Rich character study of homosexual film-director Cukor, famed for his handling of actresses, by McGilligan (Robert Altman: Jumping off the Cliff, 1989, etc.). A Hungarian-American Jew with no interest in Judaism, Cukor spent his professional life fearful of exposure as a gay—though nearly everyone knew that he was one. In his early years in the theater, as a stage director in Rochester and on Broadway, homosexuality was commonly accepted, although in the 30's Cukor tried in vain to have the ``moral turpitude'' clause removed from his MGM contract. The 40's and 50's found gays less accepted and Cukor's fears justified. Only once did scandal brush him, when he and a fellow gay looking for rough trade were mugged by sailors—an incident hushed up by MGM. Cukor was famed for lavish parties and the quiet Sunday get-togethers of his ``chief unit,'' or old-time gays. He resisted any deeper feelings about sex, always paying off his young men in cash, even into his 80s. On the other side of his double life, he was the only gay film director of major rank. His career included discovering Katharine Hepburn, with whom he made ten films; directing Garbo in her greatest film, Camille, and possibly her worst, Two-Faced Woman; directing Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love and her tragically ill-fated Something's Got to Give. Gable had him fired from Gone with the Wind, claiming he couldn't work with ``a fairy.'' Cukor's other classics included David Copperfield, Jean Harlow's Dinner at Eight, Ingrid Bergman's Gaslight, and Hepburn's The Philadelphia Story, among many others. The past recaptured, keenly and zestfully. Not to be missed. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 25, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05419-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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