The Memory of All that: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, and ParisIn this enchanting memoir, Betsy Blair -- Academy Award-nominated actress and the wife of the great Hollywood dancer Gene Kelly -- tells her story: from teenage dancer in the late thirties, to child-bride of a Hollywood movie star in the forties and fifties, to accomplished actress working in Europe. Sixteen-year-old Blair met then-choreographer Kelly while dancing professionally and was soon swept up in a whirlwind courtship -- he gave her a New York education, complete with Marxist study groups and trips to Harlem's Savoy Theater, before marrying her and whisking her off to Hollywood. She writes about the great times they had as Kelly flew higher and higher among the MGM stars: their famous Saturday night parties, their version of charades, their legendary Sunday afternoon volleyball games. Betsy rejected the Hollywood pattern (no swimming pool or fancy car) and writes of being drawn to the Communist Party, of the coming of the blacklist that brought an end to the optimism of the thirties and forties, and of the terrifying moment when she found her own name on the list. And she makes us understand why she ultimately burst out of the cocoon of her idyllic marriage -- moving to Europe and coming into her own as an actress, winning the Golden Palm at Cannes for Marty, and falling in love with and marrying the director Karel Reisz. |
From inside the book
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... Anatole Litvak was editing his new film , The Snakepit . How he managed to be doing this in Paris , I have no idea , since it was a Twentieth Century - Fox film , shot on the lot in Los Angeles . I had a small but very noticeable part ...
... Anatole Litvak had invited me to the New York premiere of The Snake Pit , because Olivia de Haviland , the star of the film , couldn't come . Gene and I went and sat in a box with Litvak . As the film ended , just before the lights in ...
... Anatole Litvak , who was on the jury , had given me some friendly and knowing grins , but I assumed they meant some- thing like , “ So there you are -- I gave you a small part in The Snake Pit . I recommended you to Orson for Othello ...
Contents
Sydney Chaplin in California 1949 authors collection | 190 |
Lee Gershwin with Oscar Levant Ira and Arthur Freed Photofest | 194 |
With Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans in Kind Lady Photofest | 209 |
Copyright | |
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