Haywire

This book was well written and very interesting. I learned so much about actors I had previously known little about. Margaret Sullavan, a lovely, talented woman, Leland Hayward, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda,etc. From this book I became interested in reading more about these people and went on to read "Capote"by Truman Capote who was friends with Slim Keith,"Don't Tell Dad" by Peter Fonda. Jane Fonda's "My Life So Far"and "The girl who walked home alone" by Bette Davis, who had some history with Henry Fonda early on. Brooke's life, and that of her parents and siblings, started out idylically. A fairy tale childhood, at first. The breaking up of her parents marriage seemed so impossible when they seemed so thrilled with their family. Sad they let it get away. All their lives would have turned out so differently had they managed to work things out.

At the reception after her sister Bridget's funeral, Brooke Hayward said to Tom Mankiewicz, "I'm the daughter of a father who's been married five times. Mother killed herself. My sister killed herself. My brother has been in a mental institution. I'm 23 and divorced with two kids." Mankiewicz replied,"Brooke, either you've got to open the window right now"--they were on the 10th floor, overlooking Park Avenue in her father's apartment--"either you've got to open the window right now and jump out, or say,'I'm going to live,' because you're right, it's the worst family history that anybody ever had, and either you jump out the window or you live." Hayward decided to live, and to write about her family history. She did it so well that this book stays in memory long after many have faded. Hayward's father, Leland Hayward, was the most colorful, dynamic and successful of theatrical agents. He repped such stars and celebrities as Greta Garbo, Ernest Hemingway, Judy Garland, Billy Wilder, Gregory Peck,Boris Karloff, Lillian Hellman, Fred Astaire and Dashiell Hammett. He was elegant, flamboyant, high-powered. After Sullavan, he would go on to marry the famously beautiful Pamela Digby Churchill, who clearly didn't care for his kids. Hayward's mother, Margaret Sullavan, was a beautiful and beloved star of stage and screen. She'd been married to Henry Fonda: the Fonda and Hayward children were always close. They had everything. Jimmy Stewart as a babysitter. A house of their own, separate from their parents'. Nannies and tutors. Going up in daddy's private plane, with daddy, who just loved to fly, at the throttle-- almost before they could walk. Hollywood extravaganzas for birthday parties. Their lives were as privileged as any American children's, and would likely be envied by minor princelings and princesses abroad. The kids were beautiful, intelligent, sensitive, charming. Brooke was on the cover of Life magazine at 15, bought her first convertible, juggled modeling and The Actors Studio, while Bridget began working backstage, as she'd wished to, at the Williamstown Playhouse, the most famous and prestigious of summer theaters. Yet the potentional for disaster was there all the time; in the end, it was no good. Bridget committed suicide before she was 21; Bill was in Menninger, a prestigious mental hospital, and only Brooke was left to try to understand what went so wrong. Obviously, a lot went wrong, and Hayward only had to get it in writing, with honesty and sensitivity, to produce a riveting book. The sensitivity she had, and she somehow found the honesty to record the almost Greek tragedy that the Hayward kids lived. She's produced a deeply moving, affecting book that I think you'll find hard to put aside, providing you can find it,of course. And I think that, like me, you're liable to remember this book for quite a time to come. "Haywire" is a history of people who acted with overwhelming emotional extravagance, extreme s

This booked touched me on so many levels. I am pleased to see it has had the same effect on others. The story is fascinating and the writing superb. I owe a debt of gratitude to Brooke. She fueled my imagination and inspired me to read many books that related to her story. Biographies about step-mother Pamela, another Mrs. Hayward's autobiography (Slim)and most recently her husband, Peter Duchin's autobiography. And there were others. The tale of her family, as told by Brooke, is a remarkable one. Beautiful, sad and remarkable. If you have any interest in Old Hollywood or the Broadway of days gone by, don't miss this book. It deserves a special place in your library.

I read HAYWIRE when it first was published, and I have continued to think of its sad story throughout all of the years that have followed.I found this work by Brooke Hayward to be a courageous report of the events which tore apart her family. She was the daughter of producer Leland Hayward and actress Margaret Sullavan, whose first husband was Henry Fonda. Fonda's children from his next marriage were among the Hayward children's best friends. This was the cast which peopled Brooke Hayward's childhood.After Sullavan's death, Leland married Pamela Churchill, whose first husband was the son of former English Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Hayward family's problems trascended Pamela, but Brooke's portrayal of her is as a classic wicked stepmother, a thesis since confirmed by subsequent biographies of Pamela.Since the author here came from a famous family, and since many of the events experienced by her family were extraordinary, HAYWIRE makes for fascinating reading. Brooke Hayward writes a heartbreaking story with style and dignity.

Just before I began this review, I was listening to Ravel's "Pavane For a Dead Infanta", which is the classical piece played at Bridget Hayward's funeral in the Autumn of 1960. Her older sister's narrative of the triumphs and tragedies of her family has the beautiful solemnity of "Pavane" itself.It's like a flower that blooms, grows, and dies far too quickly, somehow never quite fulfilling its true potential, like her younger sister. The Haywards' story is a typical Hollywood-style tragedy. But I felt intrigued by the detailed descriptions of the people and places Brooke Hayward knew, enthralled by the descriptions of the stylishness of her step-mother, Pamela, who later became the U.S. Ambassador to France, the heartiness, of her Grandfather who spent hours creating a beautful display quilt for his two granddaughters when they were children, the lonliness her father, Leland Hayward still felt years after being abandoned by his mother, and his unfortunate continuation of that cycle of behavior, of Margaret Sullavan's domineering spirit, of the failure of Bridget and Bill to live up to parental expectations, and of young, ill-fated Bridget's accute case of Middle Child Syndrome. Somehow, I didn't feel altogether surprised by her early death. Along the way, Brooke expresses concern for those who cared for and about her family when she was growing up, and gives a facinating study of life in Old Hollywood and Broadway in their Golden Ages. As Henry Fonda was one of Margaret Sullavan's ex-husbands, and the Fonda children and Hayward children were very close, I've often wondered if actress Bridget Fonda was named for Bridget Hayward. Brooke Hayward is someone who has come through a lot in her life, and one can only hope that she and her brother have found some peace after all the unhappiness they suffered.