Last Train to Memphis

Guralnick, Peter. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. New York: Little Brown, 1994. Print

First Sentences:

Vernon Presley was never particularly well regarded in Tupelo. 

He was a man of few words and little ambition, and even in the separate municipality of East Tupelo, where he lived with his family "above the highway," a tiny warren of houses clustered together on five unpaved streets running off the Old Saltillo Road, he was seen as something of a vacant, if good-looking, even handsome, ne'er-do-well.

Description:

Maybe everyone knows the general background of Elvis Presley: poverty-stricken childhood, early influence of gospel music, gift of a used guitar, meteoric rise to fame as a rock singer, army service, Las Vegas fixture, and eventual fall into drugs and early death. 

But the details behind those events and influences are fascinating to learn about. The era he lived in, the people surrounding him, the mechanizations of getting a record on the radio, the frenzy of a live concert, and the loneliness of the life of a superstar are all painstakingly researched and clearly presented in the breath-taking biography by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. 

Incredible as it is to write, this 560-page book is a page-turner, sinking readers deeper and deeper into the details of Presley's life from birth up to his entry into the army and the death of his mother (1935-1958). (Note: This is just the first of a two-book biographical Presley series by Guralnick. The second, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, is a whopping 796 pages covering the last two decades of Elvis' life.)

Elvis was Elvis from an early age. After receiving a guitar for a birthday gift (he's wanted a bike), he picked out a few chords and, by the seventh grade, starting bringing his guitar to school every day and singing at recess. According to a childhood friend, Elvis' clothing choices set him apart as well:

He would wear dress pants to school every day -- everybody else wore jeans, but he wore dress pants. And he would wear a coat and fashion a scarf like an ascot tie, as if he were a movie star...he stood out like a sore thumb.

Of course, his hair was much longer than any other child's and required three different types of hair products to style it just so.

He hung out on Beale Street in Mempis, a predominately Black area full of bars, live music, and clothing shops. He was a student of all kinds of music, especially listening to the gospel songs from nearby tent shows and the melodies from blues singers. Eventually, he combined these two styles, added his famous body twitching, and became a local star in a completely new kind of performance, jumping into the quiet music world of Pat Boone and twangy country western music. 

He started performing any place that would give him a chance. As he described his onstage feeling to one of his steady girlfriends, June Juanico:

It's like your whole body gets goose bumps, but it's not goose bumps. It's not a chill either. It's like a surge of electricity going through you. It's almost like making love, but it's even stronger than that...I don't calm down till two or three hours after I leave the stage. Sometimes I think my heart is going to explode.

Detail after detail about his rise to fame are recounted by author Guralnick, researched from original newspaper articles, promotional playbills, and interviews with hundreds of friends, family, and promoters, giving this bio a compelling, immersion into Elvis's world and the current business of music production. And, of course, it details the resistance he faced.

It was becoming all too clear that rock 'n' roll now served as a lightning rod for a more and more sharply divided society. Denounced from the pulpit, derided in the press, increasingly linked to the race issue, and even subject to congressional hearings, the music was being used to stigmatize a generation.

We read about the girls he almost married, his interactions with radio DJs and recording producers, his solid family life and encompassing love for his mother, the loneliness of the tours, and his first few movies where he played serious roles (with occasional songs). In his early films, Elvis received praise from directors and fellow actors for his honesty, dedication to the craft, desire to learn, and quick memory. Many people remember only his later song-filled quickie films, but his early work was notable, if now forgotten. He knew and was friends with Natalie Wood, Vince Edwards, Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchem, Rita Moreno, and Dennis Hopper. According to Grelun Landon, a music publisher,

He knew what he was doing at all times. I really believe he was like a novelist -- he studied and watched what was going on. It was really just second nature with him.

"Hound Dog," Graceland, Colonel Parker, the army, Beale Street, Sun Records, Ed Sullivan, the Jordanaires, gospel, pink Cadillacs, and screaming fans are all here in this mesmerizing  book, all flowing together as influential roles in Elvis' life. 

