was once seen as sinful. But today British wardrobes are stuffed with six billion garments. So just how did this happen?

British wardrobes are stuffed with six billion garments but how

We live in a world of things. The average German owns 10,000 of them, while in 2013, the UK was home to six billion items of clothing. That's roughly 100 per adult, a quarter of which never leave the wardrobe. Only this week, the boss of IKEA said that we may well have hit saturation point or 'peak stuff' - a state of affairs that could be called 'peak curtains'. But where did this craze for things come from? How has it changed the world? And, perhaps most important of all, what does it say about us?

How to keep a housewife happy: For some (but by no means all) women in the Fifties, a TV and a fridge was all it took. We select the year's best history books

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It's no accident that Tom Holland's account of the rise and fall of the Caesars shares a title with one of the most lurid soap operas ever to appear on TV. A follow-up to his bestseller Rubicon.

PICTURE THIS: Orangutan Rescue

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Meet Rickina and Rocky. These youngsters are two of more than 100 orangutans who have been rehabilitated by International Animal Rescue in Borneo.

What's in kebab? Best not to know. Unwrap food with these science and health reads

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Britain may not be the culinary backwater it once was but, even in an age of foodies, our ignorance about what we eat remains . Daniel Tapper aims to throw light on how our food is really produced.

PICTURE THIS: Retro Fashion: The Way We Were

This stylish collection of classic clothes is not only nostalgic, it also traces how iconic movies influenced the fashion sense of a generation.

It's those magnificent men in their bathing machines: A delightful book about a treacherous expanse of freezing water

1911:  Bathers at Ostend in Belgium.  (Photo by F J Mortimer/Getty Images)

Who would have thought that a book about a treacherous expanse of freezing, grey-green water, feared by mariners through the centuries, could turn out to be such a delight?

The most famous artist you've never heard of: How Bernard Buffet prompted 'Buffetmania' and became famous

NUL117508 Clown with a Bowler Hat on a Blue Background (oil on canvas) by Buffet, Bernard (1928-99); 81x60 cm; Private Collection; French,  in copyright  PLEASE NOTE: This image is protected by the artist's copyright which needs to be cleared by you. If you require assistance in clearing permission we will be pleased to help you.

Bernard Buffet committed suicide aged 71 in 1999. In the Fifties and Sixties he was a famous and collectable artist. He developed Parkinson's Disease and could no longer paint.

Brave boys the fat man branded liars: How Cyril Smith's victims were ignored when they tried to expose the abuse they suffered at his hands

Brave boys the fat man branded liars: How Cyril Smith's victims were ignored when they

All this week, Labour MP Simon Danczuk is laying bare how the Establishment, the Liberal Party, the police and even MI5 covered up the industrial-scale child abuse of 29-stone Rochdale MP Cyril Smith. Today, how his victims were ignored and betrayed when they tried to expose their suffering.

The truth about life in an open prison, by VICKY PRYCE - and why the women in our softest jails really suffer

Different life: Vicky Pryce is seen chatting with inmates and a prison officer at East Sutton Park Prison, which she describes at a 'real joy' after serving four days at Holloway

In the finale of her unique inside story, Vicky Pryce, the wife of disgraced ex-minister Chris Huhne, describes life at open prison East Sutton Park.

His little face still looked so beautiful: In Mary Berry's own moving words, the story of the child she lost so young

Mary Berry - photoshoot for one of her first cookery book with helpers Annabel and William.

In the second extract from her autobiography, published exclusively in the Mail today, Mary Berry describes the sudden death of the son she doted on, pictured left.

Eric Morecambe's son reveals the obsessive dark side of the 'Bring Me Sunshine' boys

Eric and Ernie were together virtually all day every day because of work; so when they became successful, they had an unspoken agreement that they wouldn't socialise with one another

In his compelling new biography, Gary Morecambe talks about his father's relationship with Ernie Wise and how he continued to make them laugh even up until the end.

'Useless Darling was just in it for himself' : Damian McBride reveals how 'poor Alistair' played the media martyr amid economic crisis

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In an extract from his explosive memoirs, Power Trip, Damian McBride reveals how the former Chancellor survived by the skin of his teeth after credit crunch bungle.