James Vincent D'Arc was born in Los Angeles, California on August 7, 1950. In the early 1970s, D'Arc was accepted into Brigham Young University, where he majored in history. A film appreciation class taught by Dr. Charles M. Metten in 1973 motivated D’Arc to receive a PhD in film history from BYU in 1986. During his time as a student, he was also hired in what was then called the "Archives and Manuscripts Division” at BYU, where he began gathering film-related materials for the Archives. During 1990 D'Arc was also employed as a professor of film in BYU's Theatre and Media Arts College in addition to his position as a curator. James D'Arc retired from BYU in August 2017.

May Mann was born September 1, 1908, in Ogden, Utah. She worked as a society columnist for her hometown newspaper, The Ogden Standard-Examiner. She began branching out into writing about Hollywood stars, making contacts as they passed through Ogden’s Union Station. In 1936, May named her daily column "Going Hollywood," which was soon syndicated to many newspapers in the Intermountain West and later across the nation through the General Features Syndicate.

May used the title "Going Hollywood" throughout her life. Between 1936 and 1981 she wrote "Going Hollywood" columns for fourteen different magazines and newspapers. In 1946, a few years after she stopped writing for her hometown paper, she registered the title as her trademark. In 1982, May was still submitting "Going Hollywood" columns to at least two publications. May became one of the five women to have a personal interview with Mae West and the only woman, at that time, to interview her in her famed apartment atop the Beverly Hills Hotel. She also wrote about Clark Gable throughout his life. During World War II, she occasionally wrote morale-boosting articles about stars entertaining enlisted men, war heroes, or love problems that came with the war. May interviewed and wrote about Elvis Presley often during his career and developed a close friendship with him, publishing a biography on him in 1975.

May married Al Leon, a former concert singer from San Francisco, in 1945. They divorced early in 1948. Nearly a year after she divorced Leon, May married ex-boxer Buddy Baer in 1949. After five years, May filed for divorce.

May Mann died April 15, 1995, in Los Angeles, California.