Alan Burgess (1) (1915–1998)

Ingrid Bergman's autobiography, My Story, was a guilty pleasure for me. I've been curious about various Hollywood exposés for years, especially focusing on Golden Age celebrities, but Bergman’s is my first. It lives up to its imaginary billing: a bit of behind-the-scenes commentary, some sniping at fellow film stars and makers, and liberal amounts of praise for those she admired. It’s knit together primarily as a response to the world-wide scandal greeting Bergman when she quite show more suddenly and dramatically left her husband and daughter for Roberto Rossellini. She was pilloried in the papers, and not just the trades, though it didn’t seem to stop her from making films. Eventually, she was almost as popular after as before.

I’d a vague idea of a scandal surrounding Bergman, and thought her role in Notorious was an ironic commentary on it. In fact, that role preceded the scandal, so anyone with dramatic flair could consider it prescient. I recently read Anna Karenina and there are remarkable parallels between Tolstoy's plot and Bergman's memoir, though I'd say Bergman's ends much happier.

I was completely unaware of Bergman’s significant work on the stage as well as screen. Apparently the two experiences fed into each other and developed her talents. It would appear her instincts played an equally strong part, though, as her craft was evident from the beginning, with little to no formal training. She left Sweden’s Royal Academy to work in Swedish film, and never looked back. It’s also true she never stopped learning, though formal training was not part of it.

I’d assumed Ingrid Bergman was related to Ingmar Bergman, but in fact: they’re not. They did work together, on Autumn Sonata, and the account of it here prompts me to raise its position in my queue.

It’s fascinating to learn that Ingrid was, by all accounts, a strong and confident person in her work, never hesitating to tell Hitchcock, Bergman, Selznick, Michael Redgrave, or John Gielgud what she thought would be improvements in their direction. Yet in her personal life, she confesses she was always deferring to her husband. It’s not clear to what extent relationship problems were rooted in her deferential personality, and to what extent it made it difficult once she encountered problems.

The book scans quickly, and reads as though a transcript was made from interviews with her. Alan Burgess supplies the editing, filling in details between the ‘transcripts’ with description, lengthy quotations from others, excerpts from newspaper accounts and several memos from David O. Selznick (who helped ‘discover’ Bergman for Hollywood). My edition includes copious photos, both personal and publicity stills, and most helpfully: an annotated list of Bergman’s films and stageplays. show less

Isn’t it great when you stumble upon a book at a yard sale or used bookstore—and it turns out to be terrific? A friend of mine described the experience like this: you read something you never thought you would and, when it’s over, ask, “How did I go for so long without this book in my life?” That’s how I feel about My Story, which I bought for a penny on Amazon on a whim one night after seeing Notorious for the millionth time.

It’s is not a quick, slick, tell-all but a real show more memoir and portrait of an artist. It’s long—over 550 pages of tiny, old-school packed-on-the-page type—but there isn’t a scene I would cut. The story of her marriages, her career, her strained relationship with her oldest daughter, and her health scares are all told as well as could be by any skilled novelist. It’s also a great evocation of the age of Selznick and the studios. Bergman wisely shares the credit with Alan Burgess, whose traditional biographical narrative is interpolated throughout Bergman’s recounting of her life. The reader gets a real sense of Bergman as a person—or, probably more accurately, “Bergman,” since only she knows the real person. There’s something here reminiscent of The Picture of Dorian Gray—the idea that people are more real when they are onstage than when they are off and one person’s struggle to make her offstage life as fulfilling and meaningful. It doesn’t work for Sybil Vane, but it seems to have done so for Bergman. show less

How a story this brilliant can ever go out of print astonishes me. I first discovered the Reader's Digest version as a child and it captivated me even then. Forty years later I was lucky to trip over this full copy of the story at our library's book sale. It is a highly romanticized but presumably factual account of the missionary work conducted by Gladys Aylward, a young woman of London, England who journeyed to China on her own hard-earned dime in the 1930s with little idea of what she was show more embarking on. Burgess is very fond of his subject, but he uses an overly fawning tone that infantilizes her character (as the novel's original title suggests.) Fortunately the inspiring story he has to work with succeeds at shining through, as does Gladys' courage and determination. The book's alternative title reflect that of the 1958 film version staring Ingrid Bergman, but it is also a misnomer; the location referred to was actually called the Inn of Eight Happinesses. A bit of googling turns up photos of the location today, and Wikipedia rounds out Gladys' life story. show less

The escape of 100 POWs from the Stalag Luft III prison camp via a tunnel, and the subsequent murder of 50 of them - directly ordered by Adolph Hitler - is one of the most well know episodes of World War II. It came to prominence by the book The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill, and in a slightly fictionalised version in the movie by the same name.
This book provides some more context than the Brickhill book, telling more about the capture of some of the men, and the work that was done after the show more war to bring the murderers to justice.
Well written version of this heroic and moving episode. show less