On the Other Hand: A Life Story

Rating:
Summary: An eye opener
Review: A curious feature of the cinema is its ability to create stars retroactively. Fay Wray is a case in point. In her prime - during the 20s and 30s - she was considered a serviceable actress, but she never attained the front rank of stardom. Posterity had different ideas however. Her featured role in "King Kong" has kept her name before the public, and the advent of video has made much of her output more accessible than ever before.

Perhaps because one's expectations are not high Miss Wray turns out to be a compelling and insightful story teller. As an eye witness to Hollywood's Golden Era she speaks with authority but without a trace of bitterness or condescension. Her stormy marriage to writer John Monk Saunders is related in a matter of fact fashion, compassionate but not overly sentimental. Her assessment of her own work is exemplary; she is scrupulous in placing her achievement into context and throughout the book is clearly aware of the broader issues that have shaped her life and times.

Above all she shows an astonishing objectivity about the Hollywood she knew, which is a rare virtue in a book of this type.

Wray emerges as a woman of intelligence, wit - her open letter to King Kong that opens the book must be a model of self effacement - and above all humanity. Her account of the sad illness that claimed the life of her second husband Robert Riskin is almost unbearably poignant.

A revelation and a lovely book.