Mae: Brits and Needles

Bad old boys:
Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, Stewart Granger, Mae West - some of Hollywood's greatest stars were also its worst advertisement, says Chris Petit

Under discussion in the British newspaper The Guardian: four recent biographies, nicely sliced and dissected by the London critic Chris Petit.

• • . . . . Marlon Brando's ego was more rock star than actor. The Naked Actor offers an insider's portrait of Hollywood. Brando has the last word: "In this town fucking is a technique you develop, like dentistry. You get good at it, you're going to do a lot of fillings."
• • Warren Beatty did an awful lot of fillings. He was initially cast in the same rebel mold as Brando and James Dean when, in reality, he was a prototype yuppie careerist. He cultivated influential mentors, several of them homosexual and smitten. . . .
• • Stewart Granger's mother had an arrangement with an"uncle" that left the boy shamed by his father's emasculation. . . . Granger, a superficial charmer, was arrogant, bigoted and chippy in equal measure. . . .
• • Compared to Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, or Stewart Granger, Mae West was a paragon of the Protestant work ethic. Few worked harder in Hollywood. Her famous sexual innuendo and throwaway style were the products of much rewriting and rehearsal. She remains a theatrical, and rather Victorian, figure and the film career was limited by censorship battles and studio politics, but, as Simon Louvish's diligent biography shows, she is unique, and heroic in the history of Hollywood for putting her espousal of the pleasure principle into her work.
• • Titles: • •
Marlon Brando: The Naked Actor by George Englund (271pp, Gibson Square Books, £15.99)
Warren Beatty: A Private Man by Suzanne Finstad (587pp, Aurum, £20)
Stewart Granger: The Last of the Swashbucklers by Don Shiach (275pp, Aurum, £18.99)
Mae West: It Ain't No Sin by Simon Louvish (491pp, Faber, £20)
• • Book Reviewer: Chris Petit
• • Condensed from a review in The Guardian • Saturday 31 December 2005
- - http://education.guardian.co.uk - -
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Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West (born 1893 in Brooklyn, NY)
NYC
Mae West.