You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood's Golden Age Author: Robert J. Wagner | Language: English | ISBN:
0670026093 | Format: EPUB
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood's Golden Age Description
From Booklist
Wagner and Eyman, who coauthored Wagner’s 2008 autobiography, Pieces of My Heart, this time tell the story of a place and a time: Hollywood from the 1930s through the ’60s. Divided into topical chapters, including “Houses and Hotels,” “Style,” and “Nightlife,” the book follows Hollywood from its early days—until Cecil B. DeMille arrived in 1913, Hollywood was just another place outside Los Angeles—through its heady decades as the trendsetter in style and popular culture, and ending with the collapse of the studio system, when profits were in steep decline and many of the Golden Age stars were dying or aging out of the spotlight. You can tell that Wagner, whose acting career started when the Golden Age was its most golden, truly misses that time and place; his fondness for it and his distaste for the modern way of moviemaking come through on almost every page. For Wagner, the emblems of Hollywood at its grandest—the mansions, the stars, the parties, the watering holes—evoke a better world, and his account of how it was then just may leave nostalgic readers similarly affected. --David Pitt
Review
" [A] charming tribute to off-screen lives during a period many may regard as Hollywood's finest."
~Kirkus Reviews
"With great affection and a twinkle in his eye, veteran actor Wagner recalls Hollywood's glory days of the 1940s and early 1950s, when class, manners, friendship, and a code of values ruled the city of stars."
~Publishers Weekly
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Viking Adult (March 11, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0670026093
- ISBN-13: 978-0670026098
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
I read this book in its electronic galley format compliments of NetGalley and the opinions expessed here are mine alone.
Actor and author Robert Wagner teases in this book's dedication by telling his reader that no one in his family has ever heard these stories. A cute teaser which sounds naughty but in fact is innocently probably true. This book is not a celebrity tell all. Actually, it starts out describing in broad terms a Hollywood/Los Angeles of long ago that is seen through the eyes of Wagner. A transplant from Detroit, Wagner ventured west with his family in the late 1930's as a young child. The Wagners built a home in the Bel Air area which even back then reflected a certain prejudice against movie people. Wagner was lucky. He had yet to become an actor. Wagner describes an idyllic life with expansive vistas populated by nature and an occasional bridle path where he rode horses. In his youth, he would also spend time riding public transportation that was cheap, convenient, and well planned. Believe it, LA actually had a good transportation system back in the day. The air was smog free and you could gaze from the mountains to view Catalina some 20 miles offshore. Back then there was no Hotel Bel Air. It was where his family and others boarded their horses. Bel Air still had a small town feel back then.
After recalling the Los Angeles he came to know and love as his adopted hometown, he grew up and had some contact with film people through jobs he had as a teen. The reader starts getting an idea of how the celebs lived from the descriptive simplicity of a Cape Cod actor 'Jim' Cagney had built in contrast to a huge and over-the-complex actress Marion Davies resided in at the edge of Santa Monica on the beach.
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