Sheridan Morley (1941–2007)

When I picked up The Brits in Hollywood: Tales from the Hollywood Raj, I thought it would be a fun, gossipy, trashy read (which I occasionally enjoy), but it turns out the Sheridan Morley (son of actor Robert Morley, grandson of actress Gladys Cooper) had a more serious endeavor in mind. The book details the period in Hollywood starting almost from the beginning of the movie-making industry there up to the Second World War, during which a number of British stage actors moved to Hollywood and show more began making movies. They were a tight-knit and insular group, and they spent a lot of time making sure to keep their "Britishness," meaning tea and cricket, in the midst of all the crass Americans surrounding them. The "King" of the group was not, as you might think, Charlie Chaplin or Laurence Olivier, but rather the suave and sophisticated, but very private, Ronald Colman (one of my favourite actors from the period, his turn as an actor portraying Othello on stage and slowly going mad in "A Double Life" is one of my favourite film performances). For approximately 3/4 of its length, Morley's book concentrates specifically on the pre-WWII period, and then tags on a couple of codas: one for the period from approximately 1950 to 1980 (the book was originally published in 1983) and another bringing in British actors in the modern era, more or less through the LotR film trilogy. Very appropriately, he doesn't overlook the writers of the era, in particular playwrights who tried their hand at writing a Hollywood movie, including luminaries such as Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and E.M. Forster, which I appreciated very much. Altogether a very interesting read; not a whole lot of gossipy scandal (though there is a bit), but instead a look at the history of Hollywood, particularly in its early years, through a not very well-known lens, that of the British transplant. Recommended. show less

The English film star David Niven was a more complicated man than appeared on the happy-go-lucky surface. Sheridan Morley's "Life" was compiled with the help of many people who knew him from his almost disastrous schooldays to the sad end of his life in Switzerland from motor neurone disease. He made a great many films, most undistinguished, some very bad and a few demonstrating what he could have been. This book is well researched and interestingly written, giving an insight also into the show more American film industry of the 1930's onward. If it contradicts some of the stories Niven himself told in his semi-autobiographical books, that is because he was never above re-arranging the truth to make a better story or concealing the truth where it would not have been to his advantage. show less

I'm calling this finished, even though technically I haven't read it cover to cover. In part because it's really not meant to be read cover to cover, but dipped into now and again more or less randomly and in part because it's making me itch to see it squatting on my Currently Reading list.

The Best of the Raconteurs is a rather large collection of anecdotes, bits from speeches and other odds and ends - some seem almost to be snippets of conversation - collected from an incredibly varied show more cast of wits including Nora Ephron, William Churchill, Oscar Wilde, and David Niven, to touch upon just a very few.

The quality of the entries is all over the place; as some of them aren't more than a paragraph, while others are 2 or 3 pages long, odds were always long that every entry was going to be a winner. Nora Ephron's entry had me laughing out loud, while Ogden Nash's poem charmed me until the very end, where it promptly made my hair stand on end (which is exactly the effect Nash would have wanted). Those that fell flat were the definition of unmemorable.

Generally, a good collection, if you like anecdotes, and very likely to have something for everyone. show less

This is an excellent biography of the fine British actor James Mason. My only complaint is that it is too short. It was a feast to read, and the writing style of Sheridan Morley (son of another fine British actor, Robert Morley) is elegant and insightful. I learned an awful lot about Mason I didn't know, most surprisingly what a sad man he was. This is a very good piece of work.