What I took away from this book was a new respect for the struggles and perseverance Elvis displayed throughout his life, as well as his genuine humility, honesty, and devotion to his family and religion. During these years, he neither smoked nor drank, called both his mother and current girlfriend every night, was loyal to his original backup group of musicians and singers, and showed a complete mastery of musical production in the recording studio.

I also learned what it was like to take a tour and face screaming fans nightly who threatened to tear you apart out of joy. I finally could understand the need for an accompanying entourage of friends on such a tour, a group who did nothing except remind the star of his normal life, joke around with, eat with, and provide a safe haven with whom to unwind. Never thought about that before.

Yes, this is a long book, with another volume on his later life waiting for you in the wings. But such attention to detail by Guralnik is a worthy reward for picking up this book. He brings an iconic figure to life, with all the trials, triumphs and influencing factors in Elvis' world carefully laid out.

This nice, polite, well-mannered boy became transformed onstage in a manner that seemed to contradict everything that you might discern about his private personality. His energy was fierce; his sense of competitive fire seemed to overwhelm the shy, deferential kid within; every minute he was onstage was like an incendiary explosion.

I was deeply, deeply involved with this book, constantly grabbing at any time I could scrounge up to read it, even if only in small snatches. I fell into the previously unknown (to me) world of music in the 1950's, and  Elvis Presley. Even if you are not a fan, Last Train to Memphis is a revealing look into the earliest years of rock 'n' roll and the people who shaped it. Highly recommended, but please don't be put off by its length. You won't be sorry.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Ronstadt, Linda. Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir 

An absolutely stunning autobiography of Linda Ronstadt that follows her career from singing Spanish songs with family and friends to rock and roll fame, and even singing Gilbert and Sullivan light opera. What a voice she had and what a musical life she led.  (previously reviewed here)

 

Give Me My Father's Body

Harper, Kenn. Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo. New York: Washington Square Press 1986. Print

First Sentences:
 

Qisuk and Nuktqo were at Cape York already when the vessel hove into view. They recognized her from a distance -- it was the Hope again, the same chartered Newfoundland sealer that had come the year before...It was August 1897. This was Robert Peary's fourth expedition to northwestern Greenland, the home of the Polar Eskimos.


Description:

This is the true history of Minik, a Polar Eskimo (this is the author's historic term) who as a child lived alone in New York City at the turn of the century. Brilliantly, heartbreakingly told by Kenn Harper in Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo, this is a book that grabs you immediately for its uniqueness of story, characters, and setting. 

In 1897, Robert Peary, the polar explorer, returned to the United States from his most recent voyage to northwest Greenland. Among other treasures from this failed quest to reach the North Pole, Peary brought with him six Polar Eskimos. He felt these four unique adults and two children would be welcome gifts to be studied by anthropologists at the Museum of Natural History, (although the museum had not asked Peary to bring them any "live specimens"). 

All six Eskimos were scheduled to live in New York City for one season and then be returned to their home on Peary's next voyage. One of these Eskimos was Minik, a six-year-old child who had accompanied his father from Greenland.

Unfortunately, these newcomers almost immediately succumbed to pneumonia. Four died in the first months, including Minik's father. One Eskimo child was able to sail back home safely, but the now-orphaned Minik remained in the city where he spent months living in the museum basement, studied by scientists, and on display to the public. Eventually he was adopted by a wealthy family and began to live a new life of ease in America.

But that idyllic life was brief.

His adopted family became financially ruined. The museum, for their part, could not offer Minik housing or support. Peary did not want to any assume any responsibility for the boy and never communicated with child. Minik's life at a young age became that of an outsider, living on the streets in a foreign land, trying to learn a new language and the ways of Americans, without support from family, friends, or scientists.

Author Harper relates Minik's story in Greenland and New York, using his extensive research into diaries, newspaper articles, museum notes, interviews, and other documents of the day. Harper, who lived in the Arctic for over thirty years and is fluent in those native languages, also provides numerous photos of Minik, his family, museum scientists, and even Peary to better bring the book's narrative to life.

