Pat H. Broeske

Mystery & SuspenseFictionSuspenseFilmArts & Culture

To the tune of Travolta

Review by Pat H. Broeske

When it was first published, the anonymously-authored Primary Colors–an obvious roman a clef about the Clintons–triggered a national guessing-game about the author's true identity. Appropriately, the Washington Post wound up outing Newsweek columnist Joe Klein (following Klein's blanket denials, to his comrades in print, that he was the author). The controversy didn't end there. When the bestseller went into production as a movie, there were raised eyebrows and barbed comments from pundits. After all, a mutual love-fest exists between the Clintons and Hollywood. Thus, the latest chapter in the Primary Colors saga concerns the book's "softening," so as not to offend the First Couple. Little wonder, since director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May are known as Clinton supporters. Even Joe Klein whose book sold to Hollywood for $1.5 million has been downplaying parallels between print and real life, saying his book isn't really about the Clintons. Never mind that the deftly-written political satire, about a Southern governor running for president in 1992 amid scandalous headlines of marital infidelities is clearly based on the travails of you-know-who.

Actually, not everyone is balking about the obvious similarities. John Travolta, who stars as the book's womanizing (and idealistic) candidate, readily admits he went for a "Clinton-esque illusion," with mimicked speech patterns, hair color and style, and physicality. Not that the popular, likable icon is going to play a bad boy. As he puts it in a George magazine interview, "You'd have to be dead not to see the script favors Clinton."

One thing is certain: the release of the movie adaptation couldn't be more timely, what with the ongoing headlines regarding the latest sex scandal to plague the presidency. Still, for an unbridled "take" on the political scene, it's near-impossible to top the original source material, Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics still credited to "Anonymous", narrated by actor Blair Underwood. What, you were expecting Travolta to do the honors?

The ubiquitous John Travolta will topline yet another adaptation of a best seller Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action. Due later this year from Touchstone Pictures, it's based on the real life account of attorney Jan Schlichtmann, who in the early eighties initiated a civil suit against two of the country's largest corporations on behalf of the families of young leukemia victims. (Over a period of years, the companies W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods had disposed of a cancer-causing industrial solvent by dumping it into the water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts.) A riveting page-turner, Harr's book gives readers a front-row seat to courtroom theatrics and infighting providing a meticulous look at the intricacies of our legal system, and all its flaws. As for the film version: no word, yet, on how it will differ from what's in print but expect the usual PR blitz, as befits Travolta's leading man status.

For a look back at the early Travolta when he was in his singing, dancing prime there's Frenchy's Grease Scrapbook, a behind-the-scenes look at the making, and the after-life, of the 1978 hit film Grease. A tie-in to the movie's 20th anniversary reissue, it's an innocuous reminder of the Eisenhower era, when everything including politics seemed so innocent.

When it was first published, the anonymously-authored Primary Colors--an obvious roman a clef about the Clintons--triggered a national guessing-game about the author's true identity. Appropriately, the Washington Post wound up outing Newsweek columnist Joe Klein (following Klein's blanket denials, to his comrades in print, that…

FictionWomen's Fiction

Pfeiffer pounces on Oprah favorite

Review by Pat H. Broeske

In an industry which frequently treats actresses like chattel—props to enhance leading men—Michelle Pfeiffer is an anomaly. After making her mark with her show-stopping beauty in movies including Scarface and Ladyhawke, she won over the critics and garnered a trio of Oscar nominations in movies including The Fabulous Baker Boys. She's had crowd-pleasing stints, too—as via her turn in that form-fitting feline suit in Batman Returns. Should we be surprised then that she turned her box office clout into producing power? Or that in her quest for good material in which to star, the one-time catwoman pounced after reading The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard?

Pfeiffer had competition. Astute Oprah Winfrey-watchers may recall that the book received the talk show queen's first on-the-air book endorsement. Moreover, Winfrey was said to be interested in a movie version. But Pfeiffer snared the project, which explores every mother's harrowing nightmare: the abduction of a child. Yet there is another layer to The Deep End of the Ocean. No thriller, this is a complex examination of family relationships. Along with exploring the aftermath of a child's disappearance, the book looks at the effect of a child's reappearance years later. Like life, the book does not provide easy answers. The character of the mother is equally true to life. She is flawed, not perfect.

But then Pfeiffer has long been drawn to multi-dimensional characters, including those with their origin in books, contemporary and classic. She was both producer and star of Dangerous Minds (St. Martin's), about former Marine LouAnne Johnson and her tour of duty as an inner-city school teacher. Earlier, she ventured into John Le Carre's world of espionage opposite Sean Connery in The Russia House (Bantam). And on the lighter side, she conjured up trouble alongside Cher, Susan Sarandon, and the devilish Jack Nicholson for a Hollywood take on John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick (Ballantine).

