PREVUE MAGAZINE
Book Review
Robert Wagner’s ‘I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES’
Genre: Hollywood history
Publisher: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Address: 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com
Authors: Wagner, Robert J., 1930 and Eyman, Scott, 1951
Title: I loved her in the movies: memories of Hollywood’s legendary actresses
ISBN: 9780525429111
Publication Date: 2016
Jacket Design: Jason Ramirez
Jacket Image: © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
Robert Wagner Photograph: Greg Gorman
By James Colt Harrison
If you loved Robert Wagner’s two previous books, “Pieces of My Heart” and “You Must Remember This,” then you will love his latest foray into Hollywood history, “I Loved Her In The Movies: Memories of Hollywood’s Legendary Actresses” with author Scott Eyman.
Wagner has been around Hollywood studios since he was signed at 20th Century Fox at age 17 to a long-term contract. Now still handsome at 86—and still active cinematically— he has a long history of working with many of the top male and female stars going back to the 1950s. But he also appreciates the stars who intrigued him from the 1930s and 1940s as a young boy growing up in Hollywood.
The first star he ever met was MGM Queen Norma Shearer, merely because one of his school pals was her son. She was fading from the firmaments of the great stages of Metro at the time, but she still acted and appeared like the dazzling star she had been when her husband, Irving Thalberg, was head of production at the studio. After Thalberg died, her fortunes at the studio were precarious at best. Wagner saw her from his own youthful perspective and gives us a first-person assessment of the grand lady.
Wagner writes with a great deal of humor and doesn’t spare most of his subjects from his sharp, but gentlemanly, tongue. On the whole, however, he doesn’t lapse into tabloid exploitation or mean gossip. He treats all of his stars with respect, but also with honesty. Sometimes we wish he did drop a few sensational back-stage stories, but perhaps his next book can be nothing but that.
The list of Wagner’s great ladies reads like a who’s who in Hollywood and includes such icons as Marilyn Monroe, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Dorothy Lamour, Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Gloria Swanson, Rosalind Russell, Raquel Welch, Betty Hutton, Bette Davis and many more.
Mr. Wagner was a knockout in his youth when he was padding around the movie lots and meeting all sorts of glamorous actresses. Some could not keep their hands off him. He was definitely catnip to them. He honestly says he sampled the best of them and they included royalty such as Joan Crawford and his long-time “mentor” Barbara Stanwyck. At least we get a small peek at his romantic entanglements, but he’s such a gentleman about them they seem like bucolic bed-time stories. He makes it clear what he was doing, and we get the point. I was certainly titillated just a tad.
Marilyn Monroe figures prominently in Wagner’s book because they were both under contract to 20th Century Fox at the same time. Both were young and attractive. It was early in both their careers when they made the film LET’S MAKE IT LEGAL together. Wagner describes MM as nervous but warm and fun. She was professional in her set-side behavior. Wagner also never saw Marilyn at her worst in later years. Apparently Wagner and Natalie Wood (his then wife) were friendly enough to invite her over to the house. A little domesticity in Hollywood seems quaint.
As the years went by, Wagner had occasions to become friendly with such stars as Claudette Colbert, Gloria Swanson, and Loretta Young. They were from another era, but still sparkled and lit up his eyes when he got to know them and become friends. Comic actress Rosalind Russell, so good in HIS GIRL FRIDAY with Cary Grant and as AUNTIE MAME also became a friend, as did Joan Blondell and Irene Dunne, both actresses top stars from the 1930s.
All of these women, including Lana Turner, Dorothy Lamour, Debra Paget, as well as women like Gena Rowlands, Diane Keaton, and Glenn Close moved into and out of his life as the years went by. He has something telling about all of these women and more. We can’t give away all of his memories, but you must read the book to get the complete scoop.
Wagner grew up in Hollywood and learned his craft as he went along. He learned acting techniques from Spencer Tracy and Barbara Stanwyck. Everyone seemed to be very helpful because he was eager to learn. It all paid off and he earned his own place among the stars. Wagner has now been in films and television for more than 60 years, and for most of that time he has been a big star and a fan favorite.
The book is a great and quick read because you can’t put it down. What tales will Wagner thrill us with next? It’s a book where finding out what comes next is a powerful magnet to turn the page. Millions of people around the world are intrigued with the movies and millions more will love reading this inside look at a Hollywood’s by-gone female divas.
Robert Wagner is one of the most-beloved stars in Hollywood. He’s also a gentleman, a sharp dresser, and a man who apparently knows all the secrets. But will he tell us more? I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES is a great start down the path of movie nostalgia. It has whet our appetite for additional stories as only Wagner can tell.
Harrison File: Books: ILovedHerInTheMoviesPreVue
Text: 862 Words 8 December 2016
