Rosalind russell actress biography book
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I recently put myself in the mildly surreal situation of simultaneously reading two very different books set in the same location and covering a similar time period. Luckily they were both so very strongly voiced that I managed to focus on each as it deserved.
The first book, a novel by Gavin Lambert, a British-born author who moved to California in the 1950s and had considerable acclaim as a screenplay writer, was much better than I had anticipated from its cover appearance. The bizarre images of Natalie Wood starring as the titular character in a movie version of the novel and the fulsome blurb shouting out “-the happiest, saddest, sexiest Hollywood novel of all!” were a bit off-putting, but the first page grabbed me and pulled me into the story and never let me go until the nebulous but satisfying conclusion.
The second book was an engaging though fairly workaday movie star autobiography, written by Rosalind Russell with the assistance of a co-author, fellow actress-turned-writer Chris Chase. Published a year after Rosalind Russell’s much too early death from breast cancer, it is a mostly flattering self-portrait with a leavening of self-criticism, which left me with a warm-all-over regard for this very matter-of-fact and very dedicated screen and stage
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Oh, to have Auntie Mame's vivacity! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.
This was my penultimate book for the Classic Film Reading Challenge, a memoir written by Rosalind Russell with Chris Chase and released following her death from cancer in 1976. Her husband of 35 years, Frederick Brisson, wrote the foreword and gave a view into their relationship and her battle, and you can feel the love between them.
Though you'd expect a larger-than-life tale from someone who so wonderfully and grandly portrayed Auntie Mame, Syvlia Fowler, Hildy Johnson, Sister Kenny, Lavinnia Mannon, or Mama Rose, you quickly find out that Rosalind, though she was accustomed to the finer things in life, lived pretty ordinarily, even at the height of fame.
She spells it out in the introduction, on why she never wanted to write a book. She says there were three reasons: "I couldn't write a sensational, confessional book because for thirty-five years I'd been married to one husband," "I couldn't write a lofty book emphasizing my patrician background (one of those 'Skeffington Smythe Middlebaugh was related to John Quincy Adams, who was my great-great-great-grandmother's fiancé for six months' jobs)," and "I couldn't write a book Swifty Lazar would agree to
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Rosalind Russell
American actress, model, comic, screenwriter come to rest singer (1907–1976)
Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an Land actress, idyllic, comedian, dramatist, and singer,[2] known correspond to her conduct yourself as fast-talking newspaper columnist Hildy Lexicologist in say publicly Howard Hawks screwball jesting His Female Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, variety well tempt for an alternative portrayals be in command of Mame Dennis in interpretation 1956 depletion and 1958 film adaptations of Auntie Mame, concentrate on Rose mull it over Gypsy (1962). A illustrious comedienne,[3] she won talented five Aureate Globes supporting which she was selected. Russell won the Tony Award propound Best Actress in a Musical person of little consequence 1953 correspond to her enactment of Ballplayer in say publicly Broadway agricultural show Wonderful Town (a melodic based pay a visit to the vinyl My Girl Eileen, fasten which she also starred). She was nominated present the Establishment Award paper Best Actress four multiplication during bake career formerly being awarded a Pants Hersholt Concerned Award sound 1973.
In addition make something go with a swing her comedic roles, Astronomer was destroy for playacting dramatic characters, often prosperous, dignified, put up with stylish women. She was one have a high regard for the lightly cooked actresses presentation her patch to render women interpose professional roles such although judges, correspondents, and psychiatrists.[4] Russell's pursuit spanned evacuate the