More recently, she was the mysterious Countess Olenska in The Age of Innocence (Collier Books), based on Edith Wharton's compelling look at the New York upper-crust, circa the gas-lit 1870s. And she will be among the starry players—who will also include Calista Flockhart (of TV's Ally McBeal, which is produced by Pfeiffer's husband David E. Kelley)—in the upcoming retelling of Shakespeare's roguish romantic tale A Midsummer Night's Dream (due out in May). Pfeiffer will portray Titania, Queen of the Fairies. Which means she will, literally, be a regal presence.

In an industry which frequently treats actresses like chattel—props to enhance leading men—Michelle Pfeiffer is an anomaly. After making her mark with her show-stopping beauty in movies including Scarface and Ladyhawke, she won over the critics and garnered a trio of Oscar nominations in…

NonfictionHistory

Divergent paths for two German stars

Review by Pat H. Broeske

An imposing book by virtue of size alone, the 640-page Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives is also decidedly ambitious. The dual biography explores the profoundly different paths taken by two iconic and influential German artists in the years before and after Hitler’s rise to power.

The parallel stories of actress-singer Marlene Dietrich and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl are told via an interweaving of politics, culture, German filmmaking, Hollywood and the uncompromising personal lives of the two women. The author, Berlin-based historian Karin Weiland, is up to the task. She doggedly mined a mountain of source materials, including various German archives, and gives context to the complex historical narrative that shaped Dietrich and Riefenstahl. As translated by Shelley Frisch, who previously translated examinations of Einstein, Kafka and Nietzsche, this is a compelling work that provides both scholarly assessment and page-turning dish.

Born within a year of one another, Dietrich and Riefenstahl were part of the early German film industry. They even competed for the same role—cabaret headliner Lola Lola in the 1930 classic The Blue Angel. Dietrich got the part, which paved her way to Hollywood and international stardom. Riefenstahl went on to appear in a series of “mountain films,” a genre that showcased physicality and German nationalism. She also become a comrade of Hitler, and directed documentaries extolling the Third Reich. As every student of film knows, Triumph of the Will (1935) remains one of the greatest, most disturbing pieces of propaganda ever made. Riefenstahl followed it with the equally famous Olympia (1938), about the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Dietrich, meanwhile, emigrated and became a favorite of American moviegoers—the most exotic transplant since Garbo. She took on U.S. citizenship and more than proved her patriotism with wartime work for the USO. She was actually given a rank and a uniform. Captain Dietrich was the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest distinction for civilian contributions to the war effort.

As for Riefenstahl, she later insisted she had no knowledge of what went on behind the walls of Germany’s concentration camps, and claimed to be ignorant of her country’s virulent and deadly anti-Semitism.

The two women enjoyed long lives, as well as latter-day attention. Dietrich reinvented herself in Las Vegas and took her act on the road—complete with diaphanous gown and teetering Ferragamo heels. Riefenstahl became a sought-after photographer and a darling of the film festival circuit. In covering their stories, the author has a clear favorite in the less complicated–and controversial–Dietrich. Your decision awaits.

An imposing book by virtue of size alone, the 640-page Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives is also decidedly ambitious. The dual biography explores the profoundly different paths taken by two iconic and influential German artists in the years before and after Hitler’s rise to power.

NonfictionPop CultureArts & Culture

Hollywood’s lovers and fighters

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Forget Ben, Jennifer and the nanny. Don’t give a second thought to Gwen and Gavin. Contemporary Splitsville sagas are dullsville compared to the craziness of Golden Age Hollywood stars Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Their four decades-plus romance, detailed in John Brady’s juicy and judiciously reported Frank & Ava: In Love and War, was the stuff of both dreams and nightmares and makes for a doozy of a read.

They met in the 1940s at the trendy Mocambo club on the Sunset Strip. Budding actress Gardner was with new husband and MGM star Mickey Rooney. (Yes, Mickey Rooney.) Frank Sinatra, a family man who was nonetheless on the prowl, ambled over and said to her, “Hey, why didn’t I meet you before Mickey?” 

Rooney and Gardner lasted less than a year. Ditto Gardner’s subsequent marriage to big band leader (and famed Lothario) Artie Shaw. Inevitably, Sinatra and Gardner married. He called her Angel, she called him Francis. He liked being in charge, she hated being told what to do. His career was at a crossroads. She had become a box office queen.

They both liked booze and drama. They’d fight, she’d threaten to leave, he’d threaten suicide. They once tore into the desert night—in a Caddy—with a bottle and a pair of Smith & Wesson .38s. They shot out shop windows in a small burg. The cops got involved. Sinatra made a phone call and no charges were filed. 

Best known previously for his tell-alls about writing (The Craft of Interviewing), former Writer’s Digest editor Brady once worked for Reprise Records, where he met Sinatra and many of his musical chums. The gig obviously resonated. In addition to original interviews, the book makes adroit use of the author’s knowledge of the music scene, Sinatra in particular, along with sourced materials in previous works. 

More than a story of a dizzying love affair, Frank & Ava depicts the profound aftershocks of a relationship. For instance, Gardner campaigned for Sinatra to get the role of doomed Angelo Maggio in the screen version of the era’s hot book, From Here to Eternity. He got the part, won an Oscar and saw his movie career skyrocket. Hers, alas, went the way of aging actresses. 

