Carl Rollyson, Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews (University Press of Mississippi, $35). A solidly researched biography of the introverted, hard-drinking star of Laura and The Best Years of Our Lives that draws extensively on Andrews’ private papers. Hollywood Enigma is no literary masterpiece, but it tells you everything you want to know, not only about Andrews himself but about the studio-system machinery that made him a top-tier celebrity (TT).
Archives for April 7, 2013
GALLERY
Jane Freilicher: Painter Among Poets (Tibor de Nagy, 724 Fifth Ave., opens Saturday, up through June 14). Still going strong at 88, Freilicher was greatly loved by the poets of the New York School, in particular John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara, and this show explores her complex relationship with the writers who work she inspired. If you warm to the paintings of Bonnard–or Fairfield Porter–you won’t want to miss “Painter Among Poets” (TT).
CD
Heifetz, Primrose, and Feuermann Play String Duos and Trios (Biddulph). Jascha Heifetz, who needs no introduction, made a fair number of chamber-music recordings in the Forties with Emanuel Feuermann, the greatest cellist who ever lived, and William Primrose, one of the greatest violists. This 1993 collection (out of print but easy to obtain) contains their dazzling 78 versions of Dohnanyi’s C Major Serenade and Mozart’s E Flat Divertimento, plus duos for violin and viola by Handel-Halvorsen and Mozart. No matter how long you live, you’ll never hear finer string playing (TT).
NOVEL
Elmore Leonard, LaBrava. As a longtime fan of the much-admired crime novelist who hit the cable-TV jackpot with Justified, I not infrequently get asked which of Leonard’s books to read first. I suggest this one, a 1983 thriller about a Secret Service agent turned fine-art photographer who relocates to Miami Beach and gets mixedup with a superannuated film-noir star who is clearly meant to remind you of Jane Greer. It’s smart, dryly witty, soundly plotted, and immensely entertaining (TT).
DAVID IVES: A CELEBRATION
“Twenty years ago a bill of one-act comedies by a nearly unknown playwright named David Ives opened off-Broadway. One-act plays are not often professionally staged in New York, and when they are, they rarely draw crowds. But Ives’s All in the Timing ran for more than 600 performances. Part of what made its success so noteworthy was Ives’s decidedly intellectual and complex brand of humor. Yet to this day, the plays are performed widely throughout the English-speaking world…”