Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980--1988 Review

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(More customer reviews)I picked up the first of Michael Palin's diaries abnout a year ago and found it to be a most entertaining read. Seeing the behind-the-scenes machinations of one of the world's funniest troupes was amazing, but to see the gentle reflective family man behind the "lumberjack" who will forever be OK was a revelation. The book truly gave the reader the feeling of being a part of the Palin family besides sharing the insights of the diarist who, it turns out, is quite the Zelig in terms of who he knows and the various well-known people who became a part of his life.
I was enthusiastic but a bit leery when picking up the second book, Halfway to Hollywood. I did not see how it could be as enjoyable given that the bulk of the Python works could be seen in the proverbial rearview mirror. But if anything, this book is at least the equal of its predecessor...warm, revealing, and entertaining. I came away from the book with the realization that Palin may be one of the most grounded celebrities in the world.
Reading this work has made me go out and find some of his lesser-known works ( lesser known to US audiences )because I see this gentleman as someone I'd really like to spend more time with. These pages read like conversation with a friend...a very polite, very insightful friend who has left an indelible mark in the world.
I could not recommend this more.

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Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad (Hollywood Legends Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have always been curious about what happened to Zachary Scott - he just seemed to disappear after several years as a leading man. This biography was very informative about his life, albeit, a little slow in the childhood and beginnings but it picked up nicely. It was interesting to know that he came from a very prominent and wealthy family in Texas. His personal life was chronicled in a thorough way and I felt the book was very much worth reading. I bought it and put in my library of Hollywood memorabilia and history.

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Throughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914-1965) was the model for sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent husband in Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis. Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic tenant farmer in Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped typecasting.
In Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L. Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in privileged circumstances—his father was a distinguished physician; his grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron—and was expected to follow his father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to America, he began to look for work in New York.
Excelling on stage and screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the mid-1940s.
To reconstruct Scott's life, Davis uses interviews with Scott and colleagues and reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Brothers Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely allowed to show his versatility on the screen.
Ronald L. Davis is professor emeritus of history at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of several books on Hollywood, including Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream, The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood's Big Studio System, and Van Johnson: MGM's Golden Boy (University Press of Mississippi).

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Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution Review

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(More customer reviews)Eve Golden's many books, particularly Bride of Golden Images, Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara,The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall and Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow are each noteworthy for her thorough scholarship and her own lightness of touch. Clearly, she cherishes the Castles in all their artistry, foibles and their fascinating effect on popular culture, (they were largely responsible for making dancing in public acceptable for middle class people in America).
However, Eve is never blind to her subject's faults but has some compassion for them. For example, as Ms. Golden describes him, Vernon was a disastrous business man who would sign any contract put before him and Irene, a wondrous fashion plate and a joy to see move in what few fragments of film remain, was also a bit of a snob, having grown up in a monied family. The delightful stories about a little known period when the Castles became teachers, choreographers, trend-setters and, in their spare time, animal rights activists is captured beautifully as the author conveys the social and economic changes of their era as well as the idiosyncrasies of the individuals who shaped that period.
This is only the latest book of Eve Goldens' work that I have enjoyed. Spending time in her company once again is a pleasure and an education. Thank you, Ms. Golden. PLEASE keep writing your literate and highly amusing histories and biographies.

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Vernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The whisper-thin, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator, bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular. From their marriage in 1911 until 1916, the Castles were the most famous and influential dance team in the world. Their dancing schools and nightclubs were packed with society figures and white-collar workers alike. After their peak of white-hot fame, Vernon enlisted in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, served at the front lines, and was killed in a 1918 airplane crash. Irene became a movie star and appeared in more than a dozen films between 1917 and 1922. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives. They were more complex than posterity would have it: Vernon was charming but irresponsible, Irene was strong-minded but self-centered, and the couple had filed for divorce before Vernon's death (information that has never before been made public). Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution is the fascinating story of a couple who reinvented dance and its place in twentieth-century culture.

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