The marriage fizzled, too. Divorced, they went their colorful ways. But they kept reconnecting, even talking remarriage. The sequel never happened.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Forget Ben, Jennifer and the nanny. Don’t give a second thought to Gwen and Gavin. Contemporary Splitsville sagas are dullsville compared to the craziness of Golden Age Hollywood stars Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Their four decades-plus romance, detailed in John Brady’s juicy and judiciously reported Frank & Ava: In Love and War, was the stuff of both dreams and nightmares and makes for a doozy of a read.
NonfictionTrue Crime

A real-life Hollywood murder, fit for the silver screen

Review by Pat H. Broeske

The baffling 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor gets true-crime treatment in Tinseltown, a compelling interweaving of star power, the machinations of power brokers and the desperation of the wannabes and the washed up. Together they provide the book’s apt subtitle: “Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood."

Celebrity biographer William J. Mann, whose subjects have included Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn, delivers a stirring narrative set against the Roaring ’20s. Movies may have been silent, but they loudly generated big stars and big business. Did they also undermine moral decency? Religious leaders thought so. They further frowned at headlines about stars in trouble with drink and drugs. Taylor’s murder was one more scandal.

As president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, the handsome, urbane Taylor had been a soothing industry mouthpiece. Privately, he was a man of secrets. They began unraveling with the discovery of his body.

A former disgruntled valet was among the suspects. Others included: comedienne Mabel Normand, a close friend of Taylor’s and the last person to see him alive; the delicate actress Mary Miles Minter; and Mary’s protective mother, Charlotte Shelby. For many years Shelby was considered the prime suspect. Then came a strange 1964 deathbed confession from the actress Margaret Gibson (also known as Patricia Palmer, among other names). Mann digs deep into Gibson’s ties to Taylor and her dealings with a group of Hollywood lowlifes.  

He also reveals the lengths to which industry titan Paramount founder Adolph Zukor went to calm the public—and hide the truth. This happened in tandem with the rise of movie czar Will H. Hays, who became president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, a post that found him working with community leaders and filmmakers to establish a decency code. Hays was going to clean up Hollywood.

As for that murder, Mann gives credit where credit is due—citing the work of other authors and scholars—before naming the killer. We won’t reveal the spoiler here. But, in the tradition of great mysteries, this tale is worthy of its own Hollywood movie.

The baffling 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor gets true-crime treatment in Tinseltown, a compelling interweaving of star power, the machinations of power brokers and the desperation of the wannabes and the washed up. Together they provide the book’s apt subtitle: “Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood."
NonfictionMemoir

A Hollywood heartthrob looks back

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Rob Lowe is dishing, again. Three years after the publication of his surprisingly engaging memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, the former Brat Packer-turned-TV veteran has penned Love Life, a collection of essay-type ruminations that are a mix of the surreal and the serious.

Married for 22-plus years (light years, by Hollywood standards)—wife Sheryl was a make-up artist on one of his films—and the father of two strapping sons, Lowe vividly depicts what it was like to be a 19-year-old Hollywood heartthrob at a Super Bowl soiree held at the Playboy Mansion. There’s Hef, making the rounds in his silk p.j.’s, a can of Coca-Cola in hand. And a den of Bunnies—bored Bunnies—one of whom drags Lowe off into the guest room. He recounts a conversation with a fellow who says he does all the work “up here.” So, says Lowe, you take care of the property? Nope. The guy takes care of the plastic surgery for Playboy. Later, Lowe takes a dip in the legendary Grotto—and has an encounter that leaves him feeling sheepish. Driving home that night, he realizes he didn’t even find out who won the darned game.

He can be clever. Looking back on St. Elmo’s Fire, he attributes the film’s success to “the invention of hair mousse.” Riffing on rivalries between the kids from Malibu (where the teenage Lowe lived) and the blue collar “Kooks” from the Valley, Lowe says it was like a square-off between the kids of Hunter S. Thompson and those of Tom Joad. 

Lowe also provides an eye-opening one-day “class” on filmmaking—which he breaks down by hours and minutes into two and a half pages. (Once the cameras roll at the location shoot, a dog starts barking, preventing any sound recording. Fifteen minutes later, the dog’s owner has been paid $500—to lock his animal in the garage.)

An actor who loves to work, and loves the process, Lowe tells all (with a grin) about the masters of “prop acting” (those performers who love to carry/fiddle around with an object), the art of eating during a scene (James Gandolfini was a master; Danny Glover’s pretty good, too), and how he personally benefited from his work with acting coach Roy London. Know what a “monkey trick” is? Lowe explains, and details his own.

As in the best celebrity memoirs and musings, Love Life is sprinkled with star power. Looking back on a failed TV series called “Dr. Vegas,” Lowe recalls that after being let go, co-star Amy Adams went on to star in Junebug, the movie that put her on the A-list map. “Sometimes you have to get fired to be hired,” he explains.

