Memoirs by the children of Hollywood stars

You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again - Julia Phillips

Is my real name "Buster"?

Tatum O'Neal's book

Carrie Fisher's book.

"Mommie Dearest" was surprisingly dull. In fact, it didn't seem all that much about child abuse. My mother used to do "night raids" and even refused to talk to me for a year when I was ten because I messed up while cleaning a room. It seemed more like a "Boo-hoo, I wasn't adored" tale than anything tragic. %0D %0D Not recommended.

The Dietrich book is stunning. . .includes incredible gossip--about her aborting Jimmy Stewart's kid, about D. running out the back door as John Gilbert's body was found, about the daughter's lesbian rape. %0D %0D It's a hell of a read.%0D %0D And the daughter (the writer) can really write--but she's sort of a nasty, dull piece of work. SO proud of herself for becoming a frau. Dietrich must have found her boring as hell.

Fallon really can't deliver a joke, can he?

Christopher Kennecy Lawford's book. Peter and Pat Kennedy Lawford were not the best of parents.

We're getting the laptops fired up.

Wrong thread.

The Riva-Dietrich book is light years the best. R6's reservations are spot on, though. We're supposed to find Dietrich monstrous and she is...but she's still much more intriguing than the sober, sharp-eyed daughter.

MOMMIE DEAREST is exaggerated--if not total fiction.

r1 seems to have not bothered reading the thread title at all, but was happy to contribute however illogically!

How is Detour, by the way?

OP, you're a godsend! I don't have a subscription, but I'd like to get a little feedback from DL...

I'm working on my own memoirs and I can't decide which sounds better:

"As I watched the pretentious cunt go on and on about her "famous" rosemary basil chicken, I couldn't help but to wonder how better life would be if an accident took her out of my sight forever."

or

"Again with the rosemary basil chicken! I wanted to choke the life out of her with her ratty Korean extensions, but father walked in and I knew he would encourage her to shut the fuck up."

MOMMIE DEAREST is NOT total fiction no matter how desperately some deluded Crawford queens want you to believe it is.

Oh, I would like to say FUCK YOU, WEBMASTER, YOU FUCKING CUNT for closing the Emmy Award thread. You know, YOU FUCKING CUNT, the show is still on on the West Coast YOU FUCKING CUNT.

RE: Mommie Dearest

The book is a lot different from the film. Not nearly as funny or interesting. Christina does come across as very whiney.

B.D.'s book is a far more salicious and exciting read.

There is truth in their tales, but I can't help but think there were a lot of indulgences as well.

Shame how their moms loved their gay friends/fans yet these two cunts turned out to be bitter homophobes.

B.D.'s book is a lot of fun. You can tell that she's torn between loving and admiring her mother and being driven absolutely crazy by the knowledge that there can be no living with a living legend. %0D %0D Gypsy Rose Lee's son Erik wrote a disappointingly dull memoir of his mother. He comes out of it sounding like a whiny stick-in-the-mud.

I liked "Haywire" very much. It's so strange to realize that 3 out of the 5 family members committed suicide. Brooke is a very good writer.

Who raped Maria Rivas?

>>>The Hornes: An American Family - Gail Lumet Buckley %0D %0D According to the last year's bio, Lena found her daughter's book so sanitized and boring that she game Gail permission to go all out and do a "Mommie Dearest."

R14, I liked Detour. Cheryl pulls no punches, but she doesn't do a hatchet job. It pretty much gave a portrait of Lana that I would have figured. %0D %0D Unlike others (B.D. and Christina, I'm looking at you), she doesn't hold herself up as some sort of victim blaming her mother for everything, but takes responsibility for her own mistakes.

I liked Detour and Haywire. Both were great reads.

Gail Buckley got religion a long time ago so it's unlikely she'll do a hatchet job on her moth...%0D %0D Oh, wait.

