xoxoxoe’s #CBR5 Review #17: The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, by Samantha Geimer

Samantha Geimer, who in 1977 was the 13 year-old who was “the girl” in the infamous Roman Polanski sexual abuse case, has finally chosen to tell the whole, sordid story in her own words in The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski. The book’s title is more apt than might first be suspected. Geimer not only endured the events of that evening so many years ago, but has had her life inextricably, unfavorably linked with the famous director ever since.

In The Girl Geimer takes a mostly unblinking look at her life and Polanski’s, and details, step-by-step, the events that led up to her being plied with champagne and part of a Quaalude, and eventually subject to multiple sex acts with Polanski against her will.

Samantha Geimer, at 13, photographed by Roman Polanski

Geimer’s mom, an aspiring actress, moved her two young daughters to Los Angeles with her latest boyfriend, who got a job selling advertising for Marijuana Monthlymagazine. Welcome to 1970s L.A. Mom didn’t just want to secure acting jobs for herself, but encouraged both of her daughters to try out for parts too. One evening she met the director Roman Polanski at a party. He told her he was interested in photographing American girls for a Paris Vogue magazine spread. Excited, she invited him to meet Samantha. He came to their house and then took her on a drive to a nearby park, where they “rehearsed”: he photographed her, first clothed, and then, with a little encouragement, topless.

Geimer is able to channel her teenage self, in all its insecurities, as well as attitude. She articulates very well her resistance and fear mixed with the ambition and misplaced starstruck hopes that this “little thing” of taking her top off might lead to a big career. She of course didn’t tell her mother the little detail about taking off her shirt when she got back home. Geimer wants the reader to understand that at no time did she think there was anything sexual or untoward about the shoot with Polanski. And most importantly, that her mother had no idea, and would never have “pimped out” her daughter, an accusation that was hurled many times after the rape.

“You know, there’s something about fame. There just is. I mean, think about the kids who had sleepovers at Michael Jackson’s house and all the accusations that followed. Think about their parents. Were they bad or stupid people? No. They just wanted to believe that being famous made you good.”

Polanski came back a second time, a few weeks later, and suggested that he was ready now to do the shoot for real. Again her mother didn’t accompany them, as Polanski told her that it might make her daughter nervous, less natural. He took Geimer first to the home of actress Jacqueline Bisset, where she was offered some wine (she declined). They took a few photos and then he took her to another friend’s house – the actor Jack Nicholson, who was away from home at the time. Polanski started plying her with champagne, which now she didn’t refuse. He also gave her part of a Quaalude and photographed her in the kitchen.

“He asked me if I knew what it [the Quaalude] was. I didn’t want to seem like a stupid kid, so I said, ‘Sure.'”

Polanski then suggested she take off her clothes and get in the jacuzzi for more photographs, where he joined her. He soon moved her to the bedroom, where he proceeded to have sex with her. Geimer transmits her failing resistance as the drugs and alcohol and general atmosphere took effect. She details the sex acts, and later, the pounding on the bedroom door which helped end things – Nicholson’s girlfriend, Angelica Huston, came home early. It’s a sordid, upsetting read.

At Jack Nicolson’s house

And then things really got ugly. That same evening, after he took her home, Polanski showed her mother photos from the first shoot, which included some of the topless photos. Shocked, she asked him to leave. Geimer’s sister quickly discovered the truth and helped her mother put two and two together. The police were called and the nightmare really began. Geimer’s life became a cycle of making depositions and trying to stay out of the picture as Polanski was arrested and Hollywood and the public began to take sides. Her family and lawyer tried to keep her identity secret for as long as they could. But as the story was reported (and reported and reported ad nauseum) it seemed that as many thought “the girl” was a slut or an opportunist as an innocent child. Geimer knew she had been used and abused by Polanski, but she was also angry at her mother for bringing the whole embarrassing episode into the public eye.