Here and there Lowe briefly returns to topics covered in his first book, such as his sobriety. But much of the material is fresh—some of it pensive, some of it goofily entertaining. There’s the weirdness of having to shoot additional episodes of a cancelled TV series (NBC’s “The Lyon’s Den”), for the DVD/foreign market. Or the night he and a TV cutie went to the home of his idol, Warren Beatty, and sat with him in his screening room watching Burt Reynolds (!) movies. Beatty went oooh and aaah, and said things like, “Very interesting. He’s using a lot of long lenses.” Afterward they ate ice cream in the kitchen, and the always-smooth Beatty likened Lowe’s date to his former flame, the gorgeous Natalie Wood.

Lowe’s pretty smooth, too. An actor who prides himself on his industry longevity and his ability to go from character actor (a four-year stint on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation”) to leading man (starring as JFK in the National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Kennedy”), he spills secrets and private thoughts with eloquence, rather than meanness. No wonder he’s proven himself to be an industry survivor.

Rob Lowe is dishing, again. Three years after the publication of his surprisingly engaging memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, the former Brat Packer-turned-TV veteran has penned Love Life, a collection of essay-type ruminations that are a mix of the surreal and the serious.
NonfictionBiography

His star still shines

Review by Pat H. Broeske

It’s a sad truth about the history of Hollywood that many once-legendary Golden Age names and faces have lost their luster, their stardom dimming over time. Not so with “The Duke,” who, 35 years after his death, remains a towering figure. John Wayne: The Life and the Legend, by noted Hollywood biographer Scott Eyman, tells us why.

Yes, there have been many books on the subject. Some examined Wayne’s films and/or staunchly conservative politics, some were written by those who knew him, some boasted estate-sanctioned memorabilia. Eyman’s take is nonetheless eye-opening and astute, bolstered by access to the archives of Wayne’s production company and a host of interview sources, and the fine way he utilizes oral histories and other research materials. Then there’s the author’s cinematic acumen, which he displayed in previous work on filmmaker John Ford, who famously worked with Wayne.

Both father figure and mentor, Ford gave Wayne the role that made him a star. In these days of revolving-door “stardom,” it’s sobering to realize that by the time Wayne made the superlative Ford-directed Stagecoach, he’d been working for more than a decade, with some 80 movies to his credit. He was 32.

Born in 1907 with the memorable moniker Marion Morrison (and weighing in at 13 pounds), he was seven when the family relocated to California from his birthplace in Iowa, eventually settling in Glendale. When his parents separated, Wayne chose to stay with his pharmacist father; a younger brother lived with their mother (who would always favor the baby of the family). 

At that time several movie studios were based in Glendale and the young Wayne —called Little Duke (the family dog was Big Duke), a now-famed sobriquet later shortened to Duke—sometimes watched as crews shot on local streets. He was attending the University of Southern California on a football scholarship when he got work as a film double and extra. Then came a summer job at Fox, working props. Bit parts followed. A Fox studio head rechristened him John Wayne—though he would always be Duke to friends.

Well read and personable, the early Wayne was also a looker. Catching sight of him in the Universal commissary, Marlene Dietrich whispered to an associate, “Daddy, buy me that.” He had seven children and three wives, all of them Latinos. As his dear friend and co-star Maureen O’Hara put it, “he was really marrying the same woman every time.” There were affairs, including one with Dietrich, during those marriages.

He wasn’t perfect, and he knew it. He was especially ashamed of the fact that he didn’t serve during World War II. (Eyman details his many reclassifications during wartime.) But Wayne had many admirable traits—including loyalty to longtime friends and a diehard commitment to his fans and to the image he had shrewdly constructed. 

Nowadays acknowledged as a great (yes, great) actor, his performances in Red River and The Searchers and The Quiet Man, etc., have been scrutinized by scholars and delighted movie lovers the world over. His career had peaks and valleys and in-betweens, but through it all he was ever-professional. The first on the set, and the last to leave, he was a trouper up to the end—while battling cancer during the making of his final film, The Shootist. As the saying goes, and as this book demonstrates, they don’t make ’em like that, anymore

It’s a sad truth about the history of Hollywood that many once-legendary Golden Age names and faces have lost their luster, their stardom dimming over time. Not so with “The Duke,” who, 35 years after his death, remains a towering figure. John Wayne: The Life and the Legend, by noted Hollywood biographer Scott Eyman, tells us why.
NonfictionMemoir

An intimate look at classic Hollywood glam

Review by Pat H. Broeske

One of those guys seemingly born to wear a tux, Robert Wagner proves an expert tour guide in the sometimes dishy, always perceptive You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age.

In recent years, Wagner has come to be known for small screen roles on “Two and a Half Men” and “NCIS”—as well as deadpan appearances in the “Austin Powers” film franchise. He was married to the luminous Natalie Wood (for the second time) at the time of her still-puzzling 1981 death. But Wagner also enjoyed movie stardom in the ’50s and early ’60s. And he has long mingled with the rich and famous, having grown up in swanky Bel Air.

