Splitsville
Bachrach, Judy
Splitsville We know Hollywood marriages have a short shelf life, but we want to know why. BY JUDY BACHRACH Let's say you need to know why Madonna couldn't stay married to Sean Penn for more than...
...Another solution to such unquenchable curiosity is, I'm afraid, Google, which is $16.95 cheaper than The Hollywood Book of Breakups and, in certain instances, juicier and more authoritative...
...Another blow to enduring love is movie career triumph...
...Johnny Weissmuller...
...At this point some "fanciful beauty" named Pier Angeli, who thought she was Eddie's date, "fled in tears...
...Why so much emphasis on girl grief...
...Publishing house lawyers are famously even more stupid and spineless than those who frequent sex addiction clinics on the advice of their mother-in-law...
...For example, in the chapter entitled "Debbie Reynolds vs...
...Or that, ultimately, Pier wed neither of her previous amours but instead chose the singer Vic Damone in 1954...
...The author thinks we can be satisfied with an appetizer...
...which, thanks to the beauty parlor, we have all by now committed to memory—are the long-ago splits of the Urstars...
...Eddie Fisher," we learn that in June 1954 at the Cocoanut Grove club in Los Angeles, Eddie first made eyes at Debbie...
...Yes, they did...
...Parish describes this sex rehab interlude as a "seeming confirmation of Eric's unfaithfulness," which is pretty namby-pamby verbiage for a summer read...
...Why did Bruce fail to make Demi happy...
...Such are the ways of Hollywood," James Robert Parish writes bitterly after Clint Eastwood wins a 2004 Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, while the career of his dumped girlfriend, Sondra Locke, founders...
...More interesting than the summaries of modern celebrity heartaches (Uma Thurman, JLo, Cher, etc...
...Except, as you probably guessed, the Damone/Angeli union "proved stormy," perhaps because "his moviemaking career fizzled and hers waned...
...It is always gratifying to discover that the wealthy, famous, and beautiful can be every bit as dumb in love as the poorer and plainer—even dumber, in certain wonderful instances...
...But that he doesn't know nearly enough is the problem...
...Parish memorably observes that "success, money and fame were not enough to keep Jennifer Aniston's and Brad Pitt's high-profile lives on the same track...
...Well, one answer is The Hollywood Book of Breakups, a compendium of weepy tales by a clip-master with fine organizational skills and a brisk cheerleader for the underdog in each failed romance...
...It wasn't...
...Is the phrase "had been drifting apart for years" really supposed to be an eye-opener...
...Parish's métier...
...This is possibly not good news for Angelina...
...They have "amours...
...It would have been helpful had the author reminded us that this fleeing Pier was the same "petite performer" beloved of James Dean and Kirk Douglas some 200 pages earlier...
...Also, it might have helped had the author done some hard digging on his own (or perhaps more comprehensive clipping...
...In fact, the book would have benefited greatly from some cross-referencing...
...Rock Hudson," for instance, or "Lupe Velez vs...
...Yes, Mr...
...Where do you go to get the dirt on divas...
...A gallant gesture, certainly, but one that can lead to a good deal of head-scratching: "Phyllis Gates vs...
...Or that she called him "Junior...
...Alas, Mr...
...Not that I'm knocking Mr...
...BY JUDY BACHRACH Let's say you need to know why Madonna couldn't stay married to Sean Penn for more than a minute, or what Ava Gardner had against Frank Sinatra, even after he told her, "You're all I want," and then threatened to kill himself if the feeling wasn't mutual...
...Parish knows who his readers are—the spiritual sisters of Lupe and Phyllis...
...Or that he messed around with Ava Gardner, along with an Italian babe named Lia Di Leo and a ballerina named Ludmilla Tcherina...
...All chapter headings begin with the lady's name...
...I know, I know...
...Part of the charm, for me, of this compendium is the number of times I found myself saying, "Who...
...Because that's life...
...In Mr...
...and never entirely finding out...
...That way he could have discovered, for example, that Meg Ryan left Dennis Quaid not merely because of boorish-but-hunky interloper Russell Crowe, but because, as Ryan told me, Quaid had a wandering eye...
...That is also, as it happens, the way the author has composed his book...
...For example, we discover in this book, after hearing that her second husband Eric Benet was involved with a pretty model from (of all places) Milwaukee, the actress Halle Berry and her mother leaned on Eric to enter a clinic that specializes in sexual addiction...
...Parish's book, almost everyone, not just the fanciful, does this sort of thing...
...He didn't...
...Or for that matter, let's assume you are still wondering, six years later, why Ellen DeGeneres, after necking up a Judy Bachrach is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair...
...Who knew that Barbara Stanwyck, like her husband Robert Taylor, was "reputedly bisexual...
...On the other hand, as the author frequently points out, movie career failure is by no means the only cause of marital angst...
...storm in public with the skinny actress Anne Heche, couldn't manage to make their relationship endure...
...Also, they don't necessarily fall in love...
...Of Madonna and Jennifer...
...But still...
...What we really want is the dish...
Vol. 11 • August 2006 • No. 46
