No serious political science here, but these tales of the aristocracy of politics and showbiz joined at the hip offer...
An Emmy-winning producer clearly demonstrates, in case you didn’t know, that politicians and performers share identical genetic codes.
Showbiz has increasingly been allied with politics, notes Schroeder (Journalism/ Northeastern Univ.). Franklin Roosevelt clearly enjoyed birthday tributes from Groucho Marx and Ginger Rogers, though he also favored Myrna Loy and Donald Duck. Later, JFK was famously partial to Marilyn Monroe, Gene Tierney, and (with brother-in-law Lawford’s aid) backlots-full of ingénues. Presley paid his bizarre visit to Nixon. Politicos took note of the Gipper, Murphy Brown, Wayne Newton, and Ozzy Osborne—sometimes understandably unsure which were fictional. Frank Sinatra, sometime pal to several presidents, seems to have played the White House as often as Vegas, especially during the Reagan administration. Comics, rappers, actors, instrumentalists, dancers, and generic show people have all done their thing for the chief executive in what are generally considered stressful gigs. Frequently, performers like John Wayne on the right hand or Eartha Kitt on the left ventured to advise the president. Sometimes their advice was even sought. Robert Montgomery supervised Eisenhower’s TV appearances. Producers Bill and Linda Thomason were longtime Friends of Bill. Consider Ambassador John Gavin, posted to Mexico perhaps because he was so handsome. It’s a symbiotic arrangement, like it or not. Ike was wary, and LBJ didn’t even like Bob Hope. The venue at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is now run by “perhaps the least culturally attuned chief executive in modern history”—but don’t discount a Top Gun aircraft carrier performance for presidential showmanship. More likely to read the trades, certainly, were Clinton, JFK, and Reagan, who played the role of his lifetime as president. Schroeder seems to have checked all the White House logs as well as the appropriate tabloids for his lively report.
No serious political science here, but these tales of the aristocracy of politics and showbiz joined at the hip offer enjoyable entertainment and star-studded pop culture.Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8133-4137-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