The book's title is taken from Minik's own words in trying to recover his father's skeleton from the museum. He had shockingly noticed that his father's bones were on public display in the museum along with his father's precious kayak, knife, and furs. Minik wanted to recover his father's bones and what were now his own rightful possessions, then return to his home in Greenland for a traditional Eskimo burial. With no cooperation from the museum and almost no ships equipped to sail that far north, Minik was forced to remain for years alone, without his father's remains, in the United States, apart from his true home.

I won't reveal whether Minik ever does return to Greenland. If he did return, one can just imagine what he might find there, what his reception would be, and whether he could even grow to stand the bitter cold of Northern Greenland. You'll just have to read the book to find out.

It's a gripping, fascinating, and deeply personal history of one person struggling to understand his old and new worlds. You won't regret picking it up and immersing yourself into the turn of the century world of exploration and science, and the life of one boy from a far-off land.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kroeber, Theodora. Ishi in Two Worlds.   

True account of Ishi, the last surviving Native American, a genuine Stone Age man, who was found in California in 1911. He had avoided all people outside his region for 40 years until his entire tribe including his family had died. The book chronicles his last years in the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco where he was studied for his fascinating, unique skills, lifestyle, and history. A wonderful, tragic look into humankind's past and survival techniques. 

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini

Posnanski, Joe. The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini. New York: Avid Reader 2019. Print

First Sentences:

"Ladies and gentlemen," Harry Houdini sang, for in those days he did sing. 

Houdini's voice in many ways was more magical than any escape of illusion. 

Description:

I enjoy magic without being a student of it. Love being entertained by illusions without feeling the need to analyze the trick or figure out how I was fooled. 

Therefore, I love magic-themed biographies, historical fiction, and plain old novels rather than books with tell-all expositions of tricks and fakery. This means my favorites include fantastic books like Carter Beats the Devil, The World of Wonders, and The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo.

Well, you can add Joe Posnanski's The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini to my list of wonderful biographies of magicians. Although technically Erich Weiss (aka Harry Houdini) was never a great magician, his is the one name from the world of magic that everyone worldwide knows. Carter, Thurston, Blackstone, Robert-Houdin, and even Doug Henning and David Copperfield are now forgotten or only memories to those who actually saw them perform. But Houdini survives and his name is universally applied to anything involving escape, whether toddlers climbing out of cribs or octopuses slithering out of their tanks. All are "Houdini-like."

Author Posnanski decides to explore every news article, book, film, fact and rumor about Harry Houdini and his fame as an escape artist in the early 20th century. His hope is to cut away the rumors, exaggerations, and outright lies about Houdini and present just the known facts. Most of what we know about Houdini is from primary sources such as newspaper articles, promotional posters, and books of the day. However, most of these were written by Houdini himself, submitted to local media while performing in local theaters. Of course, much of this was simply exaggeration or outright untruths, but the print made him famous.

We learn about his struggles to be a card magician with a few other tricks, performing before small crowds at sideshows, dime museums, and small theaters. But it was his first escape trick, the "Metamorphosis" trunk escape, (purchased from another retiring magician), that the people loved. Houdini was encouraged to drop the magic and concentrate on escapes. Thus emerged highly-publicized escapes from local police cells with handcuffs. Later came the straitjacket, a simpler escape for him but one he dramatized by hanging upside down over rivers or audiences. 

"The secret of showmanship consists not in what you really do, but what the mystery-loving public thinks you do." [Harry Houdini]

Houdini had an insatiable hunger to be the most famous man in the world. Posnanski details this climb to the top and then the ever-increasing pressure to create newer, more dangerous escapes on never-ending tours around the world. En route, Houdini took it upon himself to expose fortune-tellers and mediums he considered fakes duping the public, including his boyhood hero, Robert-Houdin himself. We also learn about the escape-proof Mirror Cuffs specially designed to foil Houdini which they did for agonizing minutes on stage. He did finally master these cuffs, but since that one performance no one has ever been able to open the cuffs without their huge key.

Houdini wanted to bring real danger -- or at least the appearance of real danger -- to magic....The water Torture Cell is more than a magic trick. Houdini understood this. It attacks our inner feelings. It steals our basic needs for air and freedom. It touches something deep inside us today, just as it did one hundred years ago, just as it will one hundred years from now.

