by Armand Deutsch ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 1991
The fabulous friends of film producer Deutsch, who clearly has lived a dream life. In 1924, nine-year-old Deutsch, grandson of the chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Col, was the chosen victim for the crime of the century when his Chicago neighbors, Nietzschean homosexuals Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, set out to perform an untraceable murder. Deutsch however had to go to the dentist after school, and so young Bobby Franks was murdered in his place. Since then Deutsch's life has been equally charmed. He met studio head Dore Schary at a party, was told by Schary he'd make a good producer, and soon found himself producing B-pictures for MGM. Which brings up the three Barrymores, all of whom he worked with at one time or another. But then he also must tell us about arranging Joe Louis's last championship fight before Louis's induction into the Army for WW II. And about ten years of high times at the Frank Sinatra compound at Palm Springs, with Frank as the world' greatest host. And about Armand's long friendships with Robert Taylor and with his favorite actor, the alcoholic Louis Calhern, for whom he produced The Magnificent Yankee, and about his long ties with Billy Wilder, art collector and compulsive shopper; his great friendship with billionaire art collector Walter Annenberg; his producing chores with young Nancy Davis and later annual parties with the Reagans; his world travels with sunny punster/publisher Bennett Cerf; his rich Christmases with Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Stewart (Jimmy watches It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas, along with millions of other Americans). Highlights among nothing but highlights, include exciting evening flights with Sinatra to Buffalo or somewhere for a one-night stand and getting back to Manhattan for a midnight Italian feast; and a heartbreaking fight with Bogart that ends with Bogie dying while Deutsch cries in Romanoff's men's room. A great get-well giftto yourself or anyone who needs a dreamlift.
Pub Date: May 9, 1991
ISBN: 0-399-13595-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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