Customer Reviews

Sisters

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

 

 

Published in 1984, 'Sisters' tells the real life story of the feud between two sisters who both became oscar winning Hollywood stars. I found it all very interesting to read but was left feeling doubtful as to the accuracy of Mr Higham's information. The book centers mainly on the feud and doesn't go into any great depth about their work. Higham only met de Havilland once in 1965 and Joan Fontaine once in 1977 and on the whole he appears to prefer Joan. Having long been an admirer of de Havilland I was not to keen on the picture Higham painted of her as a quick tempered, overly romantic, egotist. At times it seems Higham is just embellishing to make the story seem more like a 'story' (eg when Olivia, Joan and their Mother scatter their fathers ashes; and as their mother tossed the ashes out 'a strong wind blew them into her face. It was Walter de Havilland's last gesture toward his hated wife') and there are many errors and inconsistencies (eg Higham makes the careless mistake in the opening chapter in saying that Fontaine won her oscar for 'Rebecca' which as any film historian should know is the film she should have won the oscar for but didn't, winning it the following year for 'Suspicion'; and on page 131 Higham describes the plot of one of de Havilland's films and manages to completely confuse it with the plot of a totally different film). I did find the chapter charting the de Havilland ancestry back to Norman times fascinating but all too brief. Still I don't know that whether what Higham writes is all true or not but still I shall wait for the publication of Miss de Havilland's autobiography before I believe too much of what is in this book.

Only until matters are cleared up by Olivia de Havilland--and assuming she will ever finish her autobiography--will we hear her side of the de Havilland story. Joan's "No Bed of Roses" was dismissed by one of her ex-husbands with the comment, "It should have been called 'No Shred of Truth'." And certainly Higham's book contains all kinds of errors, including a jumbled paragraph that attempts to describe the plot of "Hold Back the Dawn" and gets cast and plot mixed up with another film. Nor is he always tactful when characterizing either sister, playing one in an unfavorable light and then reversing his viewpoint with an equally damaging portrait of the other. Finally, it's hard to know just what to believe. Interestingly, Brendan Fraser has bought the screen rights to this novel--lots of luck, Brendan.

This tandem biography of Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland does not serve either actress well. Their stories are entwined with Charles Higham's oddly distant and extremely awkward prose. This is a sorry mess -- biographies in search of a point of view. These are two complicated and talented individuals whose lives intersected with profoundly-innovative people including Howard Hughes, John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis. This should be an engaging read. Instead, Higham seeks to force every detail through the seive of his title and slugline: "Sisters: They were different as night and day, as stars, as women and as savage rivals." Well, then! Mr. Higham dishes up the savage rivalry -- even when the Sisters aren't on the same continent: "...Olivia, who had fought back from illness and deep depression, found herself more over-worked than at any other time in her life. To compound the situation, Joan, because she had had the common sense to turn down They Died with Their Boots On, was vacationing at that time in the South Seas." Well that compounds things alright! Higham confuses points of view, present and past tense and inappropriately inserts himself into the storyline. I give the book two stars -- one for his attempt to tell the interlinking Sister stories and one for the entertainment value of his execution.

I did enjoy this book, which tells you about the lifes of joan fontaine and olivia de havilland. No surprises here at all, the sisters couldn't get on and it was a matter of who would be the most awful towards the other one; still what is funny is that those women are extremely similar and yet couldn't stand one another when indeed they were quite a reflection of one another, physically and mentally.