Merv

Rating:
Summary: A DOWN-HOME SCION
Review: I have always enjoyed Merv Griffin and watched many of his TV shows. This autobiography tells about many of his achievements and a few failures. Merv's attitude is always on the bright side and I believe that is why he is so successful. Bravery and risk taking is part of the mix, but relationships are his strong points and he has many interesting stories to tell. A fun read.

Rating:
Summary: A DOWN-HOME SCION
Review: I have always enjoyed Merv Griffin and watched many of his TV shows. This autobiography tells about many of his achievements and a few failures. Merv's attitude is always on the bright side and I believe that is why he is so successful. Bravery and risk taking is part of the mix, but relationships are his strong points and he has many interesting stories to tell. A fun read.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT TALES AND CHATTER ... UNTIL THE LAST CHAPTER
Review: Like the man who "wrote" it (he had help from co-author David Bender), Merv Griffin's "Making the Good Life Last" is an entertaining, conversational confection chockfull of stories and anecdotes about his life in show business. This book is, in many ways, a sequel to Merv's best-selling autobioraphy of a couple of decades ago. "Good Life" picks up when that tome left off, with Merv reinventing himself as a businessman and, eventually, as one of the world's richest men. There are great Tallulah tales, and delightful stories about Al Pacino, Vanna White, Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood, Cary Grant, Lucille Ball, Eva Gabor, Nancy and Ron, Donald Trump, Ted Koppel and Errol Flynn ... who Merv met while the actor was nude. "Now how shall I put this?" Merv muses. "I think it's fair to say that Flynn brandished a sword both on and off the screen." It's all warm and witty and cozy chatter from someone who feels like a friend. Until the last chapter. There, Merv starts to spout off about how much money he has ... not in dollar amounts, but in boastful brags. There's too much talk about buying jets, yachts, hotels and casinos, of building this house and that house (with "house" sometimes meaning "ranch" or "compound"), of having marble and tile imported from across the world, of collecting horses and priceless art works by French Impressionists and Colorists, of having an associate deposit a check for $273 million ("the interest alone was $50,000 a day"), when most senior citizens at the same bank that day were depositing their monthly Social Security check for "$400 or $500 at most." This is when Merv needs to be tuned out and turned off. "Making the Good Life Last" is good ... until the last drop.

Rating:
Summary: Did Not Serve in WWII
Review: While more than 400,000 of his peer group were killed (and another 786,301 wounded), he states that he missed out on WWII because he was in the "4F" category (i.e., physically unfit).

He then goes on to make hundreds of millions of dollars during the next forty years, thus benefiting directly from those who paid the price for his freedom, yet writes about absolutely NOTHING that he did, is doing, or will do, for veterans?!

It's a shame.