Posnanski also interviews current magicians and Houdini scholars to hear their stories and view their collections of Houdini materials and resources, including museums, books and films by Houdini himself, as well as elusive scholarly books that expose his tricks and techniques. Thankfully, Posnanski refuses to reveal any of Houdini's secrets (except for one which he gives readers plenty of opportunity to flip ahead and not read a potential deflating solution to a difficult problem).

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini is a wonderful look at America and its people in the early years of the twentieth century. But it is Houdini himself that still captures the imagination with his larger than life persona, dreams, and exploits. A fascinating book about a unique performer, well worth anyone's time interested in magic, self-promotion, early American life, and the individual who brought to the public all these elements in one glorious package. 

Good magic sneaks up on you and finds the secret passage to the part of you that knows this is bullshit. It sweeps your mental supports out from under you for a moment and reminds you that the essential nature of life is mystery.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Gold, Glen David. Carter Beats the Devil.   

One of my all-time favorite books. Historical fiction about the famous magician Charles Carter, his life and love, and his possible involvement and subsequent disappearance after a performance where President Harding mysteriously died. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

Steinmeyer, Jim The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer  

The incredibly true story of a white man who masqueraded as a mysteriously silent oriental magician his entire career. Wonderfully talented, he died on the stage when an illusion when wrong. Captivating read. (previously reviewed here)

Harold Lloyd (two books)

Vance, Jeffrey and Suzanne Lloyd. Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian. New York: Abrams. 2002. Print

Dardis, Tom. Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. New York: Viking. 1983. Print

First Sentences:

In the Golden Age of silent comedy there were many clowns, but only three great artists -- Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

However, Harold made more films than Chaplin or Keaton, and his films often rivaled Chaplin's and always surpassed Keaton's at the box office.

First Sentences:

Considerable more than half of the silent films produced in America before 1928 no longer exist. 

Entire studio outputs have vanished without a trace....In the early 1930s, millions of feet of film were systematically destroyed by their makers, who believed that there would be no further interest in silent pictures.

Description:

A few months ago Turner Classic Movies TV station ran a day of silent films starring comedian Harold Lloyd. So I recorded them and watched a bunch at my leisure over the next few days. I was slightly familiar with Lloyd's comedies (he was my father's favorite silent star for his everyman persona), and had seen his famous photo of him hanging from a clock face high above the city streets. But I didn't really know the man, his process, his film-making skills, or his reputation to others beyond my father.

Enter two outstanding biographies and cinematic reviews of Harold Lloyd: Jeffrey Vance and Suzanne Lloyd's Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian and Tom Dardis' Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. While both cover the same man, his films, and the earliest days of motion pictures, they are significantly different, each one valuable for gaining perspective and insider information about this comedian.

Lloyd was a comedic film actor in the earliest days of film with brief roles in one-reelers and westerns starting around 1915. Later, he usually played a mousy, bespeckled, boyish-faced man with seemingly unobtainable goals of popularity (Speedy), financial success (A Sailor-Made Man), physical prowess (Safety Last), and always True Love (Girl Shy). In these roles he scaled the outside of tall buildings, walked a pet lion, wildly drove cars, scampered on top of trains and street cars, fought a giant, and became a human tackling dummy along with anything else he and his crew could dream up for a laugh.

The book by Vance and Lloyd (Lloyd's granddaughter), Master Comedian, is an oversized volume chock-a-block with huge, clear photos from sets, films, and Lloyd's personal life. Master Comedian carefully describes each of his films from plot to problems to profits. It is fascinating to read about the early days where everything, including "indoor" scenes was filmed outdoors using natural light (hence the attraction to sunny Southern California and Hollywood) up through the complicated logistics and expense making talking pictures. 

Initially, Lloyd used no scripts, starting with just an idea or two, a setting, a few actors with a camera, and the patience to see what they could catch on film. Lloyd recounted that in the early days they started with one gag, shot it, and then figured out some sort of plot that would make the characters arrive at the scene so they could insert that gag. 

