by Tom Hutchinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2000
A comprehensive look at one of American acting’s neglected Grand Masters.
A serious, if quasi-hagiographic, biography—the first—of the famously powerful and charismatic actor.
British film critic Hutchinson (Horror and Fantasy in the Cinema, not reviewed) is a friend of Steiger’s, and his narrative reflects this—for while he addresses Steiger’s wilderness years and encounters with depression, this is not an unvarnished portrait. What emerges is a sympathetic close look at the actor’s larger-than-life personality and seemingly star-crossed career. Steiger never knew his father and grew up chafing under his increasingly alcoholic mother, then found escape serving on a destroyer in WWII. Drifting into the Civil Service, he joined a drama group to meet girls, then studied acting with Erwin Piscator at the New School; he later was drafted into the Actor’s Studio, where he was schooled in the “Method” of naturalistic, inner-directed acting (regarding which Hutchinson takes a leisurely detour). His professional career took off gradually: roles in television theater (like Paddy Chayefsky’s groundbreaking Marty) led to triumphant films like On the Waterfront—and crucial missteps like Oklahoma (which he felt typecast him as a villain). His personal affinity for Steiger aside, Hutchinson provides telling portraits of a mid-century New York (where television and theater were innovative and infused with talent) and of the reckless creative spirit behind early TV and such films as The Pawnbroker. The author also examines the long period when health and circumstance led Steiger to act in many films that were below the standards of his peak performances, and includes a brief but intense selection of Steiger’s poems and a lengthy interview with Steiger (taken from a 1992 event at the National Film Theatre in London).
A comprehensive look at one of American acting’s neglected Grand Masters.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88064-253-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
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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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