Customer Reviews

Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've always enjoyed watching the films of Farley Granger. And, I always wondered what became of him after he turned his back on Hollywood after a decade in the movies. This book provides the answers and is a very enjoyable reading experience.

What I gained from reading this memoir is that Mr Granger is a man who enjoys the finer things of life. His description of trips he took, parties he attended, people he encountered and even meals he ate is detailed and quite fascinating. He presents a portrait of a professional actor, a man serious about his art and his profession. And, of special interest are his remembrances of three of his most celebrated movies ("Rope", "Strangers On A Train" and "Senso.") For anyone who loves movies, the details of how these films were made will prove entertaining and enlightening.

The book is very readable with plenty of celebrity gossip and details of many famous people that he encountered along the way. Names like Judy Garland, Tyrone Power, Barbara Stanwyck, Shelley Winters and many others are featured. Though all are discussed respectfully, I was pleased that he didn't love everyone with Polly Bergen and Danny Kaye being two co-workers that he didn't care for. Finally, the reasons for turning his back on Hollywood in the mid 1950's and what he did following this is detailed answering the questions I always wondered about concerning Mr Granger.

My recommendation: for anyone who loves movie star biographies this is a very good one, easy to read and entertaining. I would happily recommend it.

Valley Gay Press Book Reviewer: Liz Bradbury
"Count Me Out" by Farley Granger with Robert Calhoun

Farley Granger's detailed and well written autobiography chronicles his journey from Hollywood to the New York stage by way of exciting European cities and early TV theatricals, but it's the people he meets or parties with (or sleeps with) that make this book fascinating. And the honesty about his same-sex experiences, especially in the first half of the book is refreshing. Perhaps he's more veiled in the second half because more of the characters are still alive.

Each of the detailed remembrances sets a scene that makes you feel as though you were there, if you know who the people are he's talking about. Granger dishes on big stars like Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Danny Kaye, and flays the foolishness of studio mogul Sam Goldwyn. But when Granger talks about how interesting it was meeting Kay Medford and Maurice Evans when he was in the navy during the war, and when he mentions bumping into Stella Adler and how she was an important influence in his life, though I happen to know who those people are, I couldn't help but wonder whether those younger than I and with less interest and awareness of the period, would be lost.

Well, so what...this is a book for middle-aged movie queens who live for 1950s Hollywood and New York theater dish. I certainly fit into that category.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that as a teenager -- many years ago -- I was an avid fan of the handsome young actor. And now I'm an even more avid fan of his memoir, which I found impossible to put down! At times, I'd wondered "what ever happened to Farley Granger," as I'm sure many others did, too. In this absolutely fascinating book, we find out just about everything that ever happened to him. It's extremely well-written, with a refreshing lack of vanity -- and although he "tells all" about his bisexuality and the many liaisons he had over the years with famous people, it's done in a non-prurient way. The stories are subtly sexy, much like Mr. Granger's screen persona. The reader will come away feeling that he has really gotten to know this underrated actor -- and happy that he has found his true love, the stage, after the years of working for Sam Goldwyn in some rather underwhelming movies. Bravo, Mr. Granger -- after reading your book, my teenage crush has turned into the real thing!

There's an aging celebrity in Sondheim's musical Follies whose anthem is "I'm Still Here." Well, Farley Granger is one of those stars who we all thought left the party, but he, too, is still here, and he has a new autobiography---more of a series of reminiscences---called Include Me Out to prove it. Written with his long-time partner, Robert Calhoun, the title refers to a Goldwynism, that is, a malapropism created by the legendary movie producer. In Granger's situation, it refers to a decision to get off the Hollywood merry-go-round and go after life, and a level of happiness, that was simply impossible in his day and age in Tinseltown. Although there may be a degree of ingeniousness here (and a major error recounting Boston history), the book is long on charm, anecdotes and fuzzy warmth. And, frankly, there is such a list of sexual congress with such a variety of genders, that one wonders where he found the time for acting. Two minor masterpieces in America (both directed by Hitchcock), Rope and Strangers on a Train, and the truly magnificent Luchino Visconti's Senso, in Italy, should make for the foundation of a spectacular career. Granger was tall, dark and handsome, groomed by several studios, yet he suggests he walked away from it all. His sexuality at the time may well have been a problem, as after his initial explosion of successes, his career dwindled to some truly rotten films in Europe, a fair amount of television guest shots, a couple of less than successful runs at Broadway, and finally, in the soap As the World Turns. There are great anecdotes here, lovingly told, about the likes of Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner, Count Visconti, Danny Kaye, Sam Goldwyn, Eva Le Gallienne (with whom Granger did two national tours) and our own, Julie Harris. Some of the stories ring truer than others, yet the love he has for Calhoun seems genuine, and his long and eventful life makes for fascinating reading of another time and another place.