Geimer never apologizes for Polanski, but over the years she has had a lot of time to consider his behavior, and she ors have empathy and understanding. She proclaims she is no fan of his films –Chinatown bored her – but she writes feelingly about his youth, and persecution as a Polish Jew during WWII, and his escape from the Kraków Ghetto. How he watched his parents being taken away to concentration camps. His mother was killed in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen, but they were never as close after he finally came home. He attended film school and eventually began to have success as a director. He life seemed to have finally come together when he met and married the actress Sharon Tate, who he met on the set of his film The Fearless Vampire Killers. But a year after they were married, she was brutally murdered by The Manson Family. She was eight months pregnant at the time.

Throughout the book she tries to frame the events of her life, and especially that evening, in the context of the times. She is very aware that Hollywood, especially in those days, had a taste for nymphets – with Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby (1978), Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976) and Foxes (1980), and Tatum O’Neal in Little Darlings(1980).

“In the 1970s … There was something considered generally positive about erotic experience then, even in the absence of anything beyond the sex itself. The idea was that emotional growth came about through an expanded sexuality – for both the person in power and the relatively powerless. This is important to consider, because this is the cultural paradigm Roman Polanski was sopping up in 1977. As wrong as he was to do what he did, I know beyond a doubt that he didn’t look at me as one of his victims. Not everyone will understand this, but I never thought he wanted to hurt me; he wanted me to enjoy it. He was arrogant and horny. But I feel certain he was not looking to take pleasure in my pain.”

Geimer and her family accepted a plea bargain from Polanski’s lawyers to keep her name out of the public record, and most importantly, the papers. But the judge on the case, Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, seemed more interested in the reflected limelight than justice for either party, and he reneged on his original decision of probation for Polanski (after he had already served 42 days in jail) to additional potential incarceration, of up to 50 years. Not surprisingly, Polanski booked the first flight out, and sought refuge in Europe, staying in countries like France, where he could not be extradited to the U.S. And he has been exiled ever since.

But Geimer’s life didn’t settle down once Polanski was out of the picture. Every time his name might come up in the news – whether for a new film being released, or an attempt to reopen the case, she and her family would be hounded by the press. She writes unflinchingly of her teen pregnancy, drug use, and drifting aimlessly for a number of years through life, from one crisis to the next. She is not one for regrets, but admits that undeniably her life would have been different if she hadn’t taken that ride in the car with Polanski to Nicholson’s house.

The Girl is a fast and compelling read, but it doesn’t provide any easy answers. The case, even after all these years, is far from closed. Geimer points out that Polanski the artist, the director of such classic films as Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, and The Pianist, should be viewed separately from the horny man with a taste for young girls. Many people are able and willing to do that, but there are just as many who aren’t. Geimer, who was the victim of a rape, of sex against her will, would also hope that she would not be viewed forever as a victim. She doesn’t consider herself one. She comes across beleaguered at times, but always strong.

Samantha Geimer is married, with three sons, and splits her life between Hawaii and Nevada. For better or worse, Geimer’s and Polanski’s lives, from that evening in March 1977 forward, were forever linked. She acknowledges that Polanski has been just as much a prisoner, as pursued relentlessly by the media and misused by the U.S. criminal justice system, as she has. Strangers but not strangers, they seem to have settled their differences and found some sort of peace with one another. She may not ever be able to completely leave that night with Polanski behind her, but she has finally had the chance to tell her story, unfiltered.

You can read more of my pop culture reviews on my blog, xoxoxo e

xoxoxoe’s #CBR5 Review #15: George Cukor: A Double Life, by Patrick McGilligan

The University of Minnesota Press has recently re-released George Cukor: A Double Life, by Patrick McGilligan. Originally published in 1991, the book became known for its “outing” of the Hollywood director, the first biography to write about his “double life.”

Meticulously researched, George Cukor: A Double Life spends equal time investigating what went into the making of his films as it also tries to go behind the facade of Cukor’s Hollywood homosexual life. McGilligan manages to portray Cukor as a well-rounded man, but one wonders what the director, who tried so hard to keep his open secret under wraps would think about his “tricks” being discussed alongside his A-list friendships with such movie stars and celebrities as Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Somerset Maugham, and Vivien Leigh. Cukor would never have mixed the two groups in his life. In fact he went out of his way to keep his public and private lives very separate.

