Giving Up the Ghost

By Sandford Dody

Author tells what it is like to write for Bette Davis, Helen Hayes, Elaine Barrymore and others. He did fail to work with Kathrine Hepburn but the other stories are great. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871311429
• ISBN13: 9780871311429
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: M Evans & Co
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 6.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Disappearing Into One's Subject

Sandford Dody "became" Dagmar Godowsky, Robert Merrill, Bette Davis, Helen Hayes and Elaine Barrymore when they "wrote" their respective memoirs. This is the story of his adventures and misadventures in dealing with these individuals, and his process of finding their different voices in order to tell their stories. Dody can sometimes get a bit florid in describing the effort of getting into someone's mindset, and for that and a few other difficult passages (his sad attitude to adoption - that it isn't like having a "real" child - for instance, and his constant bias regarding the weight of his female subjects), the review had to go from five stars to four. The most entertaining passages, not counting the final one regarding Helen Hayes, which is superb, were the encounters with the ladies whose stories Dody didn't get to tell - Elsa Lanchester, Katharine Hepburn and Judy Garland. Judy's story was by turns fascinating and then quite sad, and Elsa came off as just plain crazy. This was a hilarious peek into the behind-the-scenes contortions a working writer must go through. Despite the problems I had with some of the author's biases, I still quite enjoyed Giving Up the Ghost, and highly recommend it. It will be especially interesting to those who are, or aspire to be, writers.

A BRILLLIANT ,UNIQUE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A WIZARD.

The author has virtually disasppeared and reemerged as a number of artists such as Bette Davis, Helen Hayes, Robert Merrill and the Barrymores. He now tells of his technique and travails and shares his insight into these remarkable people, while he worked with them. It is a remarkable job.