Kirkus Reviews QR Code
CENTER DOOR FANCY by Joan Blondell

CENTER DOOR FANCY

By

Pub Date: Oct. 2nd, 1972
Publisher: Delacorte

Remember Joan Blondell, who was one of the Gold Diggers of the '30's, with that sunny smile? Sometimes you suspect she's a lot accountable for her so-called heroine Nora Marten (particularly when her Daddy calls her ""pop-eyes"") who walks through that center door fancy on a vaudeville stage with him at the age of five; it's the hard way, eleven months of one night stands, lucky to eat off an electric plate. Nora turns out to be an early bloomer (Miss Mobile in a beauty contest in that city), goes to work in New York in a bookstore where she's raped by a policeman, but finally she hits Hollywood where three husbands, all rotten, left her ""heartsick and drained."" It's best to remember that sunny smile -- this is just awful en route from ""alley"" to ""oop.