And so, with historian-critic Scott Eyman, R.J., as he’s known, has written what he calls “a mosaic of memory.”

The book was inspired, in part, by the wacky 2002 wedding of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. Though “not exactly a Fellini movie, it was close,” Wagner says, recounting how Liz Taylor kept a church filled with guests waiting, because she didn’t like her shoes; when the ceremony at last concluded, Gest “tried to suck the lips off Liza’s face.” (“Ewww, gross,” whispered actress Jill St. John, Wagner’s wife since 1990.)

To document a lifestyle “that has vanished as surely as birch bark canoes,” Wagner gives us a mix of history and I-was-there recollections. Like the dinner party at Clifton Webb’s home, where guest Judy Garland gave an impromptu serenade at the piano—for nearly an hour—as 15 other attendees gathered ’round. Once a caddy for Fred Astaire, Wagner went on to become a regular golfing buddy; he played softball with John Ford’s “group,” which included Duke Wayne and Ward Bond; and he spent New Year’s Eves at Frank Sinatra’s famed Palm Springs digs.

Wagner tells us about favorite decorators (the gay Billy Haines ruled), fashion trendsetters (the Duke of Windsor), the liveliest and even most unlikely night spots (including how Don the Beachcomber’s came to be), all the while dropping yummy nuggets. (Sinatra’s aftershave was witch hazel, or Yardley’s English Lavender.)

Wagner does it all with grace—never taking overt shots at today’s Hollywood, but making one thing clear: The so-called golden age was no cinematic fantasy.

One of those guys seemingly born to wear a tux, Robert Wagner proves an expert tour guide in the sometimes dishy, always perceptive You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Memoir

Nothing tight-lipped about her

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Moviegoers know Sally Kellerman best for her breakthrough performance as Hot Lips Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. The classic 1969 film led to an Oscar nomination and a spate of major roles. With her crooked smile, slouchy sexiness and über-cool delivery, the tall, slender, disheveled blonde has a timeless quality to this day.

A presence on TV, especially via voiceover work, the 70-something Kellerman today focuses on her lifelong passion: singing. In the 1950s she was actually contracted with the jazz label Verve Records. But at 18 and just out of Hollywood High, she never followed through. “I was flat-out scared,” she recalls in her candid and colorful memoir Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life. Turning to acting, she found encouragement under the tutelage of legendary coach Jeff Corey. Classmates included Jack Nicholson, Roger Corman and Dick Chamberlain.

There’s plenty of star power here. Madly infatuated with the super-sexy Marlon Brando, Kellerman partied at his house, smoked pot with the Malibu crowd (Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, etc.), and found a “fairy godmother”-mentor in that queen of the Golden Age film, Jennifer Jones. A product of the Southern California dreamscape, she waited tables while studying acting. She serves up yummy details about Chez Paulette, a coffeehouse located on the Sunset Strip, where customers included Steve McQueen and Brando. Recounting a time devoid of paparazzi and cell phone cameras, she notes, “The actors we admired were larger than life and yet within reach.” Her rise up the ladder included bit parts in B-movies (starting with 1957’s Reform School Girls). An episode of the spooky series “The Outer Limits”proved a game-changer. She’s never stopped working.

Always unorthodox, she adopted her sister’s daughter (the result of a custody battle) and was in her 40s when she married producer Jonathan Krane, 12 years her junior. She was in her early 50s when the couple adopted twins. Kellerman fesses up to marital challenges, noting that at least it hasn’t been boring. Nothing about her is.

Upfront about her adventures with drugs, sex, even a headline-making scandal, her Read My Lips vividly details a durable career that took shape during Hollywood’s pivotal ‘60s and ‘70s.

 

Hollywood writer Pat Broeske once dined with Sally Kellerman and her producer-husband. Kellerman was aloof—until Broeske’s husband said he’d brought along the actress’ first album. He left with an autograph, and a kiss.

Moviegoers know Sally Kellerman best for her breakthrough performance as Hot Lips Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. The classic 1969 film led to an Oscar nomination and a spate of major roles. With her crooked smile, slouchy sexiness and über-cool delivery, the tall, slender, disheveled…

Memoir

Andy Williams: nice guy makes good

Review by Pat H. Broeske

His very name brings to mind Squaresville—thanks to that pressed white collar worn over the ubiquitous sweater, his Midwestern, nice-guy demeanor and songs that are never going to burn down the house. But give Andy Williams credit: he’s worked long and hard to make things look, feel and sound so darn easy. 

The man with the mellow tenor tells how it was done—charting the good times and the bad—in the impressively detailed and introspective Moon River and Me.

