Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"This was a man.", October 6, 2004
This book, except for the Epilogue, was written in 1983, ten years after Edward G. Robinson's death. The author, Alan Gansberg, therefore had the opportunity to interview a number of key friends and relatives to gain insight into the man, and we are richer for it. Emanuel Goldenberg, aka Edward G. Robinson, was defined by his strong Jewish upbringing and the words of his father, who taught his children to improve themselves and to "Always live beyond your means. It will make you work harder." Robinson took both pieces of advice to heart. He was a life-long learner, a tremendous workhorse, and made the best of every talent he had. In his early efforts to get into acting, he sold himself with the line that he was "not good on face value, but good on stage value." And he delivered, got noticed, and found himself, in 1915, in the play "Under Fire," a war melodrama where Robinson played three different parts. The play opened first in Boston, and Robinson received a glowing review in the "Boston Globe." Shortly thereafter, the play went to New York, and Robinson again got good notices in "Vanity Fair" and "The Theatre Magazine." This was the turning point for Robinson. At 22, he dropped out of CCNY, bought a new wardrobe, and turned his full attention to his new career. And this book takes you through every aspect of that brilliant career, including the awful times of the early 1950s, where Robinson was forced to appear (twice) before HUAC to clear his name against anonymous charges that he was a communist sympathizer and even a Russian spy. Heading up the right wing and enforcing graylisting and blacklisting was the head of the Screen Actors Guild at that time, none other than Ronald Reagan, who knew which way the wind was blowing and made certain his career was never in danger. This book puts Reagan in a bad light as a manipulative, self-serving, self-righteous fellow with little compassion. The consequences of Reagan's indifference to the suffering of his fellow actors are apparent in Robinson's and others' suffering, including that of John Garfield. Robinson, like millions of others, was nothing more than an FDR liberal all his life, and wasn't shy about it. For this he was punished, and, in the Epilogue, Gansberg draws parallels to today's repressive national climate.
I have always enjoyed Edward G. Robinson and am grateful to Turner Classic Movies for broadcasting Robinson movies from his Warner Brother years. Robert Osborne, the host of TCM, mentioned this book at the recent screening of "Larceny, Inc.," a 1942 "flop" that actually is pretty entertaining today, if a bit tiresome.
The book has an excellent Appendix listing all the stage, screen, television, and radio appearances of Robinson. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to read about the life and times of a great actor and a warm, engaged person. Robinson's biggest fault, which he himself admitted, was that he wasn't a great fathter to his troubled son, Manny. That comes across in the book too. "This was a man" is a line from the Antony soliloquy in "Julius Caesar," which Robinson used in his first audition, in 1912, for the Sargent School, later the Academy of Dramatic Arts. The soliloquy describes Robinson himself.
|
|
|
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine Biography, April 11, 2005
Edward G. Robinson seemed tough, but he had a sensitive side too that was most obviously expressed in his love of modern art; his collection of Renoirs alone was for many years the most impressive West of the Mississippi. He was said to have bought a masterpuece every time he made another film for Warner Brothers, to reward himself with some beauty for dipping himself in dreck. And yet Robinson's films still startle with their magnificent energy and passion. They too are works of art every bit as much as his Soutines and his Picassos.
He was not a ladies man in the traditional sense of the term, but as Gansberg's fine biography shows, he was interested in all forms of beauty. And part of the reason he could so well play obsessed characters (such as his films with Joan Bennett in the noir cycle) is that he too was prone to obsession.
The blacklist (or more strictly speaking, the graylist) affected his career badly. For some time offers of employment dried up, even though he was never a Communist or anywhere near it. The mere idea is laughable. Cecil B. De Mille of all people, the director and producer often thought of as a rightwing nut case, was the one who gave Robinson a solid job playing in his own remake of the TEN COMMANDMENTS. No other mogul in Hollywood would have had the balls to cast Robinson so promimently, not at that time when men walked scared of HUAC and its minions. It took a compassionate conservative to restore Robinson to the high echelon of film stardom to which he rightfully belonged.
Robinson's own book, ALL MY YESTERDAYS, was famous for revealing so little about its subject. Author Gansburg gets right down to ground zero with Robinson's psyche, exploring his ups as well as his well chronicled downs. I wish I had been a fly on the wall when Gansburg interviewed some of his many Among his many films, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, THE VIOLENT MEN, SCARLET STREET, SOYLENT GREEN and NIGHTMARE have all undergone recent critical revision, while DOUBLE INDEMNITY< KEY LARGO, and THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW remain American masterpieces of the highest order.
|
|
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 STARS FOR LITTLE CAESAR, December 24, 2008
THE LITTLE CAESAR BIO WAS TOTALY ENJOYABLE, FROM COVER TO COVER. THE AUTHOR DID AN OUTSTANDING JOB OF FOLLOWING HIS CAREER FROM BEGINNING TO END. HE REALLY KEPT YOUR INTEREST THROUGHOUT THE BOOK. CURRENTLY, I'M READING THE BIO ON GEORGE C. SCOTT CALLED''RAGE AND GLORY''. I WAS A BIG FAN OF MR. SCOTT,BUT THE AUTHOR, DAVID SHEWARD, LEFT OUT ONE VERY IMPORTANT FACT. GEORGE C. SCOTT'S HERITAGE.!!! NOW I'VE READ MANY MANY BIOS AND ALL THE AUTHORS OF THESE BIOS ALWAYS, IN THE OPENING PAGES ALWAYS STATE THE SUBJECTS HERITAGE. NOT THIS GUY!! SO I EMAILED THE PUBLISHER TWICE. SO FAR NO RESPONCE. THE PUBLISHER IS APPLAUSE BOOKS. MAYBE YOU CAN FIND OUT HIS HERITAGE AND LET ME KNOW. I WOULD BE MOST CURIOUS TO FIND OUT. I THINK SO FAR I'VE PURCHASED ABOUT 6 OR 7 BOOKS FROM YOU IN THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS. THANKS SO MUCH FOR MAKING THESE WONDERFUL BIOS AVAILIBLE. SINCERELY, FRANK COLLETT TAGLIERI
|
|
|
|
by Stephen D. Youngkin
by John McCabe
by Roger Bryant
by James Cagney