[quote]Christopher Kennecy Lawford's book. Peter and Pat Kennedy Lawford were not the best of parents

I just ordered this, is it good?

R17? You ARE aware that threads automatically close after 600 posts, right? Webmaster has noting to do with it.

I liked "Haywire" too -- sad stories told well. Margaret Sullavan was a lovely & unique actress.

Question: if I read Hyman's book about Bette Davis, will it make me enjoy her movies less? I have no illusions about her, so probably not -- but I'd like to know what other fans think before I take the risk.

I don't have that hesitation when it comes to reading the unpleasant truth (or even mere vengeance) about Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, & Marlene Dietrich, so I'll give those books a try.

r28, according to "Stardust," a biography about Bette Davis that I saw on TCM, BD Hyman took an advance to write a "Mommie Dearest" type book after Bette Davis had a stroke and wasn't expected to survive. Unfortunately for BD, Bette lived. I don't know if Bette Davis was a bad mother or not, but BD sounds despicable.

R28, I read "My Mother's Keeper" and I was left with nothing but contempt for B.D. Hyman. She comes off as a spoiled, rotten brat. And actually, she was. Bette pretty much gave her and let her do anything she wanted.%0D %0D Then she found God and became a complete ingrate.

"I'll Chop My Own Tree" by Deedee Lawson, daughter of Helen Lawson-not a Hollywood star, true, but a Broadway legend.

Arlene Dahl was on a local L.A. chat show recently. The kaween interviewing her asked about Cheryl Crane's allegation that Lex Barker (one of Arlene's ex husbands) raped Cheryl repeatedly when she was 12 years old. Arlene looked appalled. "Lex Barker had the biggest package of any man I've ever been with. No 12 year old could take what Lex had and not end up in the hospital" according to Arlene.

"Mommie Dearest" was a good read. It was also appalling; those children WERE abused, physically and mentally. Christina and Christopher got the worst of it; they resented being used for publicity and and being made to behave like trained monkeys. They wanted independent lives. The "twins" Crawford later adopted (were they really twins? Some say yes, others no) were much more compliant and did everything Mommy said, so they were favored. They were mentioned in Joan's will (Christina and Christopher were cut out of it) but didn't receive anything much of an inheritance.%0D %0D The pictures in "Mommy Dearest" are hilarious. Obviously Joan used Christina as a publicity prop; the pictures feature Joan and Christina as a smiling, happy mother and daughter when they were anything but. Especially funny are the pictures of them in matching mother and daughter dresses. Little Christina is wearing a frilly, patterned little girl jumper and blouse, with a big bow in her hair...and Joan is wearing the exact same little girl get-up! Ewwwww. %0D %0D There are many episodes of abuse besides the "night raids" and the "wire hanger" incident. Little Christina absentmindedly picked at the wallpaper while in bed; bits of the wallpaper came off. When Mommy found out she told Christina to get out her favorite dress, which was a pretty yellow. She then proceeded to rip up her little girl's favorite dress to shreds. After she did that she commanded Christina to wear the dress, only that dress, for a week. If anyone should ask why she was wearing a dress torn to shreds she was told to reply "I don't like pretty things." Tearing up your child's favorite dress and making her wear it for a week because of a few bits of wallpaper...Joan Crawford was a psycho.

[quote] When Mommy found out she told Christina to get out her favorite dress, which was a pretty yellow. She then proceeded to rip up her little girl's favorite dress to shreds. After she did that she commanded Christina to wear the dress, only that dress, for a week.%0D %0D I only did that to teach her to THINK! You want to survive in this town? You have to learn to THINK on your feet! She should have picked out her LEAST favorite and it wouldn't have mattered! No, when you don't think two steps ahead in this town, you end up with a TORN petticoat. It's an invaluable lesson. Wish Ma had taught me that lesson. But I learned quick. As for Christina, the only thing she ever learned was where to find the boys and the booze.

r18, can you give details or a link about Christina being homophobic?