While it may have seemed revealing when first published, McGilligan tends to be a bit repetitive when discussing Cukor’s homosexuality, constantly emphasizing that the director liked a certain type of “rough trade.” He does draw a good picture of Cukor’s fabulous Hollywood home, which became a home-away-from home on Sundays to “the chief unit,” a group of Hollywood gay men who could relax and enjoy each other’s company. Cukor reportedly formed few close relationships, sexual or otherwise. He preferred to keep things light. Even life-long friend Katharine Hepburn, who he championed when her career was labelled box-office poison, directed in ten films, and who lived for many years in a guest house on his estate, was kept at a distance when it came to his personal, sexual, life.

The most controversial anecdote in the book, and perhaps the most impactful in Cukor’s Hollywood life is the detailing of how he lost his job as director on the epicGone With the Wind. There are most likely many reasons, including Cukor’s tendency to shoot many takes and spend lavishly on sets and costumes, but certainly the most significant, and most hurtful to Cukor was how his leading man, Clark Gable, felt about him.

“Everyone was dumbfounded. Because whatever else he was, Gable was an absolute professional. Somebody asked, ‘What’s the matter with you today?’ And suddenly, Gable exploded. ‘I can’t go on with this picture! I won’t be directed by a fairy! I have to work with a real man!’

With Clark Gable on the set of Gone With the Wind

The bigoted Gable was the King of Hollywood, but most likely he was mostly concerned that Cukor was spending most of his time showcasing Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland’s performances in the film, to his detriment. Cukor didn’t find any support from long-time friend and producer David O. Selznick.

“I think the biggest black mark against our management to date is the Cukor situation and we can no longer be sentimental about it. We are a business concern and not patrons of the arts.”

Gone With the Wind wasn’t the only film that Cukor was dismissed on as director, but it was the one that he and Hollywood never forgot.

As comprehensive as his behind-the-scenes detailing of Cukor’s many films (and film ideas that never came to fruition), McGilligan is not much of a film critic. He completely dismisses Cukor’s classic The Women in just a few negative paragraphs, while dwelling on the merits of lesser efforts like The Chapman Report and The Blue Bird. He does help bring Cukor’s early days to life and his youth in New York City. Cukor was able to turn a love of going to the theater into a career, first by directing summer stock shows in the 1920s in Rochester, N.Y. and later on Broadway, to joining the talkies revolution and heading out to Hollywood in 1929, first as a dialogue coach, and later as a director.

Once Cukor left New York he never really looked back. He loved living in Hollywood and was an enthusiastic product of the studio system. He worked with all of the great producers, including David O. Selznick and Irving Thalberg. Cukor was dubbed “the women’s director,” which some came to take as a euphemism for homosexuality. But Cukor truly was interested in actors, and helped direct many Academy Award-winning performances, including Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Ronald Colman in A Double Life, Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.

With Greta Gable on the set of Camille

Cukor was definitely the recipient of homophobic attitudes, but seemed to not hold any grudges. He was especially appreciative of films by the “macho” director John Ford. In his own films he tended to showcase stereotypical homosexual characters. It’s hard to determine whether this approach was some inner self-loathing or an attempt to “fit in.” Cukor had every reason to try to keep his sex life secret. MGM helpeddismiss a morals charge (when Cukor and interior designer friend Bill Haines were involved in a bar fight) and Cukor was apparently very concerned to never breach any moral turpitude clause in his contract.

Hollywood seemed more than a little aware of Cukor’s sexuality. Producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz could be both dismissive and insightful on the topic,

“In a way, George Cukor was the first great female director of Hollywood. … A woman could come on his set and be absolutely safe. … With the other directors, there was always that moment, Is he going to make a pass at me?”

As good a director of actors as Cukor was, he never seemed to be too interested in the camera, preferring to stage a scene and perfect a particular piece of dialogue or bit of business for an actor. His cameramen were more responsible for a shot’s composition — something that seems anathema in our concept of how Hollywood directors/auteurs should work.

