The Men in My Life

Starred review from October 24, 2016
In this moving follow-up to her 1997 memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires, Bosworth comes into her own as a memoirist. The earlier book focused on her father, Bartley Crum, best known as a left-wing lawyer who’d represented the Hollywood 10. In this one, Bosworth (Montgomery Clift; Diane Arbus) retraces some of the same material, condensing her father’s political life and her parents’ personal struggles with absence, alcoholism, and adultery before expanding her own coming of age as an actress and, eventually, as a writer. Perhaps inevitably, many of her decisions were colored by her dysfunctional upbringing: her disastrous marriage in 1952 (she was 19) to an abusive wannabe artist was a thinly veiled escape. Her relationship with Joseph “Pepi” Schildkraut, a married actor her father’s age, came just as her father was institutionalized for substance abuse. Her abortion as she was about to film A Nun’s Story with Audrey Hepburn unleashed a torrent of suppressed Catholic guilt. The men who haunt Bosworth’s raw narrative are her beloved brother, Bart Jr., who killed himself when he was 18, and her father, who killed himself six years later. In the end, Bosworth has no firm answers. They were prey, as she was, to “the ambivalent nature of choices between career and family, between romance and responsibility, between recklessness and restraint.”

October 15, 2016
The theater world of the 1950s forms the backdrop for a star-studded memoir.Before she became a journalist and biographer, whose subjects include Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, Bosworth (Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman, 2011, etc.) was an actress who trained at the Actors Studio (along with Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen) and performed on and off Broadway, on several TV soap operas, and on film as Audrey Hepburn's friend in The Nun's Story. The author recounts the glamorous highs and frustrating lows of trying to succeed as an actress, offering juicy anecdotes featuring a large cast of the actors, directors, and playwrights who comprised the important men in her young life. In addition, she revisits some material from her previous memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires (1997), focused on her father, Bartley Crum, a lawyer who defended the Hollywood Ten and suffered reprisals during the McCarthy years; and her brother, Bart Jr., who killed himself in 1953. The two Barts are the men who affected her most. She dedicates the memoir to Bart Jr.; unfortunately, she records verbatim her imaginary, rather immature, conversations with him, which persisted long after his death. Bosworth longed to extricate herself from a "family full of terrible silences" that refused to recognize Bart's homosexuality, find help for his depression, and acknowledge her father's alcoholism and drug dependency. Her father eventually killed himself, as well. Her first act of rebellion was to elope when she was still in her teens. "By choosing someone my parents disapproved of," she writes, "I found myself released from all traditional expectations." But marriage was not the answer: her husband, a would-be artist, abused her; finally, with her father's help, she got a divorce. She divulges an affair with an older, married man, who opened some professional doors; a later abortion; and, in 1966, marriage. By then, she had given up acting to become a writer. A forthright memoir of pain and aspirations enlivened by sharp portraits of a host of colorful celebrities.

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Starred review from November 15, 2016

This extraordinary memoir is set in the 1950s, a time of rigid social and cultural conformity, particularly challenging for women. Bosworth (Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman; Montgomery Clift: A Biography) captures the era's essence while telling her own story. She struggles to come to terms with the negative consequences of her father's high-profile legal defense of the Hollywood Ten, the impact of her youthful and abusive marriage, and, above all, the suicide of her beloved brother. Setting her sights on an acting career, Bosworth studies with Lee Strasberg at the legendary Actors Studio and eventually appears onstage and in films with such luminaries as Helen Hayes and Audrey Hepburn. Her absorbing behind-the-scenes descriptions incisively reflect the inner workings of the theatrical world of Broadway and beyond. Bosworth abandons acting to focus on becoming an award-winning journalist, penning biographies of Marlon Brando, Diane Arbus, and others. Her journey is fascinating, and she presents both people and events with honesty and sensitivity. VERDICT This exceptional account not only provides an in-depth portrait of the author, it also clearly illuminates a complex yet pivotal period in 20th-century America.--Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

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Starred review from November 1, 2016
An actor, journalist, and arts biographer (of Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Jane Fonda), Bosworth returns to her own family history, first broached in Anything Your Little Heart Desires (1997), deepening her portraits of her mother, Gertrude Crum, a one-hit-wonder best-selling novelist, and her father, Bartley Crum, a prominent lawyer who risked all to defend the Hollywood Ten. Bosworth is also finally able to unveil the tragic losses that have shadowed and shaped her: her beloved brother's suicide at 18, followed six difficult years later by her adored father's taking of his life. Looking back to her rampaging twenties, Bosworth chronicles how she repressed her grief and guilt, recklessly threw herself into harrowing situations, and embraced exhilarating opportunities, all of which she describes with stunning immediacy and valiant candor. Bosworth endured violent and destructive relationships, an illegal abortion, and depression while pushing herself relentlessly to excel as a model, achieve coveted admission to the Actors Studio, perform on Broadway and in soap operas and film, and learn to write. Lush with tales of Lee Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe, Gore Vidal, Elaine Stritch, Audrey Hepburn, and many more, and spiked with arresting observations about glamour and about toxic sexism and homophobia, Bosworth's riveting memoir brings the covertly wild 1950s into startlingly close focus.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)