In ORIGINAL STORY Arthur Laurents describes his homosexual relationship with Farley Granger in a way that indicates that Granger was important to him, but that Granger was very concerned about his public image and was not really willing to live an openly gay life with him. He describes Shelley Winters as Granger's "beard." A decade later, Granger has written his own memoir, but it is a very different kind of book than Laurents's. I suppose that's to be expected since Laurents is a fairly major American playwright of the 20th Century and Granger is a fairly minor movie star of the same period. Granger's book is a rather typical actor's memoir, trying to put a positive spin on a career that must have been frustrating to actually experience. The good thing about Granger's book is that it demonstrates the basic passivity of an actor's life. He never really DOES anything. Things just sort of happen. He starts his career as a movie star in major films like NORTH STAR, ROPE and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and slowly slides to Broadway flops, foreign movies, touring in repertory theatre, episodic television, soap operas and off-Broadway. He has very little control over which direction his career goes. He claims to have had affairs with several screen goddesses along the way, including Ava Gardner, but none of them is alive to refute him. The way he tells it, Shelley Winters was no mere "beard," but a genuinely serious romantic interest who was also a friend. Whatever is true, she comes across as quite a character and I enjoyed all the parts about her. He does mention his affair with Laurents, although his version is somewhat different. He claims that they broke up because he caught Laurents being more than friendly with a delivery boy. I think Laurents's version has more credibility. He also mentions other homosexual relationships, including a fling with Leonard Bernstein. But my feeling here was that there were a lot of omissions and half-truths, not that it really matters. The parts of the book I found most interesting were the sections dealing with making the movie SENSO in Italy with Luchino Visconti and the out-of-town tryout of the ill-fated musical, FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Overall, this is a mildly entertaining memoir and not a bad book for the beach or a long airplane flight.

When I read an autobiography, I like to feel I have come to know and to have enjoyed meeting the author. What did I learn from "Include Me Out? Nothing very much other than (1) apparently Mr. Granger has not had a meal that he has forgotten! You have to search far and wide to find a page on which food and/or drink are not mentioned. (2) He must have a problem with short-term memory, since he keeps repeating himself in this slender volume. For example, he tells a story about Richard Rogers and a deleted song from "Babes In Arms" on page 99 and then repeates the same story on page 205; ditto with a story of Peggy Guggenheim's bequest stipulation that her art collection remain in the city of Venice which first appears on page 148 and then again on page 170. (3) His relationships seem superficial: Although he states "I fell in love with Janice [Rule]...and before long we were making wedding plans." Only four lines later "it was time to move on with our lives and careers, not with married life." Most of his affairs with women seem to be "one night stands" and although an article in the 3/27/07 issue of THE ADVOCATE states that "he has been happily partnered with TV producer Robert Calhoun...for the past 45 years", Farley Granger never identifies himself as gay or describes his relationship to Robert Calhoun [co-author of INCLUDE ME OUT] with any passion. In fact, he leaves the reader with the impression that they are neighbors rather than lovers. Nowhere in the book does he talk about pursuing anyone sexually. Passively, life happens to him, instead. (4) Some of the things he writes about just don't make sense. For example, he describes a restaurant (food again!) in Venice where the gondoliers hung out: "It was for men only...At some point in the evening, different men or groups of men would spontaneously sing opera." (p. 158)..."The singing went on for at least ninety blissful minutes, with duests, solos, quartets, and sextests from Italian operas being sung..."(p.159) Now I ask: What Italian operas have quartets and sextets sung only by men? Mr. Granger lucked-out in being cast in a few--very few--excellent films, but he did not impress me as having any real depth as an actor, and, on the basis of this autobiography, even less so as an author. It is superficaial, banal, boring, and at times even annoying. Save your money. If you're curious to see if it is as bad as I think it is, borrow it from your library.

