My Side of the Road

By the time she got there, Dorothy Lamour's Paramount was no longer the haven for risque artistes it had been in the 1930s, when Travis Banton was dressing his female stars with as much abandon as the laws would allow. No more Mae West, Lubitsch, Jeannette MacDonald. But she helped raise morale considerably with her beautiful face and huge deep eyes, and that crazy sarong she "wore" to placate the boys. Often enough she was co-starred with Paramount's two leading stars, king crooner Bing Crosby and British-born lovable twit Bob Hope, so that gave her a huge break as she readily admits in this lovely autobiography. Her evocations of Hollywood gone by make this a book to remember, and it is surprisingly heartfelt. I liked her account of the many different women in her life named Dorothy, and how the death of one of them, the Ziegfield beauty Dorothy Dell, really affected her in a dramatic way. And her story of acting in the neglected A MEDAL FOR BENNY written by none other than John Steinbeck makes you wish this picture was more often seen today, instead of existing in that gray-list waste land. She is often very funny, and she provides a humorous list of the names of the "native" Polynesian or other characters she was assigned to play--Luma, Uma, Tamara, Moana, and many more--that's a work of art as well as a rueful commentary on the typecasting practices of the studio system. Lamour also claims to be the first star to go out selling War Bonds in WWII, selling $30 million dollars worth in 4 days. She was intensely patriotic too. I liked her picture of "Pappy," John Ford, who starred in THE HURRICANE and years later in DONOVAN's REEF. She made him seem less threatening than did Maureen O'Hara in her recent memoir--not to say that one actress is correct and the other wrong, because Ford was a complex man with many sides to his personality. The pictures are wonderful as well. If you get a chance, you might try to boy a copy of this book and read it right through. You won't forget it.

Dorothy Lamour was one of the most popular stars of the 1940s and 1950s. She immortalized the sarong, and wore one in most of her films. Her biography is a fantastic look into the life of this luminous screen personality.Throughout the book, Dorothy Lamour is completely honest about very personal events and struggles in her life. The best part of the book is about the behind the scenes on her films. It's great to hear about her relationships with other Hollywood stars. The photographs are sparkling and many are from her own personal collection!This book is a must for any Lamour fan, or for a fan of the Golden Age of the Movies. This book is a classic, and I must say that I really enjoyed reading it!