What really comes through in George Cukor: A Double Life is the sheer amount of wonderful and eclectic films that were directed by Cukor. He definitely had a flair for comedy, as evidenced by  Dinner at Eight (1933) and two films with Judy Holiday, Born Yesterday (1950 ) and It Should Happen to You (1954). Although not particularly interested in musicals (he would usually have the dance numbers staged by someone else, like choreographer Jack Cole), he directed quite a few: A Star Is Born (1954), Les Girls (1957), and My Fair Lady (1964). He even directed two films with Marilyn Monroe,Let’s Make Love (1960) and her last film, the unfinished Something’s Got to Give(1962).

With Marilyn Monroe on the set of Something’s Got to Give

George Cukor: A Double Life more than anything makes one want to hold their own mini Cukor film festival. So many of his films are Hollywood classics, and film buffs could program a few movie marathons, depending on where they would like to focus. The films he made with Tracy and Hepburn? Try Keeper of the Flame (1942), Adam’s Rib (1949), and Pat and Mike (1952). The five that were written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon? How about A Double Life (1947), Adam’s Rib, Pat and Mike, The Marrying Kind (1952), and It Should Happen to You. Or maybe check out some of the films that helped give him the reputation as a “women’s director.” Camille, with Greta Garbo (1936); Susan and God, with Joan Crawford (1940); Gaslight, Travels with My Aunt(1972), with Maggie Smith; or Rich And Famous (1981), with Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset. No matter what the choice, it will be impossible not to think of George Cukor reading those scripts and working out the costumes for his actors after one of his lavish Sunday night parties.

Originally published as Book Review: ‘George Cukor: A Double Life’ by Patrick McGilligan

You can read more of my pop culture reviews on my blog, xoxoxo e

Valyruh’s #CBR5 Review #91: Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb

I don’t usually waste my time reviewing pulp novels, but this one had a little more oomph to it and a little less fluff, and I so thought it worth a few stars and commentary. A movie is being made about the infamous Incove case covered in Robb’s Origin in Death novel, and top-flight Hollywood stars have been chosen to portray our heroines Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Detective Delia Peabody, along with their respective spouses, co-workers, and inner circle. The real NYC cops Dallas and Peabody are obliged to consult periodically with their fictional counterparts, and a fabulous dinner for the real people and their celebrity dopplegangers at the home of the film’s producer turns into Eve’s next case when the star playing Peabody is discovered floating face down in the home’s rooftop pool. Accident or murder?

It turns out that everyone disliked K.T., a drug-abusing (if talented) bully with a penchant for blackmail, and while nearly everyone had a motive for murder, there isn’t enough evidence to pin it on anyone. But Eve, ever the bulldog and assisted by her gorgeous billionaire husband and his electronic wizardry, begins to chip away at the case until it starts to reveal itself. The plot is well-constructed, the characters are colorful, the sex scenes are—for once—kept to a minimum and more tastefully done than usual (although the book’s language is a little spicier), there’s a little more humor, and while Eve is portrayed as hard-ass as ever, she does begin to show a more vulnerable side as she digs into the backstories of some of the characters she is investigating. I would say that It is about time that the author allows Eve to grow a little, and not stay the same cardboard action figure she has been for so many of the “In Death” novels.

Equally interesting, I thought, was the picture the author portrays of Hollywood. While not unfamiliar to your average American audience, the fact that Hollywood is neither all black nor all white—neither corrupt and seedy, nor all glitter and glitz—gives this story a certain verisimilitude that resonates. Good for you, Nora.

Valyruh #CBR5 Review #80: Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman

I’ve been reading Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels for years now, and most of them are pretty good but I must say this one left me shaking my hard at the scattered plot, the uninteresting characters and, worst of all, the trite and predictable ending.  Even Delaware’s buddy, colorful homicide cop Milo Sturgis, has only a minor role to play in the story—Delaware’s too-cute dog has a larger role– and it all falls to psychiatrist Delaware to pull the threads together and solve the mystery. He does so, of course, but at a snail’s pace that fails to capture the imagination along the way.

