Poisonous Biographies

[CoffeeDan]

Everybody speaks with their hart in their mouth.

Oh, deer!

[Nitratedreams]

I never questioned Stenn's effort. Only what makes him tick. Once you found out, you can decipher his "facts" and tell when to trust them or not. Now John Cleese as Lancelot enters the castle "anthrax" to save Michael Palin from himself...

Regardless of whether Stenn was more emotionally motivated to write Clara's story or not, that doesn't change the historical accuracy of the biography. He might have been biased in his opinions of Clara, but the sources he used--i.e. various media outlets of the time and those who knew her--aren't.

(Swedish originated idiom crashed, sorry). As long as Stenn digs into archives and provides information unrelated to the "girl victim" dimension his data is generally reliable. I assume you got a copy of "Running Wild". On page 265 Stenn tries to prove Robert Bow's proposed rape of Clara. Watch out for when Stenn "mind-reads" Bow and uses her mother's (since 1930 known) prostitution as a "Trojan horse" (not the ball playing one) to make the unfounded "rape" claim stick. It's kind of beautiful...
[/img]

Yeah, I have a copy. While I don't think anyone will never know she was ever raped by her father for sure, I'm inclined to believe it. Considering she was physically and verbally abused by him and his really bad reputation I think it adds up. It might be speculative, but it certainly is feasible.

[drednm]

I've enjoyed Scott Eyman's books so far but he snipes here and there for no apparent reason. In his Speed of Sound he seems unable to treat William Haines fairly. Haines became a star in Brown of Harvard (1926) and followed that smash with Tell It to the Marines in 1927. From around this time for 5 years (into the talkie era) Haines ranked among the top 5 box office stars even though MGM usually gave him B films to star in

Yet Eyman carps when dicussing the hit film Alias Jimmy Valentine: "The film, shot for the modest cost of