Customer Reviews

Duty, Honor, Applause: America's Entertainers in World War II

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This book is a wonderful tribute to the classic Hollywood stars who entertained the troops during World War 2. Their are some wonderful stories about classic actresses including Carole Landis, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Betty Hutton, and Lana Turner. This is a very large book and it's filled with rare photos. If you're a fan of the golden age of Hollywood this is a book you'll really enjoy!

In a long ago time, movie stars and other entertainment celebrities didn't consider themselves to be shrewd political geniuses. Instead they believed in their nation and offered their specialized skills to entertain and cheer the troops, help educate the public about the purpose of the war, promoted the sale of war bonds, the conservation of critical raw materials and, in general, behaved as patriotic citizens. More than a few gave up their privileged lifestyles to actually fight in behalf of their country, like Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart did. Can you imagine that today?

In this marvelous work, the authors recount the work of major league entertainers like Bob Hope through lower echelon technicians who helped in the war effort.

The names of the past are legion and probably mostly unknown to today's generation. Betty Grable, Jane Russell, William Wyler. Brave, unselfish men and women who served the nation in a wide variety of roles all throughout the world.

They kept their political views to themselves, didn't threaten to move to France (which would have been inconvenient during WWII) and didn't open their mouths to reveal themselves as incapable of deep political thought.

Richly illustrated, this book may stir the memories of those with memories of the period and, perhaps more importantly, may inform a younger generation that entertainers haven't always been people who hated their nation.

Jerry

Even though I was only a baby during WWII, I grew up watching old movies of a lot of these old stars (most now gone). I especially loved the musicals with entertainers like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Alice Fay, the Andrews Sisters, the big bands. I loved them and still do. I became a big fan of Bob Hope due mainly to the fact that he put entertaining the troops at Christmas as a priority - sometimes even if it meant being "under fire", and often he was. He never tired of entertaining the troops. The book has wonderful pictures - many I had never seen. As Bob would have put it, "thanks for the memories".

I would be the first to admit that it is difficult to write a book with such a large scope without a few problems, but this book has several real drawbacks.

First, there are a plethora of factual errors in it. For instance, Tyrone Power was not trained to fly any airplane called a "DC-13"- no such airplane ever existed. Jason Robards was not on the cruiser Northampton at Pearl Harbor. He himself stated that he was on the USS Utah. We also learn that Robert Ryan "panhandled" for gold before he became an actor. We are told that Ted "Larsen" wrote Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and later in the same caption, it's corrected to "Lawson." Mel Brooks movie "The Producers" wasn't about an insurance scam, it was oversubscribing what was thought to be a certain flop on Broadway. Captured German scientists did not participate in the Manhattan project, and the first nuclear weapon test was not conducted underground. All these are the result of sloppy reseach and almost non-existent editing. If you have to question almost each and every item in a book, there is little point in reading it.

Another problem is the internal referencing. Instead of footnoting where information came from, we instead are presented with phrases such as "As Jack Paar said in I Kid You Not" each time something has been borrowed from another work. It gets really old after a while.

Another problem is that there is a great deal of repetition. The army service of Julius LaRosa was detailed at least three different times, and it wasn't that interesting to begin with. Victor Mature, Jimmy Stewart and particularly Tyrone Power- just to cite a few- receive the same repetitive treatment.

Finally, and sadly, the book has no index! If you are interested in the activities of a certain celebrity, you cannot easily find them.

It's a pricey book- I expected more from it.

This book has a lot of interesting information about the hollywood heroes of yester year. These men and woman were true hero's in every sense of the word. I can't name one hollywood star born in the 70's forward who I would consider a hero. Our current society has created self absorbed people who have no idea of self sacrafice. I am a huge fan of Jimmy Stewart and I never knew he flew B-24's over Germany. I highly recommend this book for people wanting to know about WWII and the hollywood stars who served our country bravely.