The story opens with Holly Ruche, a pregnant lady in an uninteresting marriage who has invested a great deal emotionally in her newly-purchased home, only to discover the bones of a dead infant buried in a box in her garden. However, the infant is many decades old and probably died a natural death. Until the very last insipid page of the book, Holly doesn’t add anything further to the plot, and so I couldn’t figure out why Kellerman keeps her in the first four chapters of the novel? The story finally gets underway when another infant’s bones turn up in a nearby park, but these are much fresher and indeed, appear to have been deliberately de-fleshed before burial.  Aha! Finally, there’s a villain to hunt down! Delaware starts piecing together the mystery from woefully insufficient evidence, and a couple of bodies turn up that keep him on the right path—a path that appears to lead to the underbelly of Hollywood glitz.

 I’ll stop there for fear of giving away too much to die-hard Delaware fans, but I must say that this novel left me sorely disappointed. Perhaps if Kellerman stayed away from Hollywood and went back to the real-world dramas which Dr. Delaware has proven so good at dealing with over the years.

Malin’s #CBR5 Review #108: Messy by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Green-haired alterna-girl Max MacCormack only goes to Colby Randall, a posh Hollywood prep school, because her mother is the principal. She’s full of scorn for the rich and spoiled around her, and especially loathes that her mother forces her to take part in extra curricular events like planning the spring carnival. Max needs to earn money, and her current after school job is not working out as well as she expected. When she is offered insane amounts of money to ghost write Brooke Berlin’s blog, she can’t afford to refuse. Now she just has to spend most of her free time with a girl she can’t stand, and convincingly channel her on the internet.

Brooke Berlin, Hollywood starlet and daughter of mega superstar Brick Berlin (think Arnie, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise rolled into one) is convinced that she’s one step away from the stardom she deserves. A popular blog showing the world what an “It Girl” she is, will help launch her rising star, she just doesn’t have time to write it herself. So why not hire some creative writing nerd who will be grateful for any time she gets to spend with Brooke? Unfortunately, the only serious applicant to her ad is the spiky malcontent Max, Brooke’s half sister’s best friend. Can this girl be trusted to help jump start Brooke’s career?

To read the rest of my review of the second novel from the awesomely funny Go Fug Yourself writers, go to my blog. 

xoxoxoe’s #CBR5 Review #11: Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, by Peter Evans and Ava Gardner

“I either write the book or sell the jewels, and I’m kinda sentimental about the jewels.”

Ava Gardner, in 1988, after suffering two strokes a few years previously, felt pressured to come up with some money, somehow, to cover her expenses. She could no longer act, as the strokes had left her fabulous face paralyzed on one side, and her right arm useless. She toyed with the idea of an autobiography, and friend Dirk Bogarde suggested journalist Peter Evans.

Ava Gardner, in her heyday

Evans enthusiastically took on the task of ghostwriting Gardner’s memoirs, and things moved along, if not swimmingly, at least steadily, for several months — until Gardner learned, most likely from ex-husband number three Frank Sinatra, that he had sued Evans and the BBC many years before for writing about his association with the Mafia. The collaboration came to an abrupt halt. After Evans’s death in 2012, his publisher, with the permission of Gardner’s estate, decided to publish the notes for the book as Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations.

If one is looking for an in-depth look at Gardner’s life and her tumultuous relationships with many famous men, this book will not exactly fit the bill. But it does contain some interesting glimpses of her life, and of Hollywood in the 1940s. What it really does is give a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to write a celebrity biography — with a reluctant, mercurial star and a diffident author. But fans of Gardner will be more than a little disappointed about the lack of coverage of her Hollywood career, and her most celebrated relationship, her marriage to Sinatra, as the book and notes are cut short very soon after he enters her life.