I felt the words flowed easily and the photos were interesting, but the text was more of "look at me and who I knew" His intimate relations almost seemed platonic and dismissing. He was an important actor and attractive especially to the gay community and one expects more than just the glitter of Hollywood and his friends.

This is one of the very very few autobiographies written by a "movie star" from Hollywood's golden age who is gay, and who actually acknowledges the fact in print.

This was a spectacular opportunity for Farley Granger to tell the world about what it was really like living as a gay (minimally bisexual) movie star in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. This book could have given first-person testimony on what it must have been like for other gay stars such as Tyrone Power, Cary Grant, Laurence Olivier, James Dean, Van Johnson, and Rock Hudson, who were forced to live the lie of being heterosexual in a society which absolutely loathed homosexuality, and which made it a criminal offense, a mental illness, and an abomination before God.

But that is not the book Farley Granger wrote. Farley Granger has instead written an autobiography which is extraordinarily excruciatingly superficial. Page after page, for 244 pages, he talks about what he had for lunch, what hotel he stayed in, and what cities he found nice to visit. Name dropping incessantly, if he met someone famous once, and even if it was only for 5 minutes, he includes it in the book.

Almost all the Hollywood anecdotes that he tells in the book - Judy Garland's breakdown on the set of Annie Get Your Gun, Rita Hayworth's strange behavior due to Alzheimer's disease, Alfred Hitchcock being bored while shooting his movie because he already had everything preplanned - have already been told many times in other books about Hollywood.

Farley Granger offers no insight into any of the famous people he met. He starred in two classic Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, but has nothing at all new to say about Alfred Hitchcock. Is it because Alfred Hitchcock is totally uninteresting, or is it because Farley Granger just wasn't interested in anyone else, or anything other than being pretty.

Farley Granger was a victim of his own delusions of self-importance. He relishes telling stories about how he walked out on people, because he's too good/talented/important/whatever to be wasting his time on them. He walked out on his parents. He walked out on the head of Columbia Pictures Harry Cohn. He walked out on Joan Crawford. And the biggest mistake of his life - he walked out on Samuel Goldwyn. Granger was desperate to get out of his contract with Goldwyn Studios. Success had gone to Farley's head. He thought he was too good for Hollywood. He thought he was too talented. He thought he was a profound artist. He thought he was an actor. He thought his destiny lay in "the theatre". But he was wrong. His success peaked with Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and his career went downhill from there. He walked out on his own success. He was a fool, a sucker who fell for his own inflated Hollywood press-agent created fame. How ironic that he entitled his autobiography INCLUDE ME OUT.

Based on this book I came away with the impression that Farley Granger's life has been empty and meaningless. What kind of human being never loves anyone - in their whole life? Maybe that was Hitchcock's genius to cast him in the particular roles he did.

Not very interesting and as censored as if it had been written in the '60s. I suspect Granger exaggerated his relationships with women and deemphasized his relationships with men. (Arthur Laurents' autobiography Original Story By corroborates that suspicion.) Worthwhile for Hitchcock fans but really quite bland.

There are so many books out there that need to be read that if a particular book doesn't capture my rapt attention within the first 10 pages, I set it aside and move on to the next one in my ever-growing pile of books in the hall. I suppose INCLUDE ME OUT must be one of the good ones...I'm still reading and only have a few pages yet to go.

Only problem is...I'm down to those last few pages and cannot understand what it was about Farley Granger that caused so many great names in the world of the arts to seek him out for dinner, nights out, film roles, parties, talk, and an occasional FITH. I suppose I will need to read the auto-bios of all those mentioned "best friends," "close colleagues," "confidants," and "persons he admires and loves" to determine why he was so well liked by seemingly everyone, so much so that he turned up at all those high-class cultural occasions of the rich and famous without actually being one of the R&F. And why so many of those R&F paid his room and board while he flitted from one venue to another without seeming to contribute so much as a dime.

But Mr. Granger doesn't really let the reader in on what wonderful things he did for others over the years to deserve such appreciation. Perhaps he is only being modest, but I'm sure that becoming a member of the "In" crowd is not as easy as he makes it seem. I'm sure there are those up-and-coming persons in the art crowd would sure like to have a few pointers.

So, I'm off to do Amazon.com searches on all those names in the index of INCLUDE ME OUT. There should be enough reading material there to keep my hall pile growing faster than I can read.