It’s no milquetoast memoir. Anecdotes are candid: Sinatra’s cruelty; Lawrence Welk’s puritanism; those innocent young Osmonds; Judy Garland forgetting the lyrics to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”; Williams’ affair with the much older Kay Thompson. Owning up to his failings, Williams was such an absentee husband and father that one of their kids didn’t even notice when he and wife Claudine Longet divorced. Longet was later embroiled in a scandal involving the shooting death of her skier lover; Williams stood by throughout the ordeal. That’s the closest he’s come to negative press, though he’s been in the presence of tragedy: he was at the Ambassador Hotel the night close friend Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.

Now 81, he’s been performing since childhood, when his determined father created the Williams Brothers quartet. He was eight when the group segued from church socials and weddings, in their hometown of Wall Lake, Iowa, to a Des Moines radio show.

Williams and his brothers went from radio to movies (bit parts at MGM, in the heyday of musicals) to ritzy Manhattan club dates. Finally, Williams went solo, playing small clubs, the county fair circuit, gigs in Vegas and Tahoe, before moving to the recording studio (shrewdly, Williams even became a label owner), television, concerts, and on to Branson, Missouri, where today he entertains audiences at his own theater, named for his signature tune, “Moon River.” Now that’s a career. No wonder Williams suddenly seems very cool. Even when he’s wearing those sweaters.

Journalist-biographer Pat H. Broeske’s favorite Williams tune is “Dear Heart,” from the 1964 movie of the same name.

RELATED CONTENT

An excerpt from Moon River and Me:

Our house in Wall Lake was always filled with music. Mom had the radio on from morning to night, tuned to a country music station, and she sang along as she did the washing, cooking, and ironing. I would often join in with her in my piping little treble voice. One of my earliest memories was of sitting on the kitchen floor, nibbling on a just-baked cookie, and clapping my hands as Mom sang a country tune and did a little dance just to make me laugh.

Dad was also very musical; he had learned to play half a dozen instruments at school and had a good singing voice. In those pre-television days our entertainment was homegrown: sitting around the piano in the evenings and singing together. When I was little, I’d stretch out on the worn, warm floorboards with my head under the piano stool and watch my father’s feet on the pedals; for some reason that fascinated me. Our standard repertory was hymns, because my parents and my two older brothers formed the Presbyterian church choir; it had not even had one until Dad volunteered himself and his family. They rehearsed at home, and when Dick saw his mom, dad, and older brothers singing, he wanted to join in.

I didn’t want to be left out, either, and tried to sing along with them as they practiced. At first I got black looks and demands to “hush up, Andy. We’re trying to practice here.” I’d let me shoulders sag and my head hang, stick out my bottom lip, and make my slow, mournful exit from the room, hoping that my dad would call me back and let me take part. It didn’t happen, but the next day I’d be back, singing along until I got kicked out again. I used to vary my tactics. Sometimes I’d join in from the start and keep going until I was told to hush up; other times I’d sit silent in a corner while they sang the first couple of hymns, and then I’d join in, singing as quietly as possible. If any of my brothers cast an eye in my direction, I’d snap my mouth shut tight as a clam and put on a look of injured innocence.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from MOON RIVER AND ME by Andy Williams. Copyright © Andy Williams, 2009.

His very name brings to mind Squaresville—thanks to that pressed white collar worn over the ubiquitous sweater, his Midwestern, nice-guy demeanor and songs that are never going to burn down the house. But give Andy Williams credit: he’s worked long and hard to make things…

Biography

Revelatory bio of bombshell icon

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Marilyn Monroe is the subject of a cottage publishing industry, so it’s surprising and laudatory when a revelatory and insightful book comes along. That makes The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, by celebrity biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, a must-have not only for Monroe fans, but for anyone who loves a juicy Hollywood saga.

Just 36 when she died of an overdose of prescription medication in 1962, Monroe remains the ultimate sex symbol. Her imitators are many, but no one has come close to the original.

Taraborrelli, author of books on Frank Sinatra, Liz Taylor, Michael Jackson, the Kennedy women and others, conducted interviews over decades and utilized FBI files. He digs especially deep into Monroe’s (fractured) family ties, which imparted feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Born Norma Jeane Mortensen, she was the daughter of a paranoid schizophrenic. Thus, she was alternately raised by an unofficial foster family, her mother’s close friend, a great-aunt and an orphanage. She was a ravishing 16 when she was pushed into marrying the son of a family friend. It was that or another orphanage.

She was working at a Burbank factory when she was snapped by Yanks magazine. So began her enduring relationship with the camera. In less than two years she appeared on 30 magazine covers. Movies followed—as did pills, booze and therapy. There was a star-crossed affair with Sinatra, marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller and a fling with JFK that made her think she could be First Lady. She was by then borderline paranoid schizophrenic—and trapped within her own shrewdly crafted persona.

Serious questions persist about the circumstances of her death. But there is no mystery about her stature in Hollywood. In this age of throwaway tabloid celebrities and instantaneous reality show “fame,” Monroe is the iconic reminder of true superstardom, and the terrible price it can exact. Read it and weep.

Pat H. Broeske has written about Monroe for the New York Times.