Gardner was a legendary beauty, but never received much acclaim for her acting skills, which she herself said were close to none. But she was good, even great, at times in many of Hollywood’s best films, working with its top directors and co-stars:

• The Killers (1946) – With Burt Lancaster, directed by Robert Siodmak
• Show Boat (1951) – Her voice was dubbed in the movie, but she did sing two songs on the soundtrack album
• Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) – With James Mason, directed by Albert Lewin (with amazing cinematography by Jack Cardiff)
• Mogambo (1953) – with Clark Gable and Grace Kelly – Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress
• The Barefoot Contessa (1954) – with Humphrey Bogart, written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• On the Beach (1959) – With Gregory Peck, directed by Stanley Kramer
• The Night of the Iguana (1964) – With Richard Burton and Deborah Kerr, written by Tennessee Williams, directed by John Huston

Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations does cover, glancingly, her early life in rural North Carolina, and her unusual path to Hollywood. Her brother-in-law, who owned a photo studio, displayed a portrait of teenage Gardner in his shop window. A man who claimed to be a talent scout for MGM (as a way to get to pretty girls), tried to get her number by saying she should get in pictures. Gardner and her family didn’t share her number, but took him at his word and brought her to MGM’s New York offices.

Her beauty impressed, but her thick accent did not, so a silent screen test was sent to Hollywood and Gardner and her older sister were soon packed off to the West Coast for her new life as a starlet. She claims to have met Mickey Rooney, who was one of MGM’s biggest box-office stars of the day with his Andy Hardy films, her first day on the lot. He certainly didn’t waste any time trying to get to know the 19 year-old hopeful, and the two were soon an item, and sooner married. Gardner was quite naive when she arrived in California, and although the two were mad for one another, she was blind to his non-stop womanizing, even, ostensibly, after being warned by his own mother.

Mickey Rooney and Ava

“I still didn’t know that he was the biggest wolf on the lot. He was catnip to the ladies. He knew it, too. The little sod was not above admiring himself in the mirror. All five foot two of him! He probably banged most of the starlets who appeared in his Andy Hardy films — Lana Turner among them. She called him ‘Andy Hard-on.’ Can we say that — ‘Andy Hard-on?'”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “It’s a funny line.”

Practically as soon as she had signed her divorce papers, tycoon Howard Hughes was auditioning her for the role of his next lover. Their affair lasted many years, but she didn’t love him enough to marry him, and soon fell for band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, which would result in another very short-term marriage. Rooney ignored her and constantly ran around with other girls, while Shaw put her down and tried to make her feel inferior. Gardner definitely had a taste for macho men, as she also had romances with famous bullfighters and Hollywood co-stars Robert Mitchum, and later George C. Scott, who purportedly knocked her around. But she found her match in Frank Sinatra, who may have been waiting in the wings all along:

“I was with Mickey in the studio commissary. We had just gotten married. Frank came over to our table — Jesus, he was like a god in those days, if gods can be sexy. A cocky god, he reeked of sex — he said something banal, like: ‘If I had seen you first, honey, I’d have married you myself.’ I paid no attention to that. I knew he was married. He had a kid, fahcrissake!”

Most of the fun in Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations comes from the sense that the reader is hearing Gardner talk to Evans in her actual voice. But sometimes the Southern drawl and epithets seem to be poured on a little too thick. Ava admonishes her would-be ghostwriter after reading a sample chapter, “Does she have to curse so much?” If Gardner did indeed speak this way, every other sentence punctuated with “fahcrissakes,” she held onto her Rat Pack parlance until the end.

Frank Sinatra and Ava

What also comes through in this short and fast read is an inescapable sadness. Beauty and fame don’t last, which Gardner was intelligent enough to be aware of, but her strokes also robbed her of her physicality, as she describes how she used to enjoy sports like tennis and swimming. She seems to always be alone, calling Evans in the middle of the night, with a tumbler full of wine or liquor in hand, reliving some of her past exploits. There is not just a ghostwriter, but ghosts everywhere, as she laments the passing of friends and mentors like John Huston and “Papa” Hemingway, and morbidly begins to dwell on death, which she fears and believes is soon coming for her. Gardner died of pneumonia in 1990.

Perhaps most poignantly, Gardner resents that the book must focus on her “mistakes,” her broken relationships, which Evans is constantly prodding her to talk about. Ava wants a book, but her way. “Why can’t we settle for what I pretend to remember? You can make it up, can’t you? The publicity guys at Metro did it all the time.” Maybe that isn’t just a question from a Hollywood actress past her prime. Don’t we all tend to remember things the way we want to and not the way they were? Evans never got his memoir, but Gardner did get to tell it like it may or may not have been, soon after ditching this project, in Ava: My Story. Apparently Sinatra had no objection to that.