Thanks, R29 & R30 -- sounds like there's no reason not to ready Hyman's book.

But it also sounds like there may be no reason TO read it either....

Audrey Hepburn will never come off as less than a superb actress and a extremely beautiful woman, inside and out. There was no one like her before she achieved stardom, and there will never be anyone like her. She was and is one of the most universally loved women. So many people who knew her have been quoted as saying how much they miss her.

Hawwire, of those listed, is the best written by far.

Pish posh, R37. I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee. Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that's not for me.

I never understood the whole "wire hangers" thing. What in the world would give Mommie Dearest the idea that a little girl would even give a fuck about what kind of hangers were in her closet? Did she think that the kid went out and bought wire hangers and replaced the other ones with them?%0D %0D "I'll show Mommie what I think of her no wire hangers rule. Ha! Take that Mommie Dearest!"%0D %0D Made no sense to me.

^Supposedly, when Christina's clothes came back from the dry cleaners she was supposed to switch out the wire hangers to wooden or padded hangers. Apparently she didn't care if her clothes got stretched out by the wire hangers, even though she lived in the most beautiful house in Brentwood.

I loved Bette Davis's response to her daughter's book in her second autobiography "This n' That." In the afterword, Bette started with "Dear Hyman:" One book reviewer made note of this by stating, "Well, Davis couldn't very well have said 'Dear C--t,' could she?"

R41, I also loved how Bette said that she was confused by the title, "My Mother's Keeper." She said that SHE was the one "keeping" B.D. by constantly giving her money and that even with the book, it was HER name that sold it, which was absolutely true.

"What in the world would give Mommie Dearest the idea that a little girl would even give a fuck about what kind of hangers were in her closet? Did she think that the kid went out and bought wire hangers and replaced the other ones with them?"%0D %0D You've got no idea how narcissists think. It's all about them, and any random little thing that doesn't go their way can't be just random, because they're too important for anything random to happen, it must be a deliberate attack!%0D %0D My mother is like this. If I said I didn't like bananas (ew), it can't be because the lovely fresh bananas taste bad, I must be saying that to deliberately reject her. Here, she goes to the trouble of buying and serving lovely fresh bananas and I refuse to eat them, I must be doing it to make her feel like a bad mother! And if I forget to pair all my socks as soon as they're out of the laundry, I must be doing it as an act of defiance. It'd have been the same if wire hangers were an issue at that house.%0D %0D I believe everything Christina wrote. That's how narcissists behave at home.

I read "My Mother's Keeper," and while Bette Davis was certainly a handful, BD Hyman came off horribly. A sanctimonious shrew who was apparently perfect; she was nauseating. Most hilarious in that book was BD's word-for-word reconstructions of conversations and arguments that happened when she was a child. She never could have remembered things in that much detail, so it makes you wonder how accurate the rest of the book is.%0D %0D Bette Davis financially supported BD and her husband for 20-plus years because neither BD or her husband cared to work a day in their lives. They were basically leeches living off of Bette. When Bette had her strokes the doctors thought she wouldn't make it, and that's why BD wrothe the book. She did it for the money, since she and her husband had no other way to make a living. They were both despicable.

"I believe everything Christina wrote. That's how narcissists behave at home."%0D %0D I would have a bit more respect for her if she'd written the book while Joan were still alive. As it is, it looks like a vindictive act for being cut out of her will.%0D %0D I'm not saying it isn't true, but her motivation can hardly be as altruistic as she promotes ("I wrote it to bring light to the plight of abused children"). Bullshit. She got screwed and wanted revenge and money.

R25, Gail Lumet Buckley was an insufferable bore long before she discovered religion. She's a well-breed "lady," as it were, and is never impolite in public. Very UNLIKE her loud-mouth, emotional mother. Lena's own book was interesting, even if she covered up a lot, full of anger and attitude.

