Book Review: The Merchant of Venus

Today I’m participating in a fun blog tour for WOW! Women on Writing by sharing my review of the book The Merchant of Venus: The Life of Walter Thornton by Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton-Cornejo with Philip Mershon.

Imagine losing a parent and discovering he had a secret life you’d never known about. You and your siblings embark on a quest to uncover what it all meant, becoming enmeshed in a series of images and anecdotes found in newspapers, magazines, books, and documents. Ultimately, you realize your parent was not just famous, but VERY famous! Walter Thornton was famous during a time when it was easy to be forgotten (1920s to the 1950s), making the discoveries about his life all the more engaging due to the involved process of uncovering them.

Through alternating perspectives presented by two sisters, the Thornton saga unfolds in a whirlwind of surprising revelations, thrilling with unexpected drama, adventure, and glamour. Just imagine beautiful models, pin-up girls, Hollywood royalty—Thornton was a true trendsetter. This book unveils the captivating story of Thornton’s rise from an orphan to a charismatic male model to a visionary who transformed advertising by founding the first-ever agency for advertising models. But hold onto your hats because there’s more! Get ready for dramatic twists, encounters with models who transformed into Hollywood legends such as Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, and Grace Kelly, and a hint of McCarthy-era intrigue—it’s a gripping tale worthy of the silver screen itself!

You can find out more information here: https://themerchantofvenus.com/

Publisher: ‎ Tile House Publishing, LLC 

ASIN: B0CZF5WH15

ISBN-13: 979-8989273553

Print Length: 240 pages

If you’d like to enter to win your own copy of the book, visit this link in the next seven days.

About the Authors: Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton Cornejo

Walter Thornton’s daughters have devoted countless years to researching, writing, and archiving their father’s extensive collection of photos and documents, discovered in the attic of their childhood home. Drawing upon the invaluable insights collected from their father’s documents and aided by the assistance of numerous librarians from esteemed institutions such as the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and others across the country, as well as historians, they have fully immersed themselves in the quest to unveil their father’s narrative.

Nancy Thornton Navarro is a former trademark and copyright attorney who has also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Irving, Texas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Nancy currently lives near Dallas with her husband and is a proud mother of three.

Adriana Thornton-Cornejo (R) is a Programmer, 2D Artist, and CAD Drafter at Focus 360, a company serving the Home Building Industry. Adriana hopes that, with renewed public interest in her father’s life and career, she can one day open a Walter Thornton Museum. She lives near Los Angeles with her husband and their two sons.

Philip Mershon is an entertainment industry historian and storyteller who loves going down a good rabbit hole in search of the truth. He lives in Palm Springs, California. 

Find them online at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMerchantofVenus

Webpage: https://themerchantofvenus.com

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Clarence_Thornton

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thorntoncornejo

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themerchantofvenus/

Review:

Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton-Cornejo knew their parents had an unusual love story—after all, their mother Candelaria was 21 years old and their father Walter was 55 when the two met and fell in love in Mexico, but they never knew the extent of their father’s glamorous and trend-setting life in the decades before the birth of Candelaria and Walter’s six children. The did know Walter had a large stake in several different charm schools in the U.S. and Canada, but that was about the extent of their knowledge of Walter’s previous life. Candelaria later told them she was too busy raising the children to inquire any further about Walter’s past, and as the two were happily married for 34 years, she told her daughters she really had no reason to. Walter Thornton passed away at the age of 87 in 1990.

It was while watching the movie “Seabiscuit” at a Christmas gathering that their mother gasped in recognition at one of the black and white photos shown to represent the stock market crash of 1929. She recognized her late husband instantly, smartly dressed and standing next to a car from that era. Perched on the car was a sign that read, “100 will buy this car. Must have cash, lost all on the stock market.”

Finding out the story behind this mysterious photo drove both Nancy and Adriana to find out the true story of their father’s life, and spanned a years-long research project resulting in this book. What Walter Thornton accomplished in his early years was nothing short of amazing—after both his parents died when he was a pre-teen in Ohio, he spent a few years in orphanages before running away, joining the U.S. Army when he was still underage, being honorably discharged after being discovered, and then finding work wherever he could to support himself. It was while working as a bricklayer in New York City that a young Walter Thornton caught the eye of a female art student who realized he had the perfect facial proportions to become an artist’s model. Thus began the journey of Walter Thornton the sought-after print model, where he eventually recognized the need for models to have accurate and attentive representation from an agency. He founded The Walter Thornton Model Agency, which was the first agency in America designed to represent photographic advertisement models. A New York City newspaper columnist dubbed Walter “The Merchant of Venus” as a play on the famous work of Shakespeare and it stuck.

Anyone who loves learning about the 1930s-1950s period of history and the inner workings of the Hollywood Golden Era will enjoy reading about Walter’s trajectory from a print model to a model agent, to the “Pin-Up King” of WWI. He had an eye for beauty and saw the potential in many young women who approached his agency looking for work. He and his first wife ran the agency successfully for many years and it wasn’t long before the models transitioned from the print work to captivating roles on the Silver Screen.

While part family memoir, this book is so much more than that. Full of images from Walter Thornton’s impressive archive, there are photos from his time as a model, people he represented through his agency, newspaper articles from the era, and much more. Walter was the true epitome of an entrepreneur and self-made man—he spotted trends well ahead of time and knew how to turn them into profitable money-making ventures. As the two sisters searched to solve the mystery behind the stock market crash photo, they uncovered more about their father’s life and career they ever knew, including a devastating period of time where he was targeted by the witch hunt of McCarthyism.

Nancy and Adriana have said their father’s life would make a compelling movie and I whole heartedly agree with them. They did an excellent job with their research and pulling it all together to make a page-turning read.

Visit the rest of the tour to learn more about the book, find additional giveaways, and guest posts from the authors.