Not very stylish biography of Harrison (1908-90), by Wapshott (Peter O'Toole, 1984). Born Reginald Carey Harrison, the future Henry Higgins was a sickly boy, ``cosseted and nursed by his mother and spoilt by his two sisters, who treated him as a doll to pet and coddle''—which, Wapshott says, set the pattern for his lifelong lack of deep male friendships and need for six wives. While he became a leading Shavian, Harrison found Shakespeare's language too much to handle, never played the Bard after failing as a messenger in Richard III, and, instead, achieved acclaim for his urbanity as a light comedian—although he later stretched himself for his praised Caesar in the Burtons' Cleopatra, for Pirandello, and for the odd serious role. For all the love the world bestowed on him, he apparently was a rude, abysmally self-centered husband who crushed his wives and tromped on his fellow actors. The two great tragedies of his life were the suicide of his mistress, actress Carole Landis, while he was married to Lilli Palmer, and the death from myeloid leukemia of his third wife, Kay Kendall. Harrison kept the fatal nature of her illness a secret from Kendall, who also had been his mistress while he was married to Palmer, who divorced Harrison so that he could marry Kendall for her last year or so, with plans for remarriage once Kendall was dead. When they did not remarry, and Harrison downplayed Palmer's kindness in his autobiography (Rex, 1973, lightly updated in his A Damned Serious Business, 1990), Palmer set the truth straight in her own autobiography. Later, Terrence Rattigan wrote After Lydia, a play about Palmer's last days with Harrison, and Harrison played himself (as a crabbed literary critic) on stage—but only after defanging the critic into a jolly fine chap. Wapshott tells all this rather solemnly, allowing Harrison's waspishness to take on an irresistible gleam through the windowpane prose. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-83947-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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