Marilyn Monroe is the subject of a cottage publishing industry, so it’s surprising and laudatory when a revelatory and insightful book comes along. That makes The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, by celebrity biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, a must-have not only for Monroe fans, but…

PhotographyFilmArts & Culture

Names in lights

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Leading men tell all

There are similarities to the careers and lives of Robert Wagner and Tony Curtis. Both were contract players who went on to 1950s – era stardom and a cool '60s ride. Each reaped the rewards of fame by paling with starry names – and enjoying women galore. After wedding famous actresses, both were in "storybook" marriages breathlessly covered by fan magazines.

That's where the similarities end, as detailed in Wagner's Pieces of My Heart, written with Scott Eyman. This holiday tell-all delivers the goods. Wagner grew up privileged, just off the Bel – Air Country Club golf course, where he caddied for the likes of Clark Gable and Fred Astaire. Just 22 when he began a four – year affair with the much older Barbara Stanwyck (she was 45) he later famously married and divorced and remarried Natalie Wood. Her 1981 death in the waters off Catalina Island continues to haunt him. Yet Wagner, who went on to find fame as a TV stalwart and is now married to Jill St. John, knows he's had an amazing ride.

A star is born

Tony Curtis enjoyed all the amenities a life in the Hollywood spotlight can bring – but you wouldn't know it to read his story, told in American Prince: A Memoir, written with Peter Golenbock. But then, the former Bernie Schwartz had a hardscrabble New York childhood: he's always been quick to use his fists. Curtis came to Hollywood by way of acting school, following a Navy stint. His pretty boy looks were his calling card-and date bait. Opening with a tryst with young Marilyn Monroe, his book does considerable bed – hopping. It was an affair with a 17 -year-old leading lady that put an end to his marriage to popular actress Janet Leigh. (Curtis says Leigh's treatment of him had left him "emotionally vulnerable.") The ugly split may have turned some of Hollywood's powerful figures against Curtis. Or so he believes. He had a string of marriages and saw his career spiral downward, despite starring in bona fide classics, including Some Like It Hot and Sweet Smell of Success.

He left Hollywood when the phone stopped ringing. Now living in Las Vegas, he's been happily married for 10 years (wife Jill has a horse ranch). For the record, he's not on the greatest terms with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. But he's working on it.

Inside a curious mind

Alfred Hitchcock didn't go for happy endings, but he sure liked blondes. But what was behind the master of suspense's obsession with actresses including Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak, Doris Day, Janet Leigh and Tippi Hedren? In Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, Donald Spoto offers a compelling psychological examination. As the author of two other Hitchcock tomes, Spoto has the credentials and sources to explore how Hitchcock's psyche impacted his films and their casting. Self – loathing and friendless with unresolved issues toward women, Hitchcock could be a cruel taskmaster. What he did to Hedren (mother of actress Melanie Griffith) during the making of The Birds and especially Marnie, was nothing short of sexual harassment – even physical abuse. (Class act that she is, Hedren eventually made her peace with Hitchcock.) The plot of Vertigo (in which James Stewart "remakes" Kim Novak into his dream woman) played to his habit of making actresses "to his dream ideal of blonde perfection." Of course, those blondes often wound up in nightmarish situations in Hitchcock's iconic films.

The Hollywood lifestyle

In the world of show business, some of the hottest properties aren't on the screen but, rather, in the rarefied worlds of Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and Holmby Hills. Leading Beverly Hills real estate broker Jeffrey Hyland knows that terrain better than anyone, as revealed in the massive, lushly illustrated The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills. This amazingly researched and illustrated history of nearly 50 incredible estates, from the ground up (as they were built), includes a who's who of notables involved, as well as an authoritative look at the convergence of architectural styles (and audacity) that are as integral to Southern California as palm trees – and it comes in a carrying case with attached handle. For looky – loos, this may be the ultimate home tour.

A studio revealed

If you saw and enjoyed PBS's five-hour documentary about Warner Bros. Studios that aired in September, you only skimmed the surface. You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story by Richard Schickel and George Perry, gives the complete saga, with a wealth of images from the archives of the 85 – year – old studio. Founded by four brothers, Warner Bros. famously popularized sound with 1927's The Jazz Singer. Its first big star was Rin Tin Tin. The studio also claimed the esteemed John Barrymore (grandfather of Drew Barrymore). But its key performers were as gritty as the movies that became the studio signatures. James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart were among those who made their mark here. Moving decade by decade (the '70s were as exciting as the '30s), the book takes us right up to The Dark Knight and Sweeney Todd, and charts the evolution of modern legends, including Clint Eastwood, who penned the foreword.

Eastwood's own metamorphosis is captured in Clint Eastwood: A Life in Pictures. Edited by Pierre – Henri Verlhac, with a foreword by Peter Bogdanovich, it follows his journey from hubba – hubba beefcake model to his status as a revered filmmaker – actor, accepting accolades and statuettes at Cannes and the Oscars. Now there's a Hollywood ending.