You can read more of my pop culture reviews on my blog, xoxoxo e

Originally published on Blogcritics: Book Review: ‘Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations,’ by Peter Evans and Ava Gardner

Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #64: Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub

 

The daughter of Peter Straub makes her full length novel debut with a story a million miles away from anything her dad ever published. Following the titular heroine as she conquers Hollywood in the 1940s, this is an assured first novel. Full review on the blog here

Valyruh’s #CBR5 Review #54: Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

This is a tough book to do a review of, as it is Chabon at both his best and his worst. His language, his sense of humor and his character portrayals are priceless, and he has chosen a location to write about which is as colorful as it is historic—San Francisco. At the same time, he has overlaid plot upon plot, to the point that he has created a tapestry more full of color than of story.

Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are two long-term friends, bandmates and co-owners of Brokeland Records, a small store for used records located somewhere between Oakland and Berkeley which is struggling to survive against the onslaught of digital music. Their wives are midwives and partners. A huge music store is coming to town which virtually guarantees the bankruptcy of Brokeland Records, and triggers a crisis between Archy and Nat. Archy’s wife is expecting her first child, and Archy is a philanderer. Archy gets thrown out of his home for most of the story. Nat and his wife have a teenage son who is struggling with his sexual identity. A home birth goes awry, and the midwife partnership is threatened. Archy’s father, a former martial arts movie star turned cocaine addict, is trying to make a comeback and is using blackmail to get the funding for a film which will never see the light of day. A teenaged son that Archy never knew he had suddenly appears on the scene, and enters into an adolescent affair with Nat’s love-smitten son. Even Barack Obama makes a (gratuitous) appearance!

Throw in at least a dozen or more characters, including an ageless Chinese woman who claims to have trained Bruce Lee and a homeless parrot, and you’ve got as colorful a collection of old-timers as you can imagine. The problem is that there is so much action swirling around that it is hard to know which plot line to follow, which character to root for, and what lessons to draw from all this. Is the book about marriage, home birthing, jazz, political corruption, race politics, or none of the above?  Chabon’s wordiness is part of his brilliant charm, but in this book it can sometimes feel like quicksand.

Telegraph Avenue is highly imaginative, to be sure, but I found it too helter-skelter, too crammed full of confusing plot points and overlong digressions, to have the kind of lasting impact one has come to expect of Chabon.

xoxoxoe’s #CBR5 Review #6: The Love of the Last Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was working on a novel about Hollywood, The Love of the Last Tycoon, when he died, of a heart attack, at the age of 44. The novel was unfinished — although he had sketched out the plot, he had only completed sixteen of his planned thirty-one chapters. It was originally published in 1941, a year after the author’s death, as The Last Tycoon, compiled by Fitzgerald’s friend, the literary critic Edmund Wilson, but in 1993 Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli edited and compiled what is now considered to be the authorized text, and reverted to what is believed to be Fitzgerald’s original desired title for the work, The Love of the Last Tycoon.

Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood in 1937, where he not only wrote short stories to earn income, but also started working on film projects. He made (uncredited) script adjustments to Gone with the Wind and Madame Curie. Estranged from his wife Zelda, who had been in and out of mental institutions since the early 1930s, Fitzgerald met and fell in love with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham and lived with her in Hollywood until his death. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic, and was in fragile health:

Fitzgerald suffered two heart attacks in the late 1930s. After the first, in Schwab’s Drug Store, he was ordered by his doctor to avoid strenuous exertion. He moved in with Sheilah Graham, who lived in Hollywood on North Hayworth Avenue, one block east of Fitzgerald’s apartment on North Laurel Avenue. Fitzgerald had two flights of stairs to climb to his apartment; Graham’s was on the ground floor. — Wikipedia

