'I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES' REVIEW........BOB SLEDS THRU HOLLYWOOD DAMES....

I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES (2016) by Robert J.Wagner with Scott Eyman - Nobody qualifies better for the position of Hollywood chronicler than actor Robert Wagner, who's now into the seventh decade of his busy film and TV career. After all, this guy has  thrived and survived through every possible milestone of an actor's lifespan......moving from juvenile pretty boy to young leading man to older leading man (a privilege rarely afforded the actresses he discusses in his book)....and finally to senior handsome character actor (which often involves lampooning yourself in comedies...)

          Wagner intimately knows and loves the long gone Golden Age of Hollywood and after the stunningly sad icon deaths of 2016, we're thrilled he's hearty, healthy and still with us to write about it......(and after you've sat through some of today's movies, that era glows more golden with every passing minute),  Okay, we realize he's no brilliantly witty memoirist like Carrie Fisher.....but we always enjoy Wagner's friendly, comfortable tours through Hollywood nostalgia. In this latest excursion, he crafts some skillful, at times painfully candid assessments of the Golden Age goddesses who crossed his path, from the 1930's through today.......sort of a longer version of the Robert Osborne/Ben Mankiewicz bookend segments on TCM movies.

          You'll meet quite a few of them here (Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall, etc), and delve into their backstories......the overall pattern: tough cookies who often came from impoverished, broken homes, their hard outer shells helping them cope with their reptilian studio bosses like Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck and Louis B.Mayer.  With a few rare exceptions, Wagner treats these uniquely gifted women with admiration, even tempered candor, and sympathy, whenever called for......(although BQ admits to grinning widely whenever the book stumbled upon somebody Wagner grudgingly admitted to being a miserable pain in the ass....seriously, Bob, maybe you should devote your next book to all the actors you couldn't stand the sight of....)

            For classic movie FanMen and FanWomen (who become boys and girls again when they watch these movies)....''I Love Her In The Movies" is a 'lights,camera, action'  **** 4 star must read.