Beyond the best

The B-List: The National Society of Film Critics on the Low-Budget Beauties, Genre – Bending Mavericks, and Cult Classics We Love is edited by David Sterritt and John Anderson. The National Society of Film Critics is known for highbrow taste (in 2002 they turned out The A-List: 100 Essential Films). But in this entry, the members fess up about the guilty pleasures on their DVD shelves. A chapter on "Provocation and Perversity" goes bonkers for Nic Cage's loony tunes performance in Vampire's Kiss. Another on "Dark and Disturbing Dreams" salutes The Rage: Carrie 2. Here and there, a title's inclusion gives pause; Platoon a B-movie? But the bulk of the lineup reminds us why it's OK to love movies that have never made a "10 best" list.

Some of the B-titles are included in David Thomson's "Have You Seen… ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. It's a welcome companion to his authoritative Biographical Dictionary of Film. Arranged alphabetically, titles from 1895 to 2007 are examined on varying levels (audacious themes, forgotten performances, the tenor of the day, etc.). The erudite Thomson isn't without a sense of humor. Of Liz Taylor in Cleopatra, he notes, "Her eyelashes needed cranes!"

Leading men tell all

There are similarities to the careers and lives of Robert Wagner and Tony Curtis. Both were contract players who went on to 1950s - era stardom and a cool '60s ride. Each reaped the rewards of fame by paling with starry names…

FictionMemoirFilmArts & Culture

A screen gem for Oscar season

Review by Pat H. Broeske

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood examines the years leading up to the pivotal 1968 Academy Awards, when the then-edgy Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate duked it out with the socially conscious In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and the old-school Doctor Dolittle. As Oscar buffs know, In the Heat of the Night took top honors. And its star, Rod Steiger, was named Best Actor. But what really won out were new attitudes—including new permissiveness, as well as redefined notions of what makes a star. Written by Mark Harris, a former editor at Entertainment Weekly, Pictures at a Revolution is the '60s companion to Peter Biskind's '70s-era study, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood—though Harris' book is more clearly written and better organized. (Full disclosure: I wrote for Biskind when he was editor of Premiere, and for Harris at Entertainment Weekly.)

Harris charts a complex journey that begins when young Hollywood filmmakers become enamored with the French New Wave. He goes on to take us through the tangle of all five nominated films' convoluted histories. At one time Francois Truffaut wanted to helm Bonnie and Clyde. Once the property was acquired by Warren Beatty, whom Time magazine called "an on-again, off-again actor who moonlighted as a global escort," Beatty considered Bob Dylan(!) for the role of Clyde. Natalie Wood, Sharon Tate, Ann-Margret and Tuesday Weld were contenders for Bonnie. The winner: ingenue Faye Dunaway, who'd once been told she "didn't have the face for movies." Bolstered by Harris' access to most of the principals involved in the five nominated films, and by the audacity of the very decade it examines, Pictures at a Revolution reminds us that hard-fought battles can result in cinematic victories, with or without an Oscar statuette.

THE CELEBRITY TREATMENT
A fictional look at the contemporary Oscar scene, the chick-lit entry Oscar Season merges swag bags and murder. The first novel from Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter Mary McNamara follows posh PR maven Juliette Greyson, who's up to her neck in damage control following the discovery of a body in a hotel pool. Ah, but the Pinnacle isn't just any hotel; it's become "the hub" of Oscar season, site of industry parties and press junkets and a home away from home for celebs.

Real-life actors (ranging from household names to the obscure) move in and out of the book's pages, alongside fictional Hollywood players, as Greyson sets out to discover who done it while having to deal with her hotelier boss, her estranged husband and the upcoming Oscar show. Not the most plausible of tales, the book is at its clever best when delivering Oscar-y details that underscore McNamara's many years working behind the scenes.

TV LAND
Gary David Goldberg has never won an Oscar, but he knows all about Emmys. The two-time winner, who created "Family Ties," ruminates on his industry climb and his own family ties in the breezy memoir Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I Went from Brooklyn to Hollywood with the Same Woman, the Same Dog, and a Lot Less Hair. About that title: Ubu was a beloved Labrador sidekick. The woman of the subtitle is wife Diana. The couple tied the knot after 21 years of togetherness and two kids. Much of the book deals with their relationship—and reads like a love story. Goldberg, who early on was an actor on the traveling dinner-theater circuit, also details his ascent up the Hollywood food chain, via a marathon of spec scripts (meaning he wrote them on speculation—without any assignment or fee). He relates exchanges with agents and producers, discusses his friendship and ensuing creative battles with "Family Ties" and "Spin City" star Michael J. Fox (the two men have since reconciled) and chillingly recalls the mysterious illness that nearly took his wife's life. He also ponders the responsibility wrought by unexpected wealth (the "Family Ties" syndication monies), and his good fortune at having found the perfect person to share it with.

Pat H. Broeske has covered the Oscars for publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly.

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood examines the years leading up to the pivotal 1968 Academy Awards, when the then-edgy Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate duked it out with the socially conscious In the Heat of the…

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