Anne of the Thousand Roles

I took advantage of a recent sale at University of Kentucky Press to pick up a copy of Douglass K. Daniel's Anne Bancroft: A Life, and found it a noteworthy biography of this gifted actress.

As the author discloses in his Acknowledgments, Bancroft's widower, Mel Brooks, and son Max opted not to take part in this book. While that might have it more difficult to fully depict the actress' private life, Daniel does an excellent job of drawing on other interviews and resources, as well as rare photos furnished by her sister. Given ample coverage are the major turning points (so to speak) of Bancroft's career, including The Miracle Worker, and of course The Graduate, the latter a role that would always carry with it a certain amount of baggage along with the recognition. Though I'd already read Patty Duke's extensive account of The Miracle Worker, Daniel provided interesting new details here, including the reason, unrelated to historical accuracy, why Bancroft's character Annie Sullivan sported an Irish brogue.   

Like many performers, Bancroft didn't always have as active and satisfying a career as she might have liked, especially in later years. She also made a conscious choice to step away from her work at times when her family life took precedence. I liked the fact that Daniel didn't reduce everything in Bancroft's life to broad, obvious strokes. Many have thought that her marriage to Mel Brooks just proved that opposites attract, and oversimplified the idea of the intense dramatic actress falling for the guy who never stopped wisecracking. 

Any admirer of this fine actress will find this a worthy and carefully considered account of a life and career that won't be forgotten.

Book Review: Meet Mr. Greenstreet

Author and researcher Derek Sculthorpe is becoming the film noir fan's best friend. In short order, he produced fine books on Brian Donlevy, Van Heflin, and Claire Trevor. Now he's given us The Life and Times of Sydney Greenstreet (BearManor Media).

Tackling this actor's life and career would have scared off a lesser writer. Not only has Greenstreet been dead for more than sixty years, but much of his work was in the inherently transitory world of live theater. Covering only his relatively short film career (where he made his debut after the age of sixty) would have provided an incomplete portrait of the man. But Sculthorpe's painstaking research reveals the actor's rich life on stage, acting alongside giants such as Lunt and Fontanne, before plunging into the late-in-life triumphs of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. 

Sculthorpe's book gets a substantial boost from the participation of the late actor's granddaughter. In addition to granting an interview, she also provided dozens of fascinating photos. Many of the pictures illustrate the actor's career, which covered virtually the entire first half of the 20th century, but there are also one-of-a-kind family photos showing Greenstreet, his wife and his son. The somewhat sad story of Greenstreet's marriage, to a woman ultimately consumed by mental illness, is covered honestly but with respect and taste.

Might as well be frank -- if you love the film classics of the 1940s, you'll want to meet the gentleman whose life is contained between these covers.

NOTE: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Mr. Burr's Birthday

One of television's finest actors, Raymond Burr, was born 100 years ago today. Although he'd enjoyed a successful film career in the 1940s and early 1950s, he reached his pinnacle of fame during his nine-year run as Erle Stanley Gardner's lawyer hero Perry Mason in the popular CBS series (1957-66). No one-hit wonder, he came back in 1967 to star in NBC's Ironside, which kept him busy for another eight years. Until shortly before his death in 1993, Burr continued to reprise his most famous character in highly rated TV-movies, the proceeds from which often went to fund one of his many charitable interests.

Burr deserved a better biography than the one he got in 2008, whose author wasted quite a bit of space and energy making disparaging remarks about the actor's weight, and treating his sexual orientation with minimal respect. But Burr still has plenty of fans who respect both the man and his work. Which is as it should be.

Book Review: The Daniels Playbill

Closing in on his 90th birthday, actor William Daniels looks back on a long and varied career in There I Go Again: How I Came to Be Mr. Feeny, John Adams, Dr. Craig, KITT, and Many Others (Potomac Books). As the book's subtitle acknowledges, many readers will know him best for his work on popular television shows such as St. Elsewhere and Boy Meets World. But as he reveals here, there was much more to his life and career.

I was somewhat familiar with his Broadway career as an adult, including his starring role in 1776. But I didn't know about his start as a child actor, playing one of the Day kids in Life with Father, or about his role in his family's dancing act. Though he nicely satisfies the curiosity of readers who want to know about Dr. Craig and Mr. Feeny, some of this book's best anecdotes relate to other aspects of his career. He reminisces about a film actress of the 1940s who went totally blank during a live television performance, leaving him as her co-star holding the bag. His stories of working with the legendary Jerome Robbins are also noteworthy.

On TV, at least, Daniels often played characters who weren't immediately forthcoming, or likable. In these pages, he gives us an idea how much that persona reflects the real William Daniels, and it's intriguing. He also writes with great love about his wife of more than 65 years, actress Bonnie Bartlett. The result is a book well worth the time of readers interested in 20th century theater, film, and television.