DL Book Club: 'Up With the Sun' by Thomas Mallon

OP is this supposed to be a book club thread or a specific books's thread?

Thanks OP! This sounds like a delightful mix of reality and delusion -- I just put it on my list at the library.

I enjoyed the chapters set in the past as Dick Kallman’s career on Broadway and in Hollywood was shown with appearances from real celebrities. I was a little bored by the post-murder chapters.

Always enjoy Thomas Mallon’s books. I have a copy of this book at my bedside, but I’m currently reading Blood & Ink, a double homicide from 100 years ago.

^ about a double homicide

The doomed Dick Kallman on Hullabaloo.

Dick Kallman naively allowed a magazine article to be written about him that featured all his rare pricey antiques in his home. Could that be what gave the perps the idea to rob and kill him?

Wonderfully tawdry. Full of casual gay sex encounters. And the violent crime that ends in Kallman’s death is a scintillating mixture of antiques, cocaine, the disappearance of a Macguffin -like jeweled souvenir of unrequited love, gay hustlers and an innocent boyfriend studying at Columbia Law School.

And Dolores Gray as Helen Lawson.

There was a thread on this late last year, so I bought the book.

Entertaining and worth the read.

Introduced at 11:07, Dick was one of the "kids" on the Desilu Playhouse, a gig that was a subject of the book.

Kallman sounds like he was a piece of work. All previous accounts of his murder were more sympathetic than Mallon's version which apparently is well supported.

[quote]Kallman sounds like he was a piece of work.

In Mallon's telling, so is Dolores Gray. Vain, selfish, moneygrubbing, holds a high opinion of her career.

I adore her extreme Fifties style, which clearly inspired Lypsinka.

It’s fun to see so many of the “characters” in Mallon’s book show up in R10’s link.

Are we so sure Dolores Gray isn't Frank Langella in drag.

The author, interviewed about the book.

I was there for the interview. He was very entertaining. I can hear my friend's laughter in the video.

He's the definition of unctuous in R6's link.

[on working with Lucille Ball and Robert Osborne and Dick Kallman of the Desilu Players] Robert Osborne was an actor at that time and his lover was a guy named Dick Kallman who was the most evil human being I ever met. Obnoxious and mean. He always had Lucy's ear. He and Osborne were always together. For instance, we'd be rehearsing and something wouldn't work. You'd say, "I don't know if this stuff is going to work" And within two minutes Lucy was walking through the back saying, "What do you mean it doesn't work!" Kallman would get on the phone and call her and tell her that I was complaining about the material. What we were doing was going through the regular rehearsal process. But it was bizarre. Dick Kallman was killed in his apartment in New York. They never found the killer. He was shot. When I said to Roger Perry, who had been one of the Desilu Players... I ran into him years later... I said, " Did you hear about Dick Kallman? He was killed." Roger said, "Yeah!" With a big smile.

R12 is what happened after Bea Bernadette went to Madonna’s plastic surgeon and insisted on looking just like Audrey Meadows.

I saw him in a production of "How to Succeed" when I was a baby gaylette. Willard Waterman played the Rudy V

R19 Was Bea Bernadette played by Jennifer Jones?

A little more of that interview with Howie Storm about Dick Kallman.

I wonder how Lucy picked the people for the Desilu Players---Carole Cook was the only one writh real longevity, but basically as a working performer, not a star. Roger Perry had a series with Desilu and did guest shot for quite while, but he seems more noatble for having married Joanne Worley and DL fave Joyce Builfant (after Bill Asher)---I alwayts confused him with his contemporary Roger Perry (who had a longer career) and with the younger Mark Slade (who looked like both of them but became a writer and acrtoonist).

I wonder how Osborne could stand Kallman, but then again he seemed to have remained friendly with Lucy who was no walk in the park. I wonder if he stayed in touch with Kallman?

It's hard to separate fact from fiction, since Mallon says in an intro that he invented quite. a bit. I too saw Kallman in How to Succed plus Half a Sixpence. Remember both shows vividly, but not Kallman. Did he really offer a columnist some dirt on Lucy to futher his career? Did. Dick have a very strange relationship with an Episcopal priest he consulted for therapy? Hard to tell.

Robert Osborne talking about the Desilu Players and how he, Carole Cook and Dick Kallman were Lucy's favorites.

The February 26, 1966, TV Guide has the article about Kallman mentioned in the book. It is indeed a sharp criticism of him that reveals everything negative about him and his show...... Barbara Stanwyck is on the cover.....and if you're interested in the subject you can usually find a copy on Ebay for $10 or less.

There was a discussion in the Theatre thread, I think, on this around 4 or 5 months ago - I read it, too, based on that discussion.

Interesting book to a degree, though Kallman seemed to be a self-important bore. The fun was in the small details. Agree that it seemed to lose most of its oomph about 2/3rds of the way through.

[quote] Robert Osborne talking about the Desilu Players and how he, Carole Cook and Dick Kallman were Lucy's favorites.

If the book is to be believed Kallman very much fell out of Lucy's favor.

Howie Storm is, at 90, still alive.

A footnote on Kallman’s Wikipedia page links to this 2010 DL thread.

Thanks, R30. I see that R7 in that thread had the impression that Dick was a great person. Ha.

The author had contacted my aunt, Carole Cook, to interview her regarding Dick Kallman. I doubt she dreamt she would be a character in the book. Nor did I, but I’m reading it now (the author, Thomas Mallon, kindly sent an inscribed copy). A bit surreal. Of course I recall Carole speaking of Kallman, and that he had recommended her to Lucille Ball. The TV Star was looking for a comedienne for her Desilu Review, and apparently Kallman said, “I know just the person!” Carole was a bit surprised by the gesture. She and Kallman, while acquainted, were not really friends, nor particularly close at all. In any case, the author did capture her “voice” and many of her expressions. While Carole was shocked by Kallman’s murder, she would not have been so invested in the event to have attended the subsequent trial, etc. At the time of Kallman’s death, Carole was appearing in Bernie Slade’s “Romantic Comedy” with Mia Farrow and Tony Perkins, and subsequently went into the musical “42nd Street.” She simply wouldn’t have had the time or energy to focus on much else.