What are you reading?

[dreamer]

Forgot this. Judy, you just reminded me of it. And as I don't know how know it is I want to share it.

MD could of course have personal contact to people one to one. A very special friend of hers Hildegard Knef, has more than once thanked MD for her kindness. Knef is a famous German actress, entertainer and writer. She looked up to her. MD did - if I remember right - more than once stand in the airport to receive Knef when she came. She was the one who took care of Knef as she back in 48 ? arrived in US. And Knef as MD came to Germany. Knef is know in Europe to have steeped in Marlene's footsteps. They were very fond of each other as friends.

Sadly she was also not allowed to see her since 1979 in Paris. Which Knef has regretted more than once on TV. It made her very sad that she locked her self away, the way she did.

And yes she is the total opposite of Kate. Kate aged with grace.

In Riva's book she asked Maria if she knew who had called - a game they had - and she always hoped that Kate would call. She adored Kate because of how she was to-wards Spencer, guessing a bit envious as well. But of course Kate never phoned - as Riva wrote.

[Judy]

dreamer said:

Forgot this. Judy, you just reminded me of it. And as I don't know how know it is I want to share it.

MD could of course have personal contact to people one to one. A very special friend of hers Hildegard Knef, has more than once thanked MD for her kindness. Knef is a famous German actress, entertainer and writer. She looked up to her. MD did - if I remember right - more than once stand in the airport to receive Knef when she came. She was the one who took care of Knef as she back in 48 ? arrived in US. And Knef as MD came to Germany. Knef is know in Europe to have steeped in Marlene's footsteps. They were very fond of each other as friends.

Sadly she was also not allowed to she her since 1979 in Paris. Which Knef has regretted more than once on TV. It made her very sad that she locked her self away, the way she did.

And yes she is the total opposite of Kate. Kate aged with grace.

In Riva's book she asked Maria if she knew who had called - a game they had - and she always hoped that Kate would call. She adored Kate because of how she was to-wards Spencer, guessing a bit envious as well. But of course Kate never phoned - as Riva wrote.

Well, yes. She DID have friends. Billy Wilder spoke about her very affectionately. And, of course, there was Knef and others....Just seemed like a sad life at the end. The reclusiveness was sad.

[Richard]

I don't remember reading about this Hildegard Knef in Riva's book. Is there another book on Dietrich that mentions their relationship?

Good point, Judy, about her commitment with the troops during WWII. I consider those years to be one of the most mattering of her life and can't believe I forgot all about it.

[dreamer]

Not, that I'm aware of Richard - what I refereed to was interviews which Knef gave and footage, which was aired as Knef died 2002.

It is a curious thing, both Knef and Dietrich became US citizens, but where not very popular in Germany. Although they are very proud of them both being born there, maybe because they at some point (because of their career) turned Germany the back.

Knef managed to become popular again but first in the last decade of her life or so. Her daughter Christina called Tinta lives in Los Angles today. I believe, she has never lived in Europe.

[Shaun]

Well about a week ago I finished reading it--the book by William Mann that is. I found it at Borders for $24, marked down from 30 and with my Borders Rewards card I got another $11 off. Don't buy this book unless you find it for over 50% off like I did. Even then it isn't worth a cent.

Right off the bat he gives no impression of appreciating her as an actress (strike one); he even goes so far as to call one of her performances "hysterically bad." It seems to me he only likes her work from the 30s. From what I can gather from Mann, he sees KH's 40s work as her selling out, her 50s work as KH playing only batty spinsters, and every thing post Lion in Winter shows Hepburn completely abandoning her identity and becoming conservative in order to sell a movie. It's really quite disgusting.

He delves so far into the lives of people like Alice Palache that it becomes tiresome. I don't care what Palache's parents did for a living. From chapter one he's on a mission to out Hepburn as a lesbian and he belabors the point over and over and over. He spends so much time talking about KH's relationships with women that it's jarring when he gets to her career, which doesn't come until nearly halfway through this bloated biography. He spends little to no time discussing her films. It really is a lopsided telling of Katharine Hepburn's life.

