A light, engaging behind-the-scenes Hollywood tale.
A breezy memoir of a publicist’s year on Hollywood movie locations.
Harris enjoyed privileged access to the insular world of Hollywood movie productions, and he puts that experience to effective use in this memoir of his work on movies such as Gladiator (2000) and The Perfect Storm (2000). He also effectively depicts the tensions—and temptations—that came with spending months at a time away from his wife and two children. “This is partly my story, partly the story of all of us—gaffers, grips and go-fers alike—who spend our lives traveling with the circus, cleaning up after the elephants, making movies,” he writes. Harris sees his job as a thankless task requiring the patience of Job as he deals with temperamental actors and scoop-hungry reporters. “[P]ublicity is the department that adds the least apparent contribution to making the movie and is therefore an annoyance to everybody,” he admits. In a breezy, engaging style, he captures both the tedium and glamor of the 1999 shoots he worked on, sharing a steady stream of tidbits about actors and others he encountered in the Moroccan desert, Malta, Toronto, Los Angeles and other locations. There’s a terrified Joaquin Phoenix saying of his role in Gladiator, “I can’t do it. I’m just a kid from Florida”; a crew member warning Harris that Russell Crowe always does “some actory thing where he behaves like [his] character”; and Mark Wahlberg’s manager telling the author to make sure that reporters on the set of The Perfect Storm don’t see the actor’s entourage. Perhaps most poignantly, actress Karen Allen confides to Harris, “I didn't really master my craft until I was nearly 40. And by then I was too old for any of the good roles.” The author is less compelling when chronicling the vicissitudes of his marriage; he admits to infidelity and then, after repeatedly affirming his love for his wife, discloses in the epilogue that they divorced in 2005. Men and women “on the bounding boat of location life...all want someone to come home to and we all secretly fear that the life we leave behind might leave us,” he laments.
A light, engaging behind-the-scenes Hollywood tale.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475032437
Page Count: 364
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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