DETOUR is my favorite. Cheryl Crane isn't a victim and you really feel for Lana Turner despite the fact that she shouldn't have had kids. Emotional infant trying to raise a child. %0D %0D I haven't read HAYWIRE in awhile but I think I'll have to pick it up again.

The Judy Lewis book is too long, but she's clearly very intelligent. And since her story is so odd and sad, it's pretty compelling.

"Bette Davis financially supported BD and her husband for 20-plus years because neither BD or her husband cared to work a day in their lives. They were basically leeches living off of Bette. When Bette had her strokes the doctors thought she wouldn't make it, and that's why BD wrothe the book. She did it for the money, since she and her husband had no other way to make a living. They were both despicable."

And to think that Hyman actually has her own ministry complete with a show on one of the Christian networks. This is APPALLING!

Actually, Tina had been shopping the book idea while Joan WAS still living. Joan was dying of cancer and Tina was shopping the idea around which is why she was cut out of the will. The twins were included in the will and got more than most people think. They had a very close relationship with their mother their entire lives. If Joan had been so abusive I doubt they would have brought their own children over to stay with her. Of course, they were never allowed to call her Grandma, but rather 'Jo-Jo.' Joan's grandson has given a few interviews where he has nothing but kind things to say about his grandmother and had great memories of time he spent with her when his parents would go on business trips.

Makes sense, R49.

She went from leeching off her mother to leeching off her congregation.

She is pretty grotesque. As ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.

I liked "Me and My Shadows." It was certainly a revelation of the Garland-Minnelli-Luft women's delusions about male sexuality (e.g., her insistence that Barry Manilow is straight.)

I love "Haywire" the best because it is truly very, very well written. %0D %0D "Mommie Dearest" is far out to me. I saw the film years ago (on cable back when I was a child) and then read the book. As near as I can figure it, if half of what went down was true then that is just far to much. %0D %0D

One gets the distinct impression from her daugfhter's book that Bette Davis was a self-absorbed bully who truly disliked men. For sex, yes, but living in peace with one was apparently impossible for her. It's funny how she counsels B.D. to cheat on her husband even after they have been happily married for nine years.%0D %0D B.D. and Christina may have been wrong to write about their mothers. But I don't either Bette or Joan was easy to live with. They both had four husbands and spent most of their adult lives single. None of Joan's marriages lasted even five years.

I have Tina Sinatra's book about her Daddy Meh.%0D %0D I also have a book by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's son, Stephen about Daddy. One long whinefest about how tough it was to be their son and his fight to be his ownself and blah blah blah. He HAD to take drugs and drink because life was so unfair to poor little Stevie.%0D %0D I also have Joan Benny's book about her Daddy, Jack. The usual lovefest, but...some good dish about Mary Livingston who turns out to be somewhat bitchy and aloof and snobby. Daddy loved Mommy though and treated her like a queen. Mommy wasn't so Mommyish to the kid though. Not bad.%0D %0D I have a real aversion to adult men and women who still call their parents "Mommy and Daddy."%0D %0D "Haywire" has a pic of Bridget Hayward that is absolutely stunning. Too bad she had such issues along with epilepsy.

My absolute favorite is NOTES ON A COWARDLY LION, which is a sensational biography of Burt Lahr, written by his son, John Lahr

How about Maria Riva's book that shows dozens of Dietrich's costumes?

I really enjoyed Judy Lewis's book. She is not a victim, but rather a pretty good interviewee and storyteller. It's a hard to believe story until you see the photos, which erase ALL doubt.

BD is a right wing, homophobic, religious bigot. Plus she is NUTS.

Christina made up stories and embellished others. The movie made everything worse.

Is there a good, objective biography of Crawford? I think she's a fascinating subject, especially the early years. %0D %0D

"Joan Crawford: The Last Word" or "Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr" are both pretty good, R60, but I don't think THE definitive JC tome has been written yet.

