I have already posted on the sequel to this book, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, which came out the following year. This is Bawden and Miller's first collection of interviews with famous film folk, and frankly, this volume is superior, with some really solid and interesting interviews. There's a funny piece on the ever-eccentric Gloria Swanson in the section on silent film stars; Joseph Cotten and Melvyn Douglas being rather blunt in their pieces in the section on Leading Men; everyone from Anne Baxter to Dorothy Lamour to Anna Lee and Jane Wyman are covered in Leading Ladies; Audrey Totter and Marie Windsor have their say in Queens of the Bs; and we've got the Singing Cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers; plus a piece on Bob Hope, and a final section on not-quite-stars like Keye Luke, Harold Russell, Margaret Hamilton, and Diane Varsi (who did Peyton Place and then pretty much disappeared because she rebelled against her studio). Other stars interviewed include Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas and more.
The stars are frequently scathing in their assessment of other actors, with Melyyn Douglas insisting that both Spencer Tracy and Fredric March were "one-dimensional" (!) in Inherit the Wind (Douglas did a TV version). Joan Fontaine comments on her sister Olivia De Havilland ("it takes two to feud"). You'll also learn that Jane Wyman got so sick of former movie goddesses being hired for her series Falcon Crest, that she laid down the law: "No more international harlots!" I didn't know that beautiful Jane Greer was once married to Rudy Vallee nor that Margaret Hamilton was nearly killed playing the witch in The Wizard of Oz and spent some time in the hospital. The book gets across that most self-absorbed movie stars are simply not normal people.
Verdict: Fun, informative book that is hard to put down. ***1/2.
1 comment:
I will look for this—should be a fun read!
- C
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