Mann comes across as a really pompous man. He paints Hepburn as a coniving old shrew who had a hand in every thing that was written about her while she was living and that only his book was free from her omnipresence and that it should be seen as the definitive Hepburn biography. Pfff. I can't imagine anyone seeing this hack job as the definitive book the Great Kate. She deserves MUCH better.

[Richard]

I'm convinced again, now I'm NEVER gonna read that book!

[Cate]

I'm reading Capital by Karl Marx. YAY MARXISM!

[Shaun]

Listen up. I've been reading a book about the Hollywood studio system I think you all would love.

The Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz.
I'm crazy about this book! Schatz does a superb job of tracing the roots of the system, beginning with the settlement of Hollywood by filmmakers, through the roaring twenties and depression, and then through the war years. This book is really a tribute to those who made Hollywood tick, men like LB Mayer, Thalberg, Selznick, and Jack Warner among others. He focuses on three studios in particular--MGM, Warners, and Universal--and the few studios Selznick worked for, (RKO to name one) leading up to the one he formed in the 30s, Selznick International Pictures. To give the reader a good idea of how the system worked, Schatz follows the development of a few choice films (Rebecca, Notorious, etc.) from early script treatments to release. For those of you taking film classes in college--Amber and Richard--this book should be required reading. If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and READ THIS BOOK.

The Kate connection:
Though Schatz does mention things like Woman of the Year (though not in much detail), the Kate connection I found most interesting had to do with Rebecca. In early stages of script development for the film, Alfred Hitchcock had plans to fashion the main character to be suitable to someone like Hepburn or Margaret Sullavan. Joan Fontaine got the role as we all know, but can you imagine Kate working with Hitchcock? Too bad that pairing never occurred.

Pimping the book:
amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-5350026-5995866?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+genius+of+the+system

[Richard]

You've got my heart racing! I'll be sure to make this book a priority purchase Shaun.

[dreamer]

Just finished Conversations with Joan Crawford by Roy Newquist - am now reading The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine. The first book was really great - reading The Divine Feud I'm split.

Sometimes it is as if your are reading one of those trash magazines and then again he comes up with facts never heard of. He too mentions Kate - she he does not trash but mentions that she together with Bette, Lucille Ball, Joan Blondell and Paul Mundi studied directions under George Arliss and movement and dance with Martha Graham. If it is true ??

Then he mentions a party that Joan was giving and that Kate and Spencer was there too. I doubt that they went to a party at Joan's house not because of Joan but as far I'm aware of they hardly never went out together - especially to a house which got everything covered by the press. So at that point I'm suspicious.

Then he mentions that Bette said that BD was her real daughter in front of her other children. Wauh that got me awake - not as bad as a certain Kate writer but it comes close. He handles those two actresses as if they were Britney and Paris from yesterday. They sure were more.

[Richard]

When I'm on campus waiting for my classes to start I spend most of my time in the library, particularly in the film section.

Has anyone read "The Men Who Made The Movies" by Richard Schickel? It features eight interviews from some of the most popular directors of the time: Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Vincente Minnelli, King Vidor, William A. Wellman, and Alfred Hitchcock. It's a really good book, generally because of the insightful information and candid stories these directors share for the audience. I'm not finished with it yet; currently reading the Hitchcock interview and I still need to read Vidor's and Wellman's. Anyway, of them all, I especially enjoyed the Walsh interview. He is very funny and has some great anecdotes to tell about the experiences with such actors like Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, and George Raft. Bogart complains about the heat during the making of High Sierra and-- Do you want to know how Duke Wayne became an actor? Well, Walsh will tell you.

It's a really good book, which I don't believe is in circulation anymore. But you might be able to find a copy of it somewhere online.

[Judy]

richard said:

When I'm on campus waiting for my classes to start I spend most of my time in the library, particularly in the film section.

Has anyone read "The Men Who Made The Movies" by Richard Schickel? It features eight interviews from some of the most popular directors of the time: Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Vincente Minnelli, King Vidor, William A. Wellman, and Alfred Hitchcock. It's a really good book, generally because of the insightful information and candid stories these directors share for the audience. I'm not finished with it yet; currently reading the Hitchcock interview and I still need to read Vidor's and Wellman's. Anyway, of them all, I especially enjoyed the Walsh interview. He is very funny and has some great anecdotes to tell about the experiences with such actors like Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, and George Raft. Bogart complains about the heat during the making of High Sierra and-- Do you want to know how Duke Wayne became an actor? Well, Walsh will tell you.