A new Joan Crawford bio, called "Possesed," by uber-queen Donald Spoto is coming out in Nov. I love the cover pic.

Still looking for more info on Christina being homophobic

Marry me, R62.

This one is worth a look too--stunning photos.

"Haywire" is an excellent book, and the best written of all those listed. However, I'd have to say "Detour" is my favorite because, as other posters have noted, Cheryl Crane neither whines nor breaks her arm patting herself on the back. It's "here is my life, flaws and all", and it's a great read.

I read a couple of chapters of "Going My Own Way", and that was it. Over and over, it's "Dad was a living turd, Mom was a drunk, and talking back got you a beating". No variation at all.

OTOH, "Uncommon Knowledge" was a very good read. I'd recommend it. "Me and My Shadows" was OK, but not that great--if you haven't heard Lorna's stories before, you can pretty much guess where she's going.

"Mommie Dearest" and "My Mother's Keeper" were clearly written by ingrates, no matter what Joan and Bette did or didn't do.

Although not listed, "We Will Always Live in Beverly Hills" by Ned Wynn (Keenan's son) is a terrific book. Van Johnson comes off like a total shit, both in general and with respect to his (non)relationship with his daughter. And yeah, Ned reveals Van's affair with Tracey Everett (or whoever played Tommy Djilas in the London production of "The Music Man" in which Van starred.

I haven't read the rest, but I'm off to find a copy of Maria Riva's book.

Wait a minute...that queen Van Johnson had a daughter? Was she his biological child?

I am kind of sorry that I read "Notes on a Cowardly Lion." It changed my mind about Bert Lahr as a person. I still love his work, but he doesn't come off well in the book. Selfish and full of himself and not a very good husband to his first wife even though she had mental problems. He could not stand for any of his co-stars on Broadway to get bigger or longer laughs than he did and would try anyway possible to kill those laughs. He was very much money driven too, even after he had become a big star. He was convinced that he was going to be a big Hollywood star after "Oz" came out and was very bitter that it didn't happen.

[quote]Wait a minute...that queen Van Johnson had a daughter? Was she his biological child?

Yup. Mom was Keenan's ex, Evie. Louis B. Mayer insisted that all his gay stars beard up or else (William Haines and Ramon Novarro never did, and we know what happened there).

So Evie and Keenan divorced and Van married her. IIRC she got pregnant soon after (to prove Van's virility, no doubt). The daughter's name is Schuyler.

Re: Tina Sinatra's book--trash, and poorly ghostwritten at that. The whole thing was a big 'fuck-you' to Frank's last gold-digging wife Barbara Marx (and maybe rightfully so). What I found very sad was that there were very few photos of Tina with her father in the book because the bastard was never around in real life.

Maria Riva's is my favorite. Lots of information about her later years and all of her medical issues. It got reallly ugly at the end. The relationship between Dietrich and her husband and the husband's girlfriend was very odd. Loads of details on the many loves of her life.

Somebody needs to update the twitter feed.

[quote]Ned reveals Van's affair with Tracey Everett

Isn't Tracey Everett "Liza's Beau" on the special Christmas edition of The Judy Garland Show?

" Tokyo For Breakfast". Written by Okie Godzilla was a fascinating read. I had no idea Godzilla started his film career working as a stunt double for Benny Hill. Or of his torrid affair with famous Macy's day parade float,Mighty Dog. The revelations of drug abuse and all male nude barbecues on Monster Island were only over shadowed by his Trysts with fellow radioactive dinosaur George Cukor.

Francesca Hilton needs to spill the beans.

I'm sorry but who is JUDY LEWIS?

[quote]Uncommon Knowledge - Judy Lewis (daughter of Loretta Young and Clark Gable)%0D %0D What part of that do you not understand R75???

Spot on, R43.