Lloyd was one of the first filmmakers to preview footage on test audiences prior to distribution. Sitting in the back of theaters, he charted where the laughs were and what failed, then edited, re-shot, and added scenes until the film met his (and audiences') expectations.

Throughout Master Comedian there are lovely posed and candid shots of Lloyd, his film crew and actors, as well as his family life. There are stills from his earliest films before he created the "Glass Character" who wore the round tortoise-shell frames who overcame the challenges of love, machines, heights, and bad people. Freed from the costumes of Charlie Chaplin or the Keystone Kops, Lloyd found the glasses were enough to elicit a laugh from audiences.

I liked the glass character because it allowed you to be a human being. It allowed to to be the boy next door or anyone. - Harold Lloyd

Dardis' Man on the Clock, while covering the same man's era and films, focuses more on the details of Lloyd's personal life. Using diaries, conversations, articles, and other primary source records, Dardis offers a very close look at the decisions made by Lloyd, his drive for perfection, his early success and relative failure in the "Talkies," and his relationship with his wife, leading actresses, and other women. Readers even re-live the early publicity shot where Lloyd lit a cigarette with a fake bomb, only to have it actually explode and blow off his thumb and index fingers, narrowing missing blinding or even killing him.

We visit Lloyd's sprawling Beverly Hills estate with tennis and handball courts, Olympic pool, and golf course. Lloyd was a fine athlete who could win at any of these sports, and his skills of running, climbing, falling, and balancing were an integral part his films. Dardis gives attention to Lloyd's family life, from his own father who flipped a coin to determine whether the family would move to the West Coast or New York to Lloyd's long-standing marriage to Mildred, (one of his early leading ladies), and his sixty-five - yes, that's right 65! - Great Dane dogs he bred and raised. Dardis documents Lloyd's huge salaries that reached $10,000 a week in the early 1920's, not counting his 75% of the profits from each film. He cleverly invested his money for when the day when he stopped making films, leaving his heirs a fortune in the millions when he died.

Hal Roach, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Douglas Fairbanks, and all the stars of that era make appearances or are used as a contrast for Lloyd's comedic style and film-making techniques. The early comedy era comes alive under Dardis's detailed eye and the accounts of first-hand experiences.

They are tearing the arms off the chairs and laughing so loudly the organist can't hear himself play - Theater manager, Portland, Oregon, regarding the current Lloyd film. 

Both books are solid reads, with Master Comedian a shorter, glossier look while Man on the Clock a much more in-depth account of Lloyd's life. I highly recommend both books and can't wait to get a few more Harold Lloyd films from the library and watch them with delight.

We embrace Lloyd because he is one of us. An ordinary fellow. dealing with ordinary struggles, losses, and embarrassments. Harold Lloyd with endure as long as we do. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wilson, Victoria.  A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel True: 1907-1940.   

Everything you could possibly want to know about this renowned actress, early films, and juicy background stories of movies and the men and women who made them. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here) 

The Grand Slam

Frost, Mark. The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf New York: Hachette 2004. Print.

First Sentences:

On September 20, 1913, America welcomed a new hero into its sporting pantheon and for the first time the broad middle of the country embraced with curiosity and enthusiasm the exotic game he'd mastered.

Description:

Bobby Jones was not only one of the best golfers ever (and that include Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, and anyone else you can name), he competed his entire career as an amateur. That right, he turned down all prize money for every tourney, contenting himself with trophies and the self-satisfaction of playing the game for the love.

In Mark Frost's engulfing The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf, Jones' career is documented in well-researched details and interesting anecdotes. Jones played during the early 1900s (when golf relatively unknown in America) through the 1930s. In his childhood he was a club-throwing, swearing, self-taught golfer who displayed enough brilliance to regularly beat adults on his home course, East Lake, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Those were the days of clubs with hickory shafts and nicknames like "Calamity Jane" (Jones putter). Courses were such a new phenomenon that A.J. Spaulding hired a consultant to freely advise local cities on course design simply to provide places where the public could purchase and play with his golf equipment. Interest in this new game grew with exhibitions rounds between immortals like Walter Hagen, Harry Varden and Ted Ray. It was such a match played on East Lake course that ten-year-old Jones watched that inspired him to pursue the perfection of golf.

