Elizabeth Taylor: A Passion for Life by Joseph Papa

Elizabeth Taylor: A Passion for Life
The Wit and Wisdom of a Legend
by Joseph Papa
Harper Design
April 2011
9780062008398
Hardcover $16.99

My motto has always been to be true to myself, whether it pleases others or not. - Elizabeth Taylor

Compiled by Richmond native and NYC publicist and writer Joseph Papa this book is a collection of quotations as spoken or written by Dame Elizabeth Taylor herself. But this book is more than just a book of quotations. It's a way for us to understand actress Elizabeth Taylor, the passionate, talented, charming and oftentimes mysterious woman who shuffled off her mortal coil earlier this year. Taylor has always been a bit of a conundrum to me and I'm sure this is the case for many other folks too. Why did she marry so many times? Why was she so devoted to men? Why did she make those life and career choices that she did? Why all the jewels? Why?

This book presents us with an opportunity to come to understand Elizabeth Taylor and for her (through the author) to show us who she really was in her own words.

I'm surprised how much I learned about Elizabeth Taylor just by reading quotes! Joseph Papa arranges the quotations in different themed chapters including: Childhood, Acting, Marriage, Motherhood, Self, Beauty & Aging, Extravagances, Giving Back and Life. The most important thing I learned about Elizabeth Taylor was that she was an incredibly passionate woman. She had a passion for life, for men, for food, for her kids and being a mom, for jewels and for her friends. And sometimes there is a price to pay for having passion. You can alienate others and if you are not careful you can put your own life on a path of self-destruction. As a passionate person myself, I know how much peril passion can put a person into. It's not something you can contain and its manageable through restrictions made upon you by yourself or outside forces of which you have no control. Taylor had a life of luxury, celebrity and lots of personal freedom which allowed her passion to drive her life and her choices. Now this may seem a lot to get out of the book and while I don't think this is the message Joseph Papa was trying to get across this is what I could identify with. And I think other readers might be able to find something, some quote (or quotes) from Elizabeth Taylor's own words to apply to their own lives.

Pick up this book if you are an Elizabeth Taylor fan, a confused admirer, a passionate person or you just have a curious mind. It also makes a great gift for the classic film fan who may not want to dive into a dense biography but could get a lot out of a collection of great quotes.

I haven’t had a quiet life. I’ve lived dangerously. Sometimes disaster has come at me like a train. There have been times when I’ve almost drunk myself to death. I’ve been in situations where I was perilously close to killing myself. I’ve almost died several times. Yet some instinct, some inner force, has always saved me, dragging me back just as the train whooshed past. – Elizabeth Taylor

Buster Keaton and Live Musical Accompaniment at the Somerville Theater

A coworker mentioned to me back in May that the Somerville Theater was showcasing a Buster Keaton film festival. I thought she may have confused that with the Charlie Chaplin festival they were having. I put it out of my mind until I saw something in a local town blog about the Somerville Theater showing 2 Buster Keaton shorts and 1 full-length film along with live musical accompaniment. WHAT?! And I had missed a similar showing on June 5th in which one of the shorts was my FAVORITE BUSTER KEATON SHORT EVER, The Scarecrow (1920). Well there was no way I was going to miss this new opportunity, so on a gorgeous Sunday evening, Carlos and I head out to Somerville to enjoy some Buster Keaton.

The films screened were Neighbors (1920), The Goat (1921) and Seven Chances (1925). We got to see these Buster Keaton films the way they were meant to be seen. And how is that exactly? The scenerio fit the following criteria:

1.) 35 mm print
2.) original Thomas Edison aspect ratio of 1:37:1
3.) in a theater that was around during the Buster Keaton era
4.) live musical accompaniment
5.) an enthusiastic and lively crowd that laughs at the real humor

 

The musician was Jeff Rapsis, a silent film accompanist and composer who travels all over the northern parts of New England performing and screening silent films in theaters. Lucky for us, he traveled further south to the Boston area to perform at the Somerville Theater. Boston is a classic film loving town so of course he was welcomed with open arms. Rapsis improvises his music. He has an idea of what he's going to play but nothing is written down. He reacts to the film and to the audience. After the screening, he told a few of us that sometimes he'll play very quiet music or none at all to get the audience to wake up and pay attention to what's going on in the film. Rapsis demonstrated a genuine love for silent films and encouraged the audience to react to the film. When the first film, Neighbors (1920), played the audience immediately erupted into laughter. Rapsis plays on a keyboard and will switch between different instrumental sounds. So at times it sounded like a full orchestra and at other it's was just organ music. I love how Rapsis played variations of the Wedding Theme in various points in Seven Chances.

Neighbors (1920) - This was Carlos' favorite film of the three and my least favorite. I enjoyed it but not as much as the other two. Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox are in love with each other and want to marry but her dad, Joe Roberts (Fatty Arbuckle's replacement) is opposed. Keaton's real-life dad Joe Keaton plays his on screen dad and they have a hilarious scene together where Buster's head is stuck in mud and Joe tries to pull him out much to Joe Roberts' amusement. I particularly loved the scene at the end with Buster standing over two other men in a three-person tower and they go back and forth across the tenement yard. Hilarious!

