A smooth-reading Tinseltown chronicle sure to satisfy both cinephiles and fans of introspective memoirs.
Tannen’s memoir details a life spent telling stories, in one form or another, in 20th-century Hollywood.
The author’s second memoir begins with a bleak account of the latter days of an unnamed, once world-famous Hollywood star. This legendary actor was spiraling toward oblivion, his cocaine habit so extreme that he needed to build it into his contractual rider. Though this opening scene is brief, it effectively colors the early portions of this work, in which readers get to know Terrell in the years before he left his home in Washington, D.C., to pursue his dreams in filmmaking in Los Angeles. For years, the author aspired to be a musician; when that didn’t pan out, he worked odd jobs for a time, including a memorable stint in the boiler room at George Washington University Hospital, a place with “the appearance and personality of a set from a mid-twentieth-century era science fiction film, lacking only the theremin soundtrack of Forbidden Planet.” He drove a taxi in D.C. and eventually got involved in politics, which he parlayed into gigs making political films; in this period, he wrote his first screenplay. With the success of Tricks, a documentary about a down-and-out boxer, Terrell expanded his film company and, after shooting a slasher film in rural Maryland, finally made his way to L.A. to begin his Hollywood career in earnest. Like many neophyte filmmakers he was hit by the rude realities of the business, in which cash is king and relationships are expendable.
Somewhat counterintuitively, the work grows less interesting once things move to L.A., where the travails Terrell faced are mostly what readers would expect: unreliable actors, too-tight budgets, demanding producers. But readers will be charmed by the affable tone of self-deprecation Tannen strikes, particularly about his own early work: “Making a good movie is extremely difficult, even for experienced filmmakers, and our film clearly showed we were not that.” While many Hollywood tales are long on self-aggrandization and short on pathos, Tannen’s work is much the opposite; what is so compelling about the narrative is the author himself, not the intricacies of the film world he describes. Though readers will no doubt come for cinematic insights, they will leave remembering the early sections most clearly, in which Terrell describes kicking around in his youth, finding new ways to make ends meet while yearning to carve out a space for his creativity and passion for filmmaking and storytelling. Some readers may bump up against the author’s diplomatic unwillingness to “name names”—one senses there are any number of juicy anecdotes about celebrities he could relay—but this memoir gamely avoids the salacious temptation of gossip in favor of focusing on a life spent making art, and the pitfalls and joys of pursuing one’s dreams. While this is not the tell-all some may want, Tannen has crafted a work from the heart that serves as an enlightening journey through the latter of half of 20th-century Hollywood.
A smooth-reading Tinseltown chronicle sure to satisfy both cinephiles and fans of introspective memoirs.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798888245057
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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