Talent, nerve, a relentless mentality. Not many players had all these weapons in their arsenal.

From his first tournament in 1911 at age nine to his teen years when he flirted with winning  international championships, Jones steadily improved to achieve his ultimate triumph in 1930: winning the four greatest tournaments in the same year. Holding the trophies for the British Open, the British Amateur, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur in the same year was nicknamed "The Grand Slam" and Jones was the first and still the only person to reach that pinnacle

Author Frost carefully details each step along the road to greatness, introducing the major golf tournaments, players, and courses, along with Jones' disappointments and record-breaking low rounds, and information about world figures during the World War I, Prohibition, and the Depression. A sports-mad world made him headline news worldwide and the subject of the biggest ticker tape parades New York City had ever hosted.

Even if you are not a golf fan, Grand Slam is a great read, a fascinating look at the intensity of an athlete to could work and will himself to success under a plethora of conditions, and then step away from the game at the height of his fame. He had a successful career designing golf clubs including the fabled Augusta National Course in Atlanta. He even had a motion picture presence, creating 18 short instructional golf films where he worked with celebrities on a specific shot. HIs films played to movie houses between feature pictures and were wildly popular. 

Grand Slam depicts an era and public just discovering a new sport and its heroes. It was the age of sports coverage by radio and newspaper giants like Grantland Rice, Paul Gallico, and Pop Keeler, Jones' best friend throughout his playing days.

I just couldn't get enough of the details of that age as well as the stroke-by-stroke play of Jones throughout his tournament days. For example, when given the honorary citizenship by the the city of St. Andrews (the only other recipient was Benjamin Franklin), he learned that he now had the ancient rights to "catch rabbits," "dry his washing on the Old Course," and "take divot whenever he pleased." Who can't love details like this that Frost dug up?

During the 1920s [Jones] played an average of only four tournaments a year against full-time professionals, generally practices for only a few weeks to prepare himself, and was still, without argument, the greatest player who ever wore cleats....Bob had played in twenty-one majors championships and won thirteen of them.

Readers are immersed in the era and personality of Bobby Jones and the daily effort required to become a champion ... as well as what that road to greatness takes away from anyone seeking to pursue excellence.

Some may discount his legacy by saying he only played a game, but what he achieved remains in its own right as powerful and permanent an expression of the human longing for perfection as any poem or song or painting. Greatness is rare and a solemn responsibility, and because he offered himself in service to his talent with a strong mind, a committed heart, and every ounce of strength in his being, he deserves a lasting place in our memory.

Amen to that. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hogan, Ben. Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Mdern Fundamentals of Golf  

Simply the best, briefest, and most clear golf instruction book. Period

Yogi, Count. Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf  

Offbeat, clever, but solid, proven tips from golf's self-proclaimed greatest player, Count Yogi. Never heard of him? Well, take a look at this book for the most down-to-earth instruction and biography you ever will read. (previously reviewed here)

Wodehouse, P.G.. The Golf Omnibus: 31 Tales by the Green from the Maser of Comic Fiction: 

The funniest, drollest, and odd-ball golf stories with completely unexpected plots and outcomes, (such as the two men playing a 16-mile long hole in order to win the favor of a girl). Unmatched reading. 

Marilyn Monroe: The Biography

Spoto, Donald. Marilyn Monroe: The Biography. New York: HarperCollins 1993. Print

First Sentences:

Marilyn Monroe's maternal great-grandfather was Tilford Marion Hogan, born 1851 in Illinois to farmer George Hogan and his wife Sarah Owens, not long after their emigration from Kentucky. 

By the age of twelve, Tilford was six feet tall and reed-thin, but strong enough for rough farm labor.

Description:

After recently reading the brilliant novel, Blonde, the fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates, I really wanted to find out the true story of Monroe's life. While Blonde is a highly-detailed, compelling and believable account of the actress' life, it does mix true incidents and people in Monroe's life with events and characters created entirely by Oates. I was curious to separate fact from fiction in the life of this fascinating actress.