The Goat (1921) - Now I know where the famous Buster-behind-bars image comes from! Buster Keaton plays a scapegoat. Dead Shot Dan is on the loose after he tricked a photographer into taking a picture of Keaton instead of himself and escapes jail. Now everyone is after Keaton because they think he's Dead Shot Dan. Everyone including cop Joe Roberts. Keaton helps Virginia Fox and she takes him in but uh-oh her dad is that cop who has been chasing him! Lots of great stunts in this film and there are a lot of great gags. A slight bit of blackface but not so much that it's very offensive. This is 1921 after all. Keaton's family almost make appearances in this film.

Seven Chances (1925) - Contemporaries may be more familiar with the Chris O'Donnell remake The Bachelor (1999). This is a full-length feature with more plot but just as many wonderful stunts! Keaton plays Jimmie Shannon. A shy man who is head-over-heels in love with Mary (Ruth Dwyer) but doesn't have the balls to ask her to marry him. When it comes to light that his law firm is about to be disgraced, he learns that he could save his reputation and his company with his $7 million inheritance. However, in order to inherit the fortune he needs to marry by 7pm on his birthday, that day! When he flubs his proposal to Mary, his friends try to get him a new bride and all sorts of hilarity ensues. This film is particularly known for the famous boulder scene which happened by accident. At a screening, his tripping over some rocks got the most laughs so they shot the film again with bigger fake rocks that got bigger and bigger. It's a wonderful scene and shows Keaton at his best physical comedy prowess.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. It's great being a classic film fan in Boston!

Tough Without a Gun by Stefan Kanfer

Tough Without a Gun
The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart
by Stefan Kanfer
Hardcover - February 2011
9780307271006 $26.95
Paperback - February 2012
Alfred A. Knopf (Random House)

In a corrupt world he kept his own code of honor, without the consolations of religion or social approval. - Stefan Kanfer

[Bogart was] the only man I have ever known who truly and completely belonged to himself. - Lauren Bacall

The term "tough without a gun" comes from author Raymond Chandler. Chandler said "Bogart can be tough without a gun... he has a sense of humor that contains the grating undertone of contempt." Bogie was a man's man. He was the man. He was tough with or without a gun. You watch him, you admire him, you fear him and you want to be him. The most important thing you need to know about Bogie was that he was always himself. He was never molded or shaped. Instead, he stayed true to what he was and it showed on screen and off.

Stefan Kanfer's book, Tough Without a Gun, focuses on the film career, personal life and the posthumous development of the cult of Bogie. I really wish Kanfer had dedicated more time to the Extraordinary Afterlife part. We get 227 pages of Bogie's life and death and only 27 pages of his afterlife. However, those short 27 pages do provide a lot of insight into why, almost 55 years after his death we still idolized Bogie.

In the book, we get to glimpse at a very young Bogie who came from a well-to-do WASP family. His mother was an illustrator (she drew the famous Gerber baby but Bogie was not the model contrary to popular belief) and his father was a doctor. He was a privileged kid but when he became an adult a lot of things changed. His mother and father's marriage went south (although they didn't divorce), his father got himself into bad debt and his sister, after having a child, suffered from post-partum depression which led to her alcoholism. We see that Bogie's early dramatic career, on stage and in movies, was very much a way for him to earn money to help his family.

Kanfer glosses over what he thinks are Bogie's smaller films and Bogie's biggest films are given more time, back story and explanation. He spends a lot of time talking about High Sierra (1941) , Casablanca (1942), The Maltese Falcon (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The African Queen (1951), etc. Do be aware that he does give away entire plot lines. If you haven't seen a film he's talking about, skip over that section and come back to it after you've seen the film. Kanfer also looks closely at Bogart's four marriages including the most well-known (and romanticized) one he had with Lauren Bacall as well as his friendships with directors, actors and actresses and his relationship with his two children.

Tough Without a Gun is chock-full of interesting anecdotes and insights. And the funny thing is, the most interesting ones are not about Bogie at all. However, they do relate to Bogie in some way and are put into context. Here are my favorites:


- James Cagney operated a 100 acre farm in Martha's Vineyard (I want to find this!)
- Edward G. Robinson had a huge collection of art work.
- Joan Bennett's husband shot her agent out of jealousy. Bennett was blacklisted from films even though the agent wasn't fatally wounded and she never cheated on her husband. Bogie helped her get her role in We're No Angels (1955).
- On the Waterfront's plot may be Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan's response to the HUAC.
- Peter Sellers was an expert Bogie impersonator and did some of the dubbing in Beat the Devil (1953).
- Casablanca almost didn't make it onto film because of the Post-Code issue of the two main characters being lovers previous to the story.
- Director Edward Dmytryk  gave many more names to the HUAC than Elia Kazan and he also spent time in jail for his Communist ties.

Also, Kanfer's book has a major error in it that I spotted right away. And it's not about Bogie! Kanfer says the following about Paul Henreid's role in Now, Voyager (1942): "On a cruise, the ugly duckling meets the unhappily married Henreid, and under his ministrations turns into an enchanting and self-assured swan." NO! That is NOT what happens. By the time Bette Davis' character makes it onto the cruise she's already a swan and it's under Claude Rains' ministrations that she makes her transformation. For those of you who are fans of the film, you may recall Henreid's character being shocked by a picture of her in her ugly duckling stage. I really hope the publisher fixes this error before the paperback publishes.

Kanfer reveals a lot about Bogie without dishing dirt. This book is great for those of you who love Bogie but don't want gossip-ridden fare. Kanfer's portrait of Bogie is both kind and realistic. The book is insightful and you'll come to understand why Bogie became such an iconoclast. So what are you waiting for? Get your read on!

Full Disclosure: I asked the publisher for a review copy.