Robert J. Wagner

Robert Wagner loves women, and that love shines in his novel about the movie icons of yesteryear. Wagner brings in many fascinating tidbits about each of the actresses, but his style cuts the flow of the story. Many times, I flounder when reading, and wonder which actress Wagner is describing. I learned many lessons while reading the story, and the most important is that becoming an actress in the early days of the cinema was not for the feeble. Wagner brings a humanity and a vulnerability to the actresses.… (altro)

A trip down memory lane. Not that I'm old enough to have been alive when many of these ladies were at the height of their career, but it did trigger memories of a very important time in my life. When I was a preteens and young teen, my younger sister and myself spent nearly every weekend with my grandparents, they spoiled us shamelessly, not so much with things but with their undivided attention and love. Every Saturday, late afternoon my younger sister and grandmother would go to one of my aunts houses to play cards or bunco. I stayed home with my grandfather, by choice, and we would watch the oldies on the television. Remember falling in love with Gene Tierney, Carol Baker and others, my grandfather had a major crush on Maureen O'Hara. Wonderful times.

Love the way this book is divided by decades, what actresses had the most pull in those particular years. Where they came from, what movies they were in, how they were perceived in Hollywood. Robert Wagner, now in his eighties, dated some,, acted with others and of course married a few. While reading this I wondered how he would handle his life with Natalie Wood, never knew they actually married twice. He does address his marriage, her personality but only in a few pages. Her death he addresses not at all, but in fairness this was a book about these amazing women and what they accomplished. So many things I never knew, including the fact that Gene Tierney had a very sad life.

Hollywood today does not have the cache of the old Hollywood. There was so much glamour though to be fair these actresses in this book did many of the same things that are done today but now everything is so much more public, social media and all, that the old mystique is gone. There was no such thing as reality TV stars, think of a world without the Kardashians, if only we could. Anyway, I gulped this one right down and enjoyed every single minute.… (altro)