It's a really good book, which I don't believe is in circulation anymore. But you might be able to find a copy of it somewhere online.

Hi Richard,

You bring back memories of reading this book when it first was published (I have a copy on my shelf). In addition to the book, each subject had a documentary made about them by Schickel. They aired on PBS, I think, about a thousand years ago. I think that somewhere I even have a pressbook about the series....He updated a few of them. I could be mistaken, but I think TCM has shown some of the updates - I believe that much of the stuff in the ON CUKOR documentary was taken from Shickel's original Men Who Made the Movies docu on him.

Judy

[Richard]

I just finished reading "The Blue Angel" by Donald Spoto, a biography about Marlene Dietrich. This book was published the year MD died, with Riva's book not reaching publication until 1994.

Firstly, it would be a little unfair to compare this book with the aforementioned, because for one thing Riva's book is really more of a biographical memoir recounted by a living descendant as opposed to an outsider, someone like Donald Spoto, which is so often the case with writers and biographies. But I was slightly put off at how much information I believed could have been meaningful to the reader was actually disregarded, and if they weren't so much ignored, they were those that could have been discussed in better detail. Bearing in mind that Riva's book was most likely a landmark biography, and consisted of facts that the public probably knew nothing about until its publication, the Yul Brynner affair, for example, is almost completely omitted. Now, according to Riva, their romance was pretty intense, and it went on for a good number of years. Spoto doesn't give us this impression, but rather is left to the reader to assume that what they had was a brief fling.

In some instances, Spoto goes on and on about what he believes is the motivation behind the Dietrich image, and often tries to establish, by analysis of her early films with von Sternberg, the likeness of her roles as well as the comparing and contrasting (although there seems to be more comparing). Believe me, this grows tiresome. In addition, something mentioned in greater detail which was more or less neglected in Riva's book was the John Wayne relationship. Riva, I recall, barely touches on this affair while Spoto goes into considerable detail. But something does seem questionable. If there is anything accurate in what Spoto says, and he says a lot about the two; about how Wayne would escort Dietrich to various restaurants and nightclubs; about how Dietrich would allow, in addition to Wayne, the company of two or three men (often current or former lovers) to escort her to different hot spots around Los Angeles and Beverly Hills as means to throw off the press into believing Wayne and Dietrich had only a platonic relationship. I find it a little odd that there is no photo of the two (none to my knowledge) at such places, besides the obvious publicity shots for their films and the occasional on-set photos. I'm not by any means saying that the Wayne-Dietrich affair is made up, but Spoto if I remember correctly calls their liaison "brief but intense", and you might after all these years, given their celebrity status, expect some kind of photographic prove.

I have to be honest, I didn't really enjoy reading this. There was plenty of information rehased from my memory of the Riva book, but Spoto's writing style doesn't make this book an easy read. It was frustrating. It can be said that Marlene Dietrich had a pretty lengthy life, and she did a hell of a lot; but Spoto was very brief in telling MD's life story compared to Riva.

On a side note, Donald Spoto at one point writes that Marlene Dietrich was left somewhat grief stricken after hearing about the death of her "buddy" Carole Lombard on Jan. 11th, this is actually untrue according to Riva. Spoto even records Lombard's death date as Jan. 11th, when it fact she was killed on Jan. 16th, that's a five day difference! Something as well-documented as the death of Carole Lombard, not to mention 50 years after the fact, there is really no excuse for Spoto to get this wrong. That's shoddy work. It almost makes you wonder what other little mistakes the author has committed.

I can't recommend this book to anyone.

[Shaun]

I finished Mother Goddam by Whitney Stine, a Davis biography, a couple of days ago. It had very little information about her personal life. Actually, it began with her first contract at Universal. It completely skipped her childhood and her early Broadway plays. I'm not complaining. The career of Bette Davis is enough to keep anyone interested. The best part about the book though was the running commentary by Bette herself. It wasn't bitchy gossip but instead very interesting info about her career from the person who knows best--La Davis.

[Richard]

I must say I'm thoroughly enjoying the Kanin book. But what were Kate's thoughts on this, anybody know?