Appealing mostly to film buffs—but certainly useful for drag queens. (8 pp. color illustrations, not seen, b&w...
A former costumer who knew the doyenne designer late in her career pens an “official” bio that corrects some of her autobiographical fancies.
Born in 1897 (she said 1907), Edith Head was a slightly cross-eyed, noticeably strong-willed little lady given to occasional prevarication and, at odd times, pinching undeserved acclaim. With her trademark horn-rimmed shades and false bangs, she was the best-known Hollywood costume designer from the days when Clara Bow wore ankle socks with high heels through the zenith of the studio system until her last assignments designing for Miss Piggy and dressing Steve Martin in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Through the years, she had only two facelifts and only two husbands (self-indulgent Mr. Head and devoted art director Bill Ihnen). As drawn by Chierichetti, her life seems a bit dreary, especially considering the divas and directors with whom she worked. The author describes costumes and explains how fabric, color, and line were marshaled to camouflage the physical flaws of screen goddesses. Dorothy Lamour “had round shoulders and massive buttocks and thighs”; Barbara Stanwyck’s “waist was long and her buttocks flat until they jutted out like a shelf”; and Bette Davis “had several serious problems: bowed legs, very round shoulders, and a long and broad neck. Worst of all were her breasts, which hung almost to her waist.” Also featured: Mae West, Claudette Colbert, Veronica Lake, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, and a large supporting cast. The journeyman text, basted together with movie titles and appliquéd with bust pads, decks out the life of a woman, skilled at studio politics, who craved credits. Head won eight Academy Awards, and her respectful biographer insists that she really could design and draw well. Nevertheless, he depicts a bleak life.
Appealing mostly to film buffs—but certainly useful for drag queens. (8 pp. color illustrations, not seen, b&w illustrations throughout)Pub Date: March 7, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-019428-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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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