As we did in 2021, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. After a review posts, we try to do a discussion with the reviewer. This go round, we're talking to Rebecca about her "robert dance - a lousy writer - knows damn little about joan crawford." The book's Robert Dance's FEROCIOUS AMBITION: JOAN CRAWFORD'S MARCH TO STARDOM. You did not like the book?
Rebecca: I hated it. I thought it would be a fascinating book. Joan Crawford became a movie star in the 20s during the silent film days, was still a star in the 30s as we got movies with sound, continued to be a star in the 40s and the 50s and even the 60s. She had affairs with everyone -- Yul Brenner, Clark Gable, you name it -- it's a very lively life. Unless you're reading this dull book. His sentences are often not actual sentences.
You noted one example in your review.
Rebecca: And I could have noted so many more. There was no editor of this book or those sentences or the many factual errors would never have made it into print. And what's really sad is this book was published by a college university -- The University Press of Mississippi. And let me repeat: DULL! You have to be a lousy writer, a really lousy writer, to write a book about Joan Crawford and have it turn out such a snooze.
Talk about the surprise in the book?
Rebecca: Sure. He has -- if it's true -- some actual news in the book. CONFIDENTIAL was a monthly magazine in the fifties. It attracted a lot of attention and a lot of lawsuits because it was supposedly exposing famous people. They exposed Tab Hunter being gay, for example. They made sexual claims about Dorothy Dandridge, for example. They were always being sued. Robert Dance reveals that after Joan Crawford married her last husband, PepsiCola exec Al Steele, CONFIDENTIAL editor Howard Rushmore went to the FBI to determine whether or not Joan was ever arrested for prostitution or had ever made a porn movie. If what he's reporting is true, that's a book in itself. Was the FBI providing CONFIDENTIAL magazine with dirt on American citizens? He doesn't even appear to realize that what's he's reporting is not normal nor is it known. What an idiot.
You took awhile reading this.
Rebecca: Right. It was so hard to get through. I'd planned to have the review done the weekend before. I couldn't. I was mentioning that to Elaine and she ended up helping me because she was reading a book and wrote "Howard Zinn's A PEOPLE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES."
It was very frustrating -- reading the book.
Rebecca: It was. And there was a section that I thought was wrong and that I'm bringing to this discussion because I wanted to check with you, C.I. This is from the book and the film is WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?:
The film was a bigger hit than almost anyone expected and took in $4.5 million in the United States and that much again overseas. For the last quarter of 1962, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was the third top grossing film after The Longest Day and Girls! Girls! Girls!, and number one for Warner Bros. Simple arithmetic shows the amount of money Crawford made: $9 million less the cost of $850,00022 equals $8,150,000, and multiplying that number by Crawford’s 15 percent of the net brings her payday to over $1.2 million. This was more money than the cool million Elizabeth Taylor was paid for Cleopatra, widely heralded at the time as the biggest salary ever paid a film star. With later releases, television rights, VHS and DVD sales, there might still be an income being generated sixty years later.
Rebecca (Con't): C.I.?
You're right. The writer's an idiot. Nobody gets rich off net points. The writer probably doesn't even understand the concept of "rolling break even." At any rate, BUCHWALD V PARAMOUNT was the case Art Buchwald brought against PARAMOUNT over COMING TO AMERICA. In 1982, he pitched KING FOR A DAY and it was supposed to be made with Eddie Murphy in the starring role with PARAMOUNT taking out an option for it in 1983 and then putting it through rewrites before dropping it in 1985. In 1987, PARAMOUNT developed COMING TO AMERICA which Buchwald argued was his treatment. The court agreed. Time for money. Paramount argued that the film did not have a net profit. Yes, it had $288,000,000 from ticket sales but, due to all the casts, there was no profit. The court disagreed with the accounting but, to make it go away, they tossed out $900,000 and the suit was over. Net profits are chump change. You want a percentage of the gross and you want a percentage of the first ticket sold. Joan Crawford nor did Bette Davis. They got a percentage on the film on the net profit. Using the net -- not the gross -- Joan got $150,000 for her percentage and Bette Davis got $75,000. They didn't have equal percentage and Bette also took out a loan which they took from her percentage. Joan did not get a million dollars or even a half a million dollars. She got $150,000. Bette objected and argued she was being ripped off. She demanded an audit but those were the figures. And the film did not show a huge profit in terms of net. Equally true, the idiot author has the actual domestic rentals wrong. He can claim "simple arithmetic" all he wants but he doesn't understand net profit. Again, his figures -- for rentals, not ticket sales -- are wrong. But even if they were correct, the profit overseas is always lower than the gross from rentals or ticket sales. Overseas requires more expenses and less profit. And, again, Joan got $150,000 for the film from her percentage participation -- it was from the net profit, not the film's gross profit. The $150,000 figure was widely known and widely reported. She did not make more than Elizabeth Taylor made for CLEOPATRA and, for the record, Elizabeth got more than a million for that film. Elizabeth's salary for the film was one million. The film went beyond its planned shooting schedule. When she went into 'overtime,' on top of her one million dollars salary, she was entitled to $50,000 a week extra. She was also smart enough to demand a percentage of the gross -- not the net, the gross.
Rebecca: And that's why I saved that topic for the discussion. I knew you'd know. The only thing I recommend about this book are the photos. He has access to forgotten photos from her MGM days some of which may have never been seen before and these photos from the 1920s and 1930s are gorgeous -- great pictures of her, yes, but truly photographic art as well.
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Previous book discussions this year.
"robert dance - a lousy writer - knows damn little about joan crawford," "Books (Elaine, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Elaine, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ann and C.I.)," "Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" and "Books (Ava and C.I.)."
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