Intimate story of Harry, Jack, Albert, and Sam Warner and how they rose from immigrant rags to Hollywood riches by founding the Warner Brothers Studio—as told by Harry's granddaughter and family archivist Sperling, who spent 11 years researching, aided by Millner and with contributions by Jack Warner Jr., Ronald Reagan, and others. Though its invented dialogue reads like fiction, this biomosaic of the Warner brothers and their studio comes off as a neat bit of storytelling, shored up with long quotes from family members, studio executives, and the talents who worked with the Warners. Jack Warner—the youngest brother, who outlived the others and who, through a swift shot of financial skulduggery, became sole brother in charge—is marked as the singing and joking villain of the piece. Benjamin Warner flees the Russian village of Krasnashiltz and arrives in New York in 1883. In 1904, his young sons fall in love with the nickelodeon business, soon buy their own projector, lease a theater, and, by 1907, form the Duquesne Amusement Supply Company for distributing films. Jack, formerly Jacob, quits school in fourth grade, brings home two dollars a week by singing in public, then is hired by his brothers to drive people out of the theater between shows with his bad voice. The studio's growth as it makes features on Poverty Row—with Jack and Sam heading production in Hollywood and Harry running the New York office as final authority—first climaxes with Al Jolson introducing talkies at the thrilling premiere of The Jazz Singer, though fun-loving brother Sam dies as Jolson opens. Harry tries to give the studio some class while vulgar Jack focuses on slam-bang movies from the headlines. Finally, the monster that is TV arises. Best pages are from Jack Warner, Jr., the son fired from the studio by his father for reminding him too strongly of the father's first wife. (Thirty-two-page photo insert)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1-55958-343-6
Page Count: 350
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
Laced with love, family dramas, recipes, and the pangs of growing up, Lerman’s memoir is a satisfying treat.
Nutrition expert and New York Times Well Blog contributor Lerman pens an intimate memoir about the intersections of intense family relationships and food, dieting, and healthy eating.
As a child, the author’s relationships with her overweight father and distant mother were difficult. Eventually, she realized that her father’s ravenous appetite—he often consumed 8,000 calories per day—was a disease he couldn’t control. Lerman’s mother, a frustrated actress, had no desire to be saddled with housewifely tasks. The author’s grandmother Beauty, however, showered her with love and attention and lots of home-cooked meals. “In her arms,” writes Lerman, “I was never hungry for food, love, or affection. She was my mentor and my savior—saving my life, spoonful by spoonful.” The author tracks her emotional and culinary life as the family moved from Chicago to New York as well as the transition in her relationship with her father when her younger sister’s burgeoning acting career took off. Lerman also chronicles her parents’ divorce, her teenage years, and her father’s bout with cancer. Always entranced by health-food stores, the author began developing a healthy eating regime for her father, who, always trying one extreme diet after another, was fighting for his health. He eliminated dairy, meat, alcohol, and caffeine, and he began making “anti-cancer soup with shiitake, portabella and maitake mushrooms.” He also stocked up on fresh vegetables, blue-green algae, and fermented foods. Throughout the book, Lerman links food to physical and emotional well-being—e.g., a meal of white fish and steamed leeks topped with lemon slices was “calming and almost euphoric.” During an encounter with a guest who offered Lerman a piece of macrobiotic apple pie while espousing a vegetarian lifestyle, the author’s mind opened up to new ways of living and eating, and she relates them smoothly to readers.
Laced with love, family dramas, recipes, and the pangs of growing up, Lerman’s memoir is a satisfying treat.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-425-27223-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
A solid and worthwhile biography. (24 b&w photos)
A well-researched biography of the famed children’s author, by Financial Times critic Wullschlager (Inventing Wonderland, 1995).
Born to a poor washerwoman and a young shoemaker in tiny Odense, Denmark, in 1805, Andersen was an effeminate, unattractive boy who left home at 14 to seek fame on the stage in Copenhagen. Unsuccessful as an actor, he managed to find a wealthy patron who provided for his education and helped launch his writing career. He made little mark as an author until 1835, when he turned to the fairy tales that would ultimately bring him fame. Drawing heavily on Andersen’s diaries and correspondence, Wullschlager paints a revealing portrait: an over-sensitive and essentially child-like man who was conflicted about his ambiguous sexuality and haunted by his humble origins. Especially interesting is Andersen’s complicated relationship with his primary audience; he wrote for adults and was annoyed that the public looked upon him as a children’s author. Andersen traveled widely, and the accounts of his visits are a source of some humor (and a fair amount of insight): he was once introduced to fellow children’s author Jakob Grimm (who had never heard of him), and was received as a London houseguest by Charles Dickens (who subsequently pinned up the note, “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks—which seemed to the family AGES!”). A popular but lonely man, Andersen left his entire estate to a lifelong unrequited love, and among the hundreds who attended his funeral there was apparently not a single blood relative.
A solid and worthwhile biography. (24 b&w photos)Pub Date: May 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-679-45508-6
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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