Customer Reviews

Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

William Mann gives us quite a gift in his book "Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star". He paints for us a picture of Hollywood in its hey-day, and in the aftermath of scandal. He allows us insight into the fascinating world of silent films. But mostly, he gives us a long forgotten but much endearing star, Billy Haines.

Prior to reading this book,I knew nothing about Billy Haines and his remarkable career, and I am somewhat of a movie buff. Billy once was an MGM top star, and the #1 Movie Star in 1928, only to give it all away for love. He went on to become one of Hollywood's most respected interior decorators, styling the homes of many stars and even an occasional conservative politician! What makes Billy full of class is not his brief but glorious movie career, but his attitude towards his life and love.

Through Mann's extraordinary research, thorough examination of sources, and testimonials, he brings to us the life of an incredible person. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enojys biographies, or life stories!

For those looking for an introduction to the career of William Haines and for some insights into gay life in the 1920s and 1930s, this book will suffice. But it has as its grounding assumptions several false facts.
1) William Haines was not the biggest moneymaker or the biggest star at MGM in 1930. He was not the Gay Gable. That "fact" is gleaned from one minor poll of distributors and is not reflective of the reality that by 1930 -- even 1929 -- Haines was fading.
2) Haines was fading partly because he was losing his looks -- an odd thing to say about a thirty year old man -- but true. He was getting heavy; he was losing his hair, and he was losing the boyish look that had been the source of his appeal.
3) Anyone who has ever seen a Haines talkie will understand why his career faded. His wiseguy personna did not translate well to the talking screen. He was, in a word, obnoxious. He looked like a big obnoxious stiff.
4) Mann says that changing mores in Hollywood, mores that would soon result in the Hays Code, partly brought about Haines's downfall. Wrong. Haines was already finished by 1932, long before the Code was instituted. And in any case the Code wasn't a product of some kind of consensus within Hollywood. And there could have been no moral re-trenchment in Hollywood, in anticipation of the Code, because in 1932, no one saw it coming. And to know that, all one has to do is watch some 1932 movies.
5) Half the people Mann says were gay weren't.
6) Some of the sex stories are specious, undocumented, seventy-year-old gossip.
7) Haines gayness was a nuisance, so far as MGM was concerned, but if his movies were making money the studio would have kept him indefinitely. He was dropped because his movies were tanking.
There was an honest story to tell here. Haines was a fairly major actor (for about three years). He was gay. He was out. He traveled in an interesting circle. That's all here, too. It's just the connections, the conclusions, the assumptions and the assertions that need to be taken with a bucket of salt.

I bought this book with high hopes, and as much as I hate to say it, I'm disappointed. There is quite a bit of info on William Haines' movie career here, and that is the best part of the book. Sadly, though, I feel the author runs into trouble in three places. First, he tries to give us a lot of context about the Hollywood of the time, but much of what he presents is quoted from other books, nearly all of which I've read and few of which I feel were adequately researched themselves. There is already too much classic-movie "scholarship" based on old press handouts and issues of "Photoplay"; I wish Mann had either dug harder for primary sources or left out material that could not be backed up by more substantive research.
My second quibble is that Mann devotes most of the book to Haines' acting career- which occupied only twelve years of his subject's life- and only a small portion to the decorating career Haines enjoyed for decades after he left the movie business. The info Mann gives on this period is well-researched, but there is not anything like enough of it.
My third reservation is my largest. In 1936, Haines and his lover Jimmie Shields were accused of molesting a young boy in Manhattan Beach, CA. They were run out of town; there was a hearing that ended in a dismissal. Up to a point, Mann seems to have made an admirable effort to get at the facts. Unfortunately, in his zeal to uncover the whole story, Mann found and interviewed the boy, now a retired mayor of Manhattan Beach. The ex-mayor says the molestation DID take place, and that the perpetrator was Jimmie Shields. Mann then does both his readers and his interviewee a grave disservice. Mann asserts that this may be a "false memory" implanted in the boy's mind by the adults involved in the case, saying this is a common phenomenon. Well, yes, it IS- but I think whether that is true in this instance is a determination that should be made by a doctor, not a biographer.
Don't get me wrong- this isn't a terrible book. It's just not the book I hoped it would be, and the section about the Manhattan Beach incident left me cold. Contradicting an interviewee is something a biographer should do only with provable facts in hand.

I looked forward to reading this book on this famous star of Hollywood in the 20s and 30s but the author's credibility went out the window for me by his constant claims that so many of the stars back then were gay. I am sure many were and of course there is no doubt about Haines but I know for a fact the claim that Claudette Colbert "came out" to her friends after her husband's death is completely false. She was straight. Also sincerely doubt Gary Cooper was gay as this writer claims. Unbelievable accusations at other stars makes one wonder just how much truth the author had and just how much "gossip" he decided to pass off as truth since all of the parties in question are dead. Nobody is well served by fiction masquerading as nonfiction and Haines himself deserves better than someone sticking a lot of conjecture into a biography of him.