The hero of The Love of the Last Tycoon, Monroe Stahr, is a work-a-holic Hollywood producer, based on “Boy Wonder” Irving Thalberg, who Fitzgerald had worked with briefly and who also died young, at the age of 37. Like Fitzgerald and Thalberg, Stahr is in fragile health and has a doctor monitoring his heart on a regular basis. Stahr is a self-made man who has an innate understanding of how to get the best work out of people. His interest and influence touches all aspects of movie production, from choosing the appropriate director, to working with multiple screenwriters, to wrangling with union organizers. His whole life is work, until one night at the studio lot, after an earthquake, he catches sight of a young woman, Kathleen Moore, who reminds him of his dead wife. He is immediately smitten, and slowly starts to question how consumed he has allowed himself to become by his work.

Fitzgerald deftly sketches the 24-hour schedule of a studio boss, while also making him a thinking, feeling human being. The object of Stahr’s desire, Kathleen, is a little less clearly drawn, but that seems deliberate, as she presents herself at first as a woman of mystery, to discourage Stahr’s romantic pursuit. The story fluctuates between scenes involving Stahr in his daily life and the first-person observations of Cecilia Brady, the daughter of Stahr’s studio rival, Pat Brady, who was modeled on Louis B. Mayer.

Ingrid Boulting as Kathleen and Robert DeNiro as Stahr in The Last Tycoon

Director Elia Kazan made a movie version of the novel in 1976, starring Robert DeNiro in one of his most engaging performances as Monroe Stahr. It is ultimately a little unsatisfying, a little unfinished, like the novel, but it is enjoyable to watch, featuring some great actors like Jack Nicholson, Robert Mitchum and Theresa Russell in key roles. The best scene in the film is DeNiro acting out all of the parts in movie for an author (Donald Pleasence) who just can’t understand how to write for Hollywood.

Stahr and his work, not just his potential romance, are so involving that it is truly tragic for the reader when the text stops abruptly. The very copious notes included in the volume clearly tell the reader where Fitzgerald was intending to take the story, but it is still frustrating to not be able to finish the journey with his winning prose. One wonders if his intentions would have played out as neatly as his notes suggest as Fitzgerald was known for re-writing and re-working.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about The Love of the Last Tycoon is that even in its truncated state it is still a wonderful novel. Monroe Stahr is an unforgettable character. And Fitzgerald’s glimpse into the inner workings of Hollywood resonate even today. A truly great read.

narfna’s #CBR5 Review #13: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Honestly, my very first reaction to this book was that I was disappointed that Jess Walter is a man. What with the girly script and New Girl’s Jess Day fresh in my mind (did you guys see what happened yesterday?!) I just automatically assumed that Jess Walter was a lady author. I was wrong. There was a very prominent and chiseled fancy man pictured on the back cover flap.

Luckily, I got over it pretty quickly and my disappointment in the author’s gender didn’t hinder my enjoyment of his story. This book was lovely. I read it all in one day, the largest chunk of which I spent pigging out at Pita Jungle, eating shawarma and baklava and drinking tangy fruit-flavored iced tea. It was a good day.

The plot of Beautiful Ruins is hard to describe. There’s a young Italian man in a very small village who watches as a beautiful dying American actress comes to stay at his villa. There’s a Hollywood film producer and his increasingly jaded assistant in the present day. An aging musician halfway around the world has a midlife crisis. And in the 1960s, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are shooting that famous disaster of a film, Cleopatra, as their affair is splashed all over the headlines. There are a bunch of characters and plot threads and time jumps in this story, but the way that Walter weaves all of them together into a cohesive whole is one of the main pleasures of the book. I got this sense of elation as everything started coming together near the end that only happens with the really good stuff.

This story was sad and happy and joyful and terrible and wonderful, and I loved it.

(My only complaint was that something about the ending felt . . . off. And I can’t figure out what it was. I was all set and ready to give this five stars (I could feel it in the build up), and I still might when I come back for the inevitable re-read, but for now only four and a half because the ending kinda jarred me out of the lovely little funk I was in reading it almost straight through, for hours and hours. Either way I’m on a roll with books this year. So many great ones right out of the gate — 4.5 stars.)