THE WESTMORES OF HOLLYWOOD

The name Westmore, for make-up, was a staple in the days when credit lists rolled before or after a movie, not during it--and the Westmore might be Perc or Ernest, Mont or Wally, later Bud and Frank. The author was the last of nineteen children sired by George the terrible, a capricious and unloving father and an innovative make-up genius in the days of Fairbanks and Pickford. While his older brothers toiled in George's atelier, the author was shunted from one dreadful military school to another until he settled in happily with brother Mont after his father's death. The bulk of this easygoing memoir concerns the triumphs and tragedies of the Westmores, a feuding, cantankerous clan given to many marriages and a few suicide attempts. However, it is the anecdotes about the craft of make-up, compliant and difficult stars, and the inevitable hilarious mishaps (extras in The Ten Commandments moved their beards from chin to forehead to fend off Egyptian heat) which will move this along through the growing clutter of the cinema shelf.