Customer Reviews

Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Don't think that you'll figure out the paradox that was Russ Columbo when you've finished this book. What you will take from it, though, is a revealing though not always flattering portrait, done (at times overdone) in art-moderne light and shadow, of a singular singer and the show business that made him. It's all the more engrossing because it takes place in an era whose popular and musical culture have faded from living memory, yet haven't quite made it into the collective unconscious.

You kind of can't blame them, given the likely readership for a book about a long-forgotten tragic pop idol, but the authors do rather overindulge their homoerotic musings in detailing Russ' closeness with Lansing Brown, the friend who caused the freak accident that took Russ' life. More to the heart of the man, I think, are the head-over-heels, heart-on-sleeve yearnings for legendary sex symbols Pola Negri and Carole Lombard. One wonders if it was Russ' destiny to worship goddesses, inevitably to be dropped like a mere mortal. He never sang songs about the "girl next door," anyway...

Columbo was no Sinatra, let alone an Einstein, but his very opaqueness and vanity is fascinating in its own right. As musician, Italian-American, media craze, or hopeless romantic, Russ Columbo rewards your getting to know him.

A wonderful portrait of the dashing, romantic Columbo. Virtually forgotten for the last half-century, Columbo was as popular as Bing Crosby in the early 1930s and considered a heart-throb on a par with actor Rudolph Valentino. But at age 26, he was shot and killed by his best friend in a freak accident, ending one of the most promising careers in music and film. Columbo was the archetypal 1930s "crooner," who gave "an impression of emotional restraint, of power in reserve." Despite the co-author credit, the book was in fact written by Lanza, a master wordsmith (and author of Elevator Music, The Cocktail, and Gravity). Penna supplied the copious archival photographs, letters and news clippings that beautifully augment the text. Lanza, who calls Columbo "an enigma wrapped inside a press release," treats his subject with respect, yet with a proper historical detachment that avoids hagiography. Columbo was as talented and charismatic as he was troubled, flawed, ambivalent, and stubborn, and Lanza makes no excuses for him. At the same time, the chronology is authoritative, and there's abundant humor, even when considering Columbo's inner torment (referring to Columbo's pet name for his adored Carole Lombard, Lanza refers to the singer's despair at not getting enough "quality Pookie time"). Lanza describing Columbo emerging from a swimming pool: "...a sight no less mythical than Venus rising from her half-shell. His dark eyes sparkled as the refracted sunlight grafted a halo around his wet hair, the water pouring like pearls of amniotic effluvia from a chlorinated incubator." Such vivid images tantalize on every page, but the book never bogs down in literary preciousness; it represents solid, well-researched journalism. Columbo's love letters to Lombard are revealing in their pathetic desperation, demonstrating that the adoration of a million wistful female fans cannot allay unrequited passion. An excellent read, and the cast of characters are richly drawn.

Of the four books written about the singer, Russ Columbo, in the past 4 years (with yet one more scheduled for release in 2005), this scrupulously-researched, well-written book by Joseph Lanza and Dennis Penna remains at the head of the pack as far as giving us a window into this very enigmatic, short-lived romantic figure, Russ Columbo. Not only is it packed with previously unknown facts about a performer about whom very little was actually documented, the writers were able to piece together the chronology of Columbo's brief life, especially his seemingly torturous romances with Pola Negri, Hannah Williams, Dorothy Dell and Carole Lombard, having access to some of the meager personal effects left by Columbo upon his death in 1934 at age 26 (letters, telegrams, etc.). The book goes a long way toward helping to properly place Russ Columbo as much more than a "Bing-impersonator"--a place he has been undeservedly relegated to by the few who remember him at all. As a reference work, the indexes and annotations at the end of the book are excellent, and serve as a most reliable "source material" regarding Columbo's films, radio work and recordings. Some of the photos in the book (including the stunning cover photo) are jaw-droppingly rare and amazing. All-in-all, the book paints an accurate, appealing and ultimately, wistfully sad portrait of a "beautiful dreamer" who was tragically lost far too soon. I very highly recommend this book, though one is inevitably left with a real sense of loss, and the biggest question of all: "What might have been?" We'll never know---but Lanza and Penna's top-drawer biography is as close as we'll get in unravelling the now-mythical figure that was Russ Columbo.

