Better-than-average celebio of Liza Minnelli, by Leigh (coauthor of Zsa Zsa Gabor's zippy One Lifetime is Not Enough, 1991). Leigh works hard and avoids clichÇs but, in the end, the Liza Minnelli we see on stage or screen is the same Liza who turns up on the page. Aside from a veil over her alleged cocaine addiction (and some alleged lesbian or bisexual activities, which Leigh doesn't dig into aside from revealing the disappointment of the editors and readers of a gay magazine that interviewed Minnelli only to have her remain ``in the closet'' during the entire interview), Liza's public life is her private life. She apparently gives off fabulous vibes but is much like an imploding nova that sucks up energy and confidence from those around her. Leigh's Liza cannot bear loneliness, even for a moment. Her first 30 or more years were spent burying her legendary mother and trying to burn brightly on her own. Much of Liza's childhood was spent as mom to a suicidally nervous Judy Garland. Liza was born into the aristocracy of talent and never knew a commonplace day, with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and other titanic celebrities as her childhood party guests. She was ever the daughter of director Vincente Minnelli, and she sought substitute dads all her life. Liza made her best picture (Cabaret) too young, winning an Oscar for it, and then couldn't top herself on film—but of course became a magnificent presence and in her late 30s toured with her old houseguests Sinatra & Davis. Though Liza has no gift for marital fidelity, Leigh resists ``dirt'' and lets Liza's decades of wild partying speak for themselves via fellow partygoers. At last, Liza made the circuit of famous rehabs and A.A., and today, at 45, is sober—and brighter than ever on stage. Absorbing all the way, but remains well within its genre. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos.) (First serial to Cosmopolitan)
Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93515-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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