BIG RED

A fictionalized telling of the troubled life and storied film career of Rita Hayworth and her marriage to Orson Welles, as seen through the eyes of a sympathetic outsider.

Film-smart and street-smart—if that street happens to be Hollywood Boulevard—the made-up witness, Rusty Redburn, is an Illinois farm girl who dropped out of college to test her fortunes in Tinseltown. She gets a job with Columbia Pictures' publicity department digging up dirt on celebrities. She's so good at it that she's hired by repugnant Columbia head Harry Cohn to spy on the uncontrollable Welles and his wife, Hayworth, whom Cohn lusts after. In her guise as Hayworth's gal Friday, Redburn, a lesbian, comes to care for the actress, whose "crippling fear of her own unworthiness" can be traced back to abuse by her father, her childhood dance partner. But though Redburn idolizes Welles for Citizen Kane, she quickly discovers he's better at acting the role of charmer than actually caring for anyone, including Hayworth, as much as himself—and is physically clumsy to boot. Tracing Hayworth's sad decline through films including Cover Girl, Gilda, and The Lady From Shanghai, the novel has a good time with cutthroat gossip columnists; the ego-driven female film editor who chopped Lady; and crass hustlers including Eddie Judson, Hayworth's first husband, who altered film history by having her hairline raised and the color of her hair changed to her trademark fiery red. Redburn, a serious film buff who writes mimeographed movie reviews as Regina X, is a nifty invention, allowing Charyn the novelist to play Charyn the critic. Hayworth "sang" with her every movement, “in the shake of a shoulder, in the jig of her leg.” Kane was "a sarabande of moments." The veteran author's charm and easy sense of irony further lift this surprisingly affecting book.

A novel that transcends concept with its human touches.