by Raymond Sarlot ; Fred E. Basten ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2013
Frivolous and superficial—but as entertaining as an old B movie on a dreary Saturday afternoon.
A loving but lighter-than-air biography of the hotel that has loomed over Hollywood since the 1920s.
Co-authors Sarlot (who owned the Marmont, 1975-91) and Basten (author of numerous books about Hollywood, including Max Factor’s Hollywood: Glamour, Movies, Make-up, 1995) begin with a glimpse of the place in 1975, then whisk us back to 1926 to watch Fred Horowitz finding the spot where he wanted to build his new hotel. Thus commences a dance through the decades. We learn what was going on in Hollywood in general, who was running the hotel (from management to the garage), and, of course, who was staying there—and what they were doing. It seems that just about everyone notable stopped there (sometimes for years), and the authors often organize subsections of chapters by names (always prefixed with a polite “Mr.,” “Miss,” or “Mrs.” (No “Ms.” at the Marmont!) In the 1920s and ’30s, folks like Jean Harlow and Clark Gable were there. And Billy Wilder, Joan Blondell and other performers. Writers liked to hang there, too—including Thornton Wilder, Ben Hecht and Dorothy Parker. Howard Hughes stayed awhile, as did Grace Kelley (hotly pursued by High Noon co-star Gary Cooper). We learn a bit about the swimming pool, too (installed in 1947), and who liked to splash in scant suits. Some of the most shimmering stars were there at times, Garbo and Monroe among them. And some footage for Myra Breckenridge came from the Marmont. The rock era brought wild times, with some rowdy groups trashing their rooms. And, of course, John Belushi died there in 1982. Most chapters feature paragraphs that are little more than lists of names, and there is precious little analysis or reflection—probably superfluous in such a volume.
Frivolous and superficial—but as entertaining as an old B movie on a dreary Saturday afternoon.Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-14-312311-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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
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