The Memory of All That: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, and Paris

by Betsy Blair

Book Overview

Memory of All That, The: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, by Blair, Betsy This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375412999
• ISBN13: 9780375412998
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Marvelous evocation of Hollywood's Golden Age

Betsy Blair does a wonderful job of taking us inside the Golden Age of Hollywood, an age she says she felt unaccountably lucky to be a part of. So she's not the greatest writer, as several people here have pointed out. So what? If you want great literature, read Proust or James or Wharton. But if you want to get a feel for what everyday life was like for the people who gave us some of the great cinema of the 20th century, then read this. Also, of course, if you're a fan of the brilliant, incomparable Gene Kelly. Some of the criticisms in these reader reviews are downright bizarre. Betsy's politics seem to be a big point of contention. Good grief, she was 17 years old when she went to Hollywood. She's supposed to have a sophisticated understanding of Marxism at that age?? As she states repeatedly in the book, she was young and inexperienced and had a lot to learn. The fact that she was smart enough to eventually repudiate Communism while still holding on to her liberal beliefs obviously rankles some reviewers. Then there's the carping that she was enjoying the good life while claiming to stand up for the downtrodden. In reply, I quote from page 228: "I don't remember being uneasy in the idyllic life I was leading. It was, after all, running in tandem with my left-wing beliefs. I was not clearheaded or clearsighted enough to see that there might be a contradiction there, that perhaps I was uncomfortable about my unearned luxury -- unearned not by Gene, but by me." Hey, folks, it's called growing up. Blair grew up and wrote this delicious book. As for the claims that she's constantly "name-dropping" -- hello? She lived in a place where famous people lived. They came to her house. They ate at her table. They played charades and ping-pong with her. What's she supposed to do -- pretend all that didn't happen? Use coy terms such as, "a rather well-known actress of the day"? People have names, even famous people. She simply states the facts. Brava, Betsy Blair. Thank you for letting us take a walk with you down Memory Lane and into a world that has brought so many of us so much delight.

A Five-Star Life in a Four-Star Book

Betsy Blair has a lot of interesting stories to tell - she was married to one of the 20th Century's entertainment geniuses (not that we get to hear a great deal about what made him tick), and she survived the infamous Blacklist. She has an unfortunate habit of trying to put a happy face on every situation, however, and the only times her real grit shows through are when she expresses her bitterness (over the way she was shafted in her divorce from Kelly, and in the way she disappeared from view in the Blacklist, for instance). Her anger when she reads through her files from the FBI and the armed forces is palpable. I would have liked to see more of that feist and less of the Pollyanna attitude. I can understand a woman's need to come into her own and to be independent. After all, Blair was a teenager when she met and fell in love with the older Kelly, and she was a mother before her 18th birthday. She had a LOT of growing up to do. In this disjointed memoir, it is difficult to determine when that growing actually took place. She stayed with Kelly until it was no longer convenient to do so (i.e., when she fell in love with another man after a series of affairs), and then stayed with that man until she found yet another. That doesn't sound terribly "independent" to me. I might have been able to give the book five stars if it weren't as I said above, disjointed. For instance, at the end of a chapter that has nothing at all to do with it, she describes a charming encounter when, on Coronation Day in London, she, her daughter and her then-husband are making their way through Hyde Park Corner in order to get to their viewing area for the festivities. This is a lovely anecdote about the Londoners making a path for them and serenading them with "Singing in the Rain." The only problem is that the story is told after the chapters dealing with the divorce from Kelly and at the end of a chapter dealing with her living in Paris with her new love. As I say, disjointed. The stories are compelling and the language is fairly interesting (though the phrase "was, and is" tends to be overused). I just wish it had been put into a more cohesive form so that we could get a better chronological view of Miss Blair's growth, if any, as a person.

Betsy Blair is a born writer!

This is an absolutely brilliantly written book. If you're looking for a bio of Gene kelly, this isn't it. But if you want to read about an endlessly fascinating woman, run to the bookstore. Totally beguiling!

a rare, lively and moving tale

I loved, loved, loved this book, for several reasons. First, it distinguishes itself from the hoards of Hollywood memoirs in that it is completely and uttlerly honest -- as honest as the day is long. Betsy Blair seemed bent on telling us a tale of fame, fortune and success, all without the hazy gauze so typical of Hollywood memoirs. Her eye is specific and sharp, her insights into people and places are clever and frequently dead on, and her honesty is so forthright, that she is able to freely admit she is the only one in the story who truly misbehaves. Second it is a great theatrical tale. Blair, a talented and ambitious young woman, catches the eye of Gene Kelly, she was just 17, he was not much older, while hoofing it up at a New York nightclub. Their subsequent marriage and Gene's rise to movie stardom is magical and dreamy. But Blair knows this well, and she never loses her sense of self. Her ability to see her own life though her eyes, that of a hardworking and insightful actress, and not as someone who was born to win, lends an air of respectability and weight to the book that I very much admired. When the marriage fails, in part because of her of inability to live in such a wonderful cocoon, the sense of poignancy is deep, it also rare in such books.Her later years, in Europe, as an actress and political activist, are some of the most interesting in the book. To leave one of the world's great movie stars is a feat in and of itself. To build a new and exciting life, as an actress. mother and then wife to one of the great realist film directors, Karel Reisz, makes it a thoroughly modern story, inspirational for all women who dream that both beauty and satisfaction in life can be there for the taking.

YOU LEARN THE RESULTS OF YOUR ACTIONS IN THIS STORY

This autobiography is really in two parts; part one is while Betsy is married to Gene Kelly and part two is when she leaves the U.S. to live in Paris. As a young girl she attends classes in New York about Karl Marx and the Communist philosphy which "takes" for her lifetime and the result is favorable while married to Gene Kelly, but disastrous as far as her professional life is concerned. Her personal life is good at all times. Betsy is an accomplished woman of the world, but must live with her political choices.