R61, R62, R64, you may wish to check out the following two books, which I found to be extremely insightful -- particularly regarding Joan's childhood and how that impacted who she became offscreen as well as on:

Joan Crawford by Bob Thomas

Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Star

JD Salinger's daughter (her mom was an actress) wrote a scathing book on nutty papa.

Brother Matthew (an actor) got very angry at her.

I would love to read a book by Patty Duke's children about living with a legend with bi-polar.

Patty Duke's children seem fairly protective of her, possibly because she has publicly acknowledged how much her unstable behavior hurt them. It would definitely be interesting to hear how they've navigated their relationships with her, and, if things are truly healthier for that family now, how they managed to get to that point.

One thing I wonder, though, is whether her kids' protection will only last as long as Duke is alive. Not that they'd smear her memory all over the place or nything, but it might be easier to speak honestly about growing up with a mentally ill parent when the parent can no longer be hurt b hearing that sh really sucked sometimes.

r81 totally agree

Why hasn't Bing Crosby's reputation suffered for his abusive parenting? He was a mean, nasty, violent, physically and mentally abusive drunk. That vile, vicious prick is placed on a postage stamp.

Yes, Bing was evil. They should probably make a movie about him, but the story is somehow much more sad, and he always shows up on TV at Christmas.

Crosby was a violent fuck. He had four sons and he would regularly beat the shit out of all of them. I had a crush on his youngest son Lindsay. Sadly none of Crosby's sons are still alive.

For years, people tried to get Joan Crawford placed on a postage stamp. I'm not quite sure why it hasn't happened, but it may be due to the "Mommie Dearest" issues. Crawford had a strong, agressive personality, both on screen and off so obviously it would create controversy.

Yet, Bing Crosby is honored with a postage stamp - because he perpetrated this "good guy" image (which was so far from the truth.) He won an Oscar for portraying a priest. Then there were those TV family specials and of course his recording career. Then, of course is his pious Roman Catholicism. He was a child abuser, who beat his first wife, Dixie. She was a sad, isolated alcholic. This man ruined many lives with utter cruelty and nastiness - yet he is honored with a postage stamp.

r85: What's sad is (at least) two of Crosby's sons committed suicide. I think it is fairly well known that Crosby was sadistically evil and a cold-hearted bastard.

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[quote]Carrie Fisher's book.

Book nuthin', that girl has made a career out of recounting the dynamics of the goings on during her childhood.

Crosby got a stamp because he was one of the most popular and influential SINGERS of the 20th Century, R86. The movies and television were part of it, but not the entire picture by a long shot. Crosby's violence toward his sons was known while he was alive; what Gary wrote in his book was not news except to delusional Crosby fans.

Maria Riva's book is my favorite -- it's a classic.

OP should not have included the excruciatingly dull Gail Lumet Buckley book, The Hornes. Most all of the Lena stuff is lifted from Lena's 1965 book, and since Lena traveled and did not raise Gail, Gail's reminiscences are shallow.

Detour by Cheryl Crane set the bar for me. She still clearly loves her mother and at the same time opens the curtain to a supremely fucked up childhood that could only happen in Hollywood. It's neither a celebration of victimhood nor an indictment of a wicked mother; instead, the book shows how life in Old Hollywood could be a blessing and a disaster - and what a sensational scandal felt like from the inside.

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When are Roseanne's children writing their book? Just having Tom Arnold for a stepfather must have been a fucking mess.

In Maria Riva's book she tells of being "raped" by a female in her mother's employ, a babysitter or housekeeper or something like that. Anyway, the "rape" is described in very indistinct terms so you don't really know what happened to her.

Riva said that her mother would have preferred her to be a lesbian. She wanted the FULL attention of her daughter (and everyone else, really) and figured that if she were a lez she would never have a husband or children to occupy her time and could spend her life totally devoted to her mother. She WAS an attentive daughter, but that was not enough for Dietrich.

Dietrich in her later years would lie about how her daughter and grandchildren never came to see her and neglected her. That was bullshit, but that was one of the main characteristics of Marlene Dietrich; she was an incredible liar.

