A dishy but disappointing first biography of the legendary producer/ogre (who will be 82 in November)—as told by the chief theater critic for the New York Daily News. Kissel tells the story of the guy in the pinstripe suit (a vestment Merrick chose early in his flight from the hollowing meanness of his childhood) who dominated the Broadway theater from the 1950's until he began failing in the 1970's—first out of step, then out of steam, and finally felled by a stroke. Along the way, Merrick specialized in the tony American musical and the classy British import. His shows included Gypsy; Hello, Dolly!; Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; and Look Back In Anger. Merrick, Kissel explains, had a genius for generating publicity: When Subways Are for Sleeping appeared weak in the knees out of town, he ran a full-page advertisement in The New York Herald- Tribune that featured little raves written by namesakes of prestigious critics. When director Gower Champion died just before the opening of 42nd Street, Merrick squelched all news of his death so he could announce it himself at the final opening-night curtain. No matter that Champion was a friend of old: Merrick was, by Kissel's account, a veritable monster who ruled by tantrum and menace—weapons allegedly honed by old anger and new cocaine. Was Merrick crazy as a fox or just plain crazy? Did his meshugaas help or hinder his fabulous productions? The questions are asked throughout, but the answers are impeded by turgid writing and an erratic overview that shrugs off much of consequence. Kissel's at his best when dealing with the post-stroke Merrick, where the focus is insistently sharp and the pathos keen. (Photographs)
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1993
ISBN: 1-55783-172-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Applause
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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