STERLING HAYDEN'S WARS

STERLING HAYDEN'S WARS. Lee Mandel. University Press of Mississippi; 2018.

Sterling Hayden drew Hollywood's attention when he made a name for himself as a young sailor, made a couple of films, promptly turned his back on Hollywood, worked with the Partisans in WW2 and became a war hero, briefly joined the Communist party and named names during the HUAC [House UnAmerican Activities Committee] hearings, continued working on movies while disdaining Hollywood and the whole field of acting, finished an autobiography, Wanderer, and a novel, Voyage, became a hopeless alcoholic as well as a pothead, and was basically at war with himself -- hence the title -- for most of his life. Despite his hatred of Hollywood and most of his movies, Hayden was a very stereotypical movie star in that he was completely self-absorbed, a so-called family man who really wanted to live life as a bachelor and stay at sea. He ignored a court order and took his children by his second wife (his first wife was actress Madeleine Carroll) to Tahiti on his own boat, and got only a slap on the wrist from the chauvinistic judge. Unlike other actors, such as Larry Parks, Hayden survived his brush with communism and continued to have a career, although he made movies only for the money. His performances ranged from the mediocre to the on-target but he could never be called an acting genius. Throughout his life he was completely irresponsible and self-centered, and although the book does go into the sufferings his three wives had to endure, there is little about the children, although one can imagine. If the author intended the reader to come to admire Hayden, the book creates a completely opposite effect. I could hardly wait to be done with Hayden as after awhile I became disgusted by his selfish antics.

Generally I have a policy in that I review a book for what it is and not what it isn't, but I find that I do have to make one important point about Sterling Hayden's Wars. I have noticed that books about movie stars written by people who are not film historians or even film buffs are problematic. For instance, one of the first movies Hayden made after testifying for HUAC was The Star with Bette Davis. And that's absolutely all that Mandel says about the movie, this despite the fact that Hayden plays a character much like himself, someone who has a love of sailing and had a brief movie career before walking away from Hollywood. Johnny Guitar is only mentioned in passing -- his hated co-star, Joan Crawford, isn't even in the index! -- when there was certainly plenty of things going on behind-the-scenes while that film was being made. (For more info, see Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography, co-authored by yours truly.) Hayden was a war hero, but he was not Audie Murphy; he testified for HUAC but he was not a major player; he's not the only actor to write books -- so what distinguishes him, if anything, is his movie career, which Mandel pretty much glosses over, although there is some detail about Dr. Strangelove and a couple of other movies. Most readers will look at this book because Hayden was, briefly, a movie star, so why not deal with it? Frankly, although the many chapters on the war and HUAC are well-researched, they seem to go on forever, often cover familiar territory, and almost unbalance the book.You would never know that Hayden actually amassed over seventy credits in film and on television, and you wonder how many of these Mandel actually watched.

That said, Sterling Hayden's Wars is by no means a bad book. If you don't mind that you won't actually find that much about his film career, you may find the tome rewarding. As for Hayden himself, I found myself disliking him the more I read. Frankly, some people might consider what Hayden and his third wife allowed their children to go through as being tantamount to child abuse.

Verdict: Not without some merit on its own terms, but hardly the last word on Hayden's film career. **1/2.