Christopher Welles' book about her father Orson is very engaging. It's not scandalous so much as interesting. As a child & teenager she was overwhelmed by her elusive father's cult of personality. In adulthood she wrangled with his shortcomings as an actual parent. It's brief, decently written, and moving. Lots of incidental Hollywood tidbits from a child's eye (being "mothered" by long-suffering Rita Hayword; being the star guest at a weekend luncheon at Olivier & Vivien Leigh's castle).

My ratings:

The Hornes: An American Family - C. Dull and evasive.

Detour - A for the reasons mentioned above. Sadly, Crane was less forthcoming in later endeavors, like the special she did on her mother for TCM

Mommie Dearest - A. I have the 20th anniversary edition as well as the original. The former is her unedited manuscript, plus contemporary testimonials from witnesses to her abuse, especially during the Chadwick years. The edits made to the orig manuscript were apt.

=> A fabulous (if dubiously transcribed) Joan book is "Conversations with Crawford" by Roy Newquist. There's never been a truly good biography of her, so this is as good as it gets thus far. She talks about her movies and some socio-political views (disparaging Bette Davis for her popularity among gays, for one), as well as her personal and parenting philosophies with some pointed remarks about Christina and Christopher. Of course she lies about herself.

Haywire - A+. She should have written a sequel as well, as she had a fascinating, if somewhat circular life after the period depicted.

My Mother's Keeper - This is a "D-" unless you enjoy unintentional hilarity, which I do. So I also read her sequel, "Narrow is the Way," which is even worse. It details her spiritual conversion amidst the trauma of fatally betraying her mother by writing the previous book. I bough both books used and loathe Hyman, but I can't help but read them periodically. They are laugh out loud funny in their delusion. Poor Bette.

=> By the way, don't read Barbara Leaming's biography of Bette, which was entirely colored by the cooperation provided by Hyman. It is incredibly negative about Bette's work, and deceptive about her marriages and mothering, as subsequent biographies have proved.

Me and My Shadows - B

Thanks to all the posters who suggested Maria Riva's book. I just ordered a used copy

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I agree, [R-95], Maria Riva's book about her mother was the finest, and most brilliantly written memoirs by a child of a celebrity parent. It was written in a detached, almost journalistic style, but it was also emotional and entertainingly descriptive, as well. I'd relish reading those 300 pages that were cut from the publication.

B.D. Hyman is an excellent example of being able to actually tell a book by it's cover.

She gives new meaning to the word CUNT.

It's interesting how her brother Michael adored and protected their mother but B.D. turned into a viper who used her Christianity as a righteous shield.

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What will Chelsea write about Rosie?

Have You Seen My Childhood? by Blanket Jackson

Mama's Boy by Rocco Ritchie

All the Poop about GOOP by Apple Martin

What about Sachi Parker's book about her mom Shirley MacLaine?

The Hornes: An American Family Did Lena Hornes daughter in her book mention anything about Joan Crawford? Or her daughter? Did they know each other growing up, Lena and Joans daughter?

Todd Fisher's book about Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher was pretty good. What surprised me about it was that a lot of the stuff from the Postcards film and book such as Debbie's drinking and the IT TWIRLED UP stuff about Debbie lifting her skirt were all true. Carrie seemed to feel guilty about saying that stuff about her mother in later years and pulled back a bit on them as they started to get along better BUT Todd confirmed them.

(no mention of Agnes Moorehead and if Debbie was really a lesbian though)

Meryl's Choice: Your Nominations or Your Children coming this fall from Random House is getting excellent advance praise.

r103 that was an odd one. Shirley comes off deranged in it. I'm not sure if the daughter was making stuff up to make it more marketable. (for instance Shirley felt her ex-husband had been cloned and replaced with a duplicate by aliens.) I guess she does have a lot of strange ideas but that seems to be going overboard.