To Mann's credit, he vividly and amusingly captures Hollywoodland during the early part of this century. Unfortunatly (and admittedly), there is a notable lack of available information when it comes to the life of Billy Haines and Mann is forced to spend much of the book filling in the blanks and making huge speculations (most of which probably aren't too far off the mark). A more satisfying approach might have touched on the secret lives of other gay actors during the silent era.

Williams Haines is perfectly suited as a lens through which to examine life, gay life in particular, in old Hollywood when the silents were king and when they first fell. William J. Mann in Wisecracker (The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star) captures this time with exuberance. The author shows the social scene and fills it out with many, many captivating stars and scandals, gossip and gay parties. Williams Haines was young with the movies and it shows. The added bonus of the book is the long portion of William Haines life during which he was not a movie star. There is an emotional resonance to the last third of the book the deepens the fun of the first two-thirds. A wonderful look at a life lived honestly for its time and the story of a love that survived for decades under all of that honesty.

...of Gay Hollywood"... I enjoyed reading this book. I knew nothing about William Haines's life...And this book tells an interesting story without getting into unnecessary "juicy details", that fill up many other gay people's bios, regardless of whether they are true or not. Nowadays, many authors seem to think that its their duty to write A LOT about sex and to insert every gossip imaginable into every single chapter of their books, when it comes to writing about gay people. I am grateful to Mann for not doing that. Of course, he gives us a fair share of "gay insights" and "outtings" (whether they are true or not, again, it is hard to tell, but none of them is distasteful. He also can not resist the temptation of sounding somewhat "prophetic" and judgemental about gay actors, just like so many other authors do. It is especially obvious, when Mann talkes about Cary Grant. (BY THE WAY, the book says very little about Cary Grant directly in relation to Willaim HAINES, as one of the critics claimed it does). I mean, we do not really get to hear what Haines had to say about Cary Grant ( and about many of his so-called friends, for that matter...). THIS IS WHAT I DID NOT LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK. I realize, that it is a bio, not an autobio, but still...If there was not enough credible material about others, why mention them at all? Why not just talk about the main man, Haines? He seems to have been an interesting enough subject to fill three bio book, not just one. Anyway, despite minor shortcomings, this BOOK IS TASTEFULLY WRITTEN, and that in itself, is an achievement among the endless stream of rubbish that is published today.

Kate: The Woman Who Was HepburnHaving just finished Mann's recent biography of Katharine Hepburn, I decided to read Firecracker about William Haines. Mann's thesis in this book is similar to the one in the Hepburn book. As society changed in its view of sexuality, especially gay sexuality, Hollywood was forced to adapt to stay commercially viable. Hepburn changed and consequently became perhaps the biggest female star in Hollywood history, while Haines refused to compromise and is largely forgotten today.

This thesis is certainly provocative and even counter-intuitive since the 30's are often considered a time when liberals were dominant (i.e. the New Deal). But as Mann points out, overt censorship became a reality in the thirties and Hollywood had to adapt.

I highly recommend book with a few objections. Mann, as he did in the Hepburn book, favors the less than felicitous, and nonstandard, phrase "due to the fact" instead of because when he isn't even citing a fact.

More serious errors are made in fact. For instance, on page 118, Mann writes that there was no income tax. Yet, Mann is writing about the twenties. The 16th amendment that concerns the federal income tax was passed in 1913.

Another example is his portrayal of William Randolph Heart's 75th birthday party in 1938. He lists among the guests Van Johnson, but this inclusion seems unlikely as Johnson's screen debut wasn't until several years later.

He cites a party Joan Crawford threw where Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor were guests. Stanwyck and Taylor were divorced in 1951 and had separated in 1950 so it seems unlikely that they were at Crawford's party, at least together, in the "fifties."


These may be small errors but it makes me wonder did Mann make errors in more important facts related to Haines' life. That said, I still enjoyed the book and look forward to his upcoming bio of Elizabeth Taylor.

I just finished this book and was overwhelmed. Thank you to the author for finally chronicling gay Hollywood in a way that is thorough, fair and accurate. Anyone who says this in an undocumented book is wrong: I knew many of these people, including Mr. Haines and Miss Colbert, and the author is right on. I was staggered by the amount of research he did. The people in this book were wonderful, fascinating, complex people. It is a touching, important story, and deserves to be made into a movie!

This book is very informing and inspiring. I mean, Hollywood "marriages" hardly last a couple of years, but with two couples in this book staying together for over 40 years is proof that marriage whether in Hollywood, CA or Tinytown, Iowa gay or straight can be long lasting and satisfying. Also, Wisecracker gets right into Billy's life with his childhood in Virginia to his life and death in Hollywood you also get info on other stars such as Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, and Cary Grant when and after he was Archie Leach. The reason for not a 5 star rating is because Mr Mann kind of gives you the impression that he is unsure of the information that he is trying to give the reader. But the book is extremely enjoyable and I hope this will bring forth more books and bios about some of Hollywood's Celluloid closet.