So I turned to Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto. Spoto is the respected author of biographies for Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Joan of Arc, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Joan Crawford, and Grace Kelly among others. In this 700-page Monroe biography, he has plenty of space to present data from 35,000 previously sealed files including Monroe's contracts, diaries, poems, and personal letters. Also Spoto digs into numerous interviews with Monroe's professional colleagues, friends, and family as well as explored news and publicity articles. He skilfully shows how each item and person affected her actions and decisions, giving me what I was looking for: the real Norma Jeane Baker/Marilyn Monroe story.

Monroe did have a difficult childhood. Her mother, Gladys, unable to both work and care for a baby, gave little Norma Jeane (the spelling was later changed to "Jean" in homage to Jean Harlow) to an orphanage and later to foster families and distant relatives. After eight years, Gladys reclaimed Norma Jeane, but due to her work hours, first-grade Norma Jeane was often sent alone to movie theaters to spend the day. There she was introduced to Hollywood actors and films, dreaming that someday she would become a star like Jean Harlow.

Monroe's mother was soon after placed in a "rest home" for her depression and schizophrenia where she would spend the rest of her life. Norma Jeane again was placed with foster families and distant relatives from first grade through her high school years. With this background, it isn't hard to understand her lifelong quest for family, security, and acceptance.

Monroe was first noticed in a wartime munitions plant where she worked while her first husband (who she had married at age 16 to escape returning to the orphanage) was at sea. David Conover, a photographer, shooting publicity shots of women in wartime factories, zeroed in on her raw beauty, shooting her and then circulating her image internationally in military magazines. She soon quit her factory job and took up modeling for Conover, shooting cheesecake photos for camera magazines, advertisements, catalogs, and calendars. Her brown hair was bleached blonde to show up better in photos. According to Conover after their first meeting:

There was a luminous quality to her face...a fragility combined with astonishing vibrancy.

From there, it was only a small step to her first screen test for Darryl Zanuck who gave her a small role. The cinematographer, Leon Shamroy, who shot her silent film test recalled:

This girl will be another Harlow! Her natural beauty plus her inferiority complex gave her a look of mystery....This girl had something I hadn't seen since silent pictures. She had a kind of fantastic beauty like Gloria Swanson...and she got sex on a piece of film like Jean Harlow. Every frame of the test radiate sex...she was creating effects visually. She was showing us she could sell emotions in pictures.

A standard contract was signed and her name changed by the studio to "Marilyn Monroe" since MM initials were considered interesting and lucky. And so a career began. 

Spoto carefully tells the details of what follows in her life with the film industry, with celebrities, and with prescription drugs. Her search for love and a child led her to marriages with powerful, confident men like Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Each failed when her needs or his expectations were not met or if they threatened her film career. Her drug life was started and supported by the studios who sent a special doctor to provide her sleeping pills or stimulants whenever something was needed to get her to the set. 

I was also fascinated to hear new insights into Monroe's mysterious death by drug overdose. What Spoto points out is that Monroe and DiMaggio had reconciled from their divorce, and were deep into planning a second marriage. To Spoto, it seems unusual that Monroe would take her own life at a time when friends felt she was happy in her life (after signing to do a new film) and with her future with Joe. Spoto gives no explanation behind her death, but offers several possible scenarios. Nothing was even hinted at regarding any John F. Kennedy connection as was presented by Oates in the fictional Blonde.

I feel both Oates' Blonde and Spoto's Marilyn Monroe are equally fascinating and compelling. The truth of one proves as interesting as the fiction from the other. Reading about the people of the film industry and the incidents behind the creation of movies is compelling, especially when revealing the life of such a complex, troubled, and brilliant star like Marilyn Monroe. Highest recommendation.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Oates, Joyce Carol. Blonde: A Novel  

Fictionalized, but nevertheless riveting account of Monroe's life. Although many of the characters a made up, the actions only imagined by the author, it is a highly engrossing, detailed, and believable re-telling of the people, films, emotions, and life of the famous actress. (previously reviewed here)

Wilson, Victoria. A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940  

Absolutely one of the best books to read for learning about Barbara Stanwyck and her rise to film stardom. Fantastic, details stories behind the movies, stars, and creators of these films as well. (previously reviewed here) 

Blonde

Oates, Joyce Carol. Blonde: A Novel. New York: Ecco 2000. Print

First Sentences: 

There came Death hurtling along the Boulevard in waning sepia light. 