Definitely brings this neglected singer and mysterious show biz legend into the third dimension. It not only tells more than I ever hoped to know about the man but also takes it to another creative level which could have been a disaster, but in fact works very well. The graphics and overall design of the book are also superior. Its an amazing yarn and a wonderful introduction to this underated musician. Highly recommended

Never thought I'd recommend a book published by "FERAL HOUSE," but that's not the only kooky thing connected to RUSS COLUMBO AND THE CROONER MYSTIQUE. The materials on which the authors based their book are very thorough, but no one is ever going to give Russ Columbo the Stephen hawking award for brains, so page after page of his intimate correspondence, and that of his brain-dead pals, palls after a little while. The photos are great and seem to prove the long-vaunted notion that at some point in his career, perhaps to improve his chances with Indiana-born Carole Lombard, Columbo endured a primitive nose-job of the Gertrude Atheron style. There are two kinds of people, and one of them is the kind that will love this biography to death, and the other kind will prefer to appreciate it, and its James-Ellroyisms, at a safe distance. Kudos to its authors, who dared to sail into the mind of a shallow man for quite a long time.

It's hard to find one's way through the overwritten prose in this disappointing biography. Here's a sample:

"Some crooners belched romantic perfume but slyly alluded to a gamy climax, but Columbo celebrated the maddening energy of protracted foreplay." (p. 90)

That's just a sample; the book's loaded with more purple prose. Lou Miano's book is better but I think the definite Columbo biography hasn't yet been written.

READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE THE 20S , 30S, HOLLYWOOD AND MUSIC. COLUMBO HAD A NICE PERSONA AND VOICE BUT HE WAS ONLY A CROSBY RIVAL FOR A SHORT TIME AND BY THE TIME OF HIS TRAGIC DEATH HE WAS NEVER GOING TO BE ANY BIGGER AND WAS ON A DOWN HILL SLIDE. HE WAS NO LONGER ANYWHERE NEAR A RIVAL OF BINGS.COLUMBOS TYPE AND HIS SONG STYLE WAS OUT AND HIS PICTURE WORK WAS NIL.HE WAS GOING OUT LIKE VALENTINO, AMERICA AND ITS TASTES HAD CHANGE. CROSBY WAS HIS FRIEND AND A PALLBEARER.I HAVE READ MANY BOOKS AND POLICE REPORTS AND THIS WAS A TRAGIC MISTAKE. HE AND THIS BROWN WERE MORE THAN PROBABLY LOVERS AND HIS SUPPOSED LOVE WITH LOMBARD WAS A BEARD FOR HIS TRUE SEXUAL LEANINGS BECAUSE SHE WAS A GOOD FRIEND.THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ SO COLUMBO ISNT FORGOTTEN BECAUSE HE WAS A PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC.HE WAS NEVER GOING TO BE ON A LEVEL WITH BING OR LATER FRANK, DEAN, OR PERRY BUT FEW ARE.READ THIS BOOK.

The cover sports one of the worst picures of Columbo available to the author. almost as bad as the one on the cover of RCA's Legendary performers album.That picture can be found on page 108 of the book.While there are many interesting pictures, anticdotes and some facts the pseudo-analysis plus the innuendos about Columbos romances etc. gives a tabloidish air to what could have been a better book.It does not compare with Lou Miano's "The amazing life and mysterious death of a hollywood singing legend."

For some reason, this book got ordered instead of the one I really wanted. When I contacted Amazon about the problem it was handled with the utmost professionalism. I returned the book and was sent the one I really ordered. A pleasant exchange.