Review: briskly told Hollywood biographies
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 31, 2013
I downloaded this book on a day that it was free. I do not know the author. It is a book of brief biographical accounts of actors who died young under sad or suspicious circumstances. By and large, they are just tastes of the actors' biographies and thus best for someone who is looking for light reading. I would have enjoyed a much higher level of detail. Looking back at the book, I wonder if it would have been appropriate for McDonald to include the late Phil Hartman, whose story I don't know and would be interested to read. Also, he alludes to the Black Dahlia case but doesn't devote a chapter to it.I was familiar with some of these stories, but some were new to me. Those were of greater interest to me, although this book clarified some matters about which I was misinformed, such as the fact that Jayne Mansfield was not decapitated.One particular story -- about Fatty Arbuckle -- I still find somewhat unconvincing as told. Previously I had understood that there was more relationship between Arbuckle and the girl he was acquitted of killing, so I'm not sure the account in this book is thorough enough to convince me otherwise.The book remained interesting throughout, but I wished for longer stories in many cases. The style is generally competent except for one quirk I did not like. Macdonald uses conditional tense (would + verb) where a past tense is preferable. Thus, it says something like "Monroe would have an affair with Kennedy" when it should just say "Monroe began an affair with Kennedy" or something similar. Every story includes this clumsy verb usage, which is only appropriate if the story is going to shift focus right after the verb usage. You can say "Monroe would have an affair with Kennedy" if you are then going to talk about something else, but not if you are about to tell the story of the affair.