There came Death flying as in a children's cartoon on a heavy unadorned messenger's bicycle. 

There came Death unerring. Death not to be dissuaded. Death-in-a-hurry, Death furiously pedaling. Death carrying a package marked *SPECIAL DELIVERY HANDLE WITH CARE* in a sturdy wire basket behind his seat. 

Description:

I love swimming in the ocean. The feel of the immense power around me, the swells that lift and drop me, waves that pull me out or allow me to ride them to the shore make up a totally encompassing experience. The ocean itself is indifferent, uncaring whether I swim or not; it just exists as it is.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde: A Novel, is an experience similar to swimming in the ocean. This sprawling 700+ page novel is such an engulfing force that rolls along over and around you, allowing you to sense a total power of words, events, and people so rare in fiction. Despite this being a work of fiction, it is an entirely believable "biography," a gripping take on the events and people surrounding the actress Marilyn Monroe. 

In Blonde, there are interactions with real people (John Kennedy, Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's mother, Cass Chaplin and Eddy G. Robinson - the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson), mixed in with fictionalized agents, producers, and studio doctor/drug suppliers whose names, actions, and motivations are completely from the mind of author Oates.

The book rolls on and on, engulfing readers in details, conversations, thoughts, dreams, and disappointments of each character and how they interact with Marilyn. Readers are immersed with the depth and strength of the depictions of even small events, just like swimming in a powerful ocean. Oates' Marilyn (who prefers to be called "Norma Jeane," rather than the studio name, "Marilyn Monroe") finds it increasingly difficult to transition into the movie star persona. She constantly adjusts make-up, clothes, and eventually drug dosages to create the film star character, causing her to be perpetually late for movie scenes and public events that require "Marilyn" rather than Norma Jeane. Only people she allows to be close to her can see her real personality and call her by her preferred name.

How can such a fictionalized biography be a compelling book when Monroe's real life was so compelling? Well, for me the powerful writing, personalities, and action carried me along from one adventure to the next. I suspended disbelief and just turned myself over to the story-teller. From the commitment of Monroe's mother to a mental institution (true) and Marilyn moving into an orphanage (also true, but with new children and events), to her posing for her first nude photo (portrayed as a desperate need for money when in reality it was a conscious choice when cash wasn't a factor), Oates' narration about Monroe are so believably told that it was easy to be absorbed into this world.

You watch as Marilyn tries to break into movies and  earn respect for her acting abilities in order to land starring, intelligent roles. She is constantly studying acting, taking classes from renowned teachers, and expanding her talent to secure a few great roles. But the studio contract forces her to take roles they choose for her, mostly as the funny, beautiful dumb blonde.

And, of course, there are new interpretations of her relationships. Her first marriage at age 15 was to get her out of a house when the foster father started getting eyes for her. Marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, as well as her relationship with John Kennedy are presented as logical pathways in her constant search for a father figure and someone to provide her with children and a family. Her fictionalized relations with Cass and Eddy G were based on freedom, sex and drugs. Oates even offers an interesting scenario where Kennedy's people play a role in her drug overdose death.

Blonde is so thoroughly detailed and logical in its portrayals of characters that it was easy to think this was the real life story of Marilyn Monroe. Being a fictionalized account took nothing away from the fascinating inner and public worlds of this iconic, tragic actress.

But she was a born actress. She was a genius, if you believe in genius. Because Norma didn't have a clue who she was, and she had to fill this emptiness in her. Each time she went out, she had to invent her soul. Other people, we're just empty; maybe in fact everybody's soul is empty, but Norma was the one to know it.

Now I'll have to get a real biography and compare them. Stay tuned  

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Spoto, Donald. Marilyn Monroe: The Biography  

Extensively researched biography into the people and events of the star's live as recounted by the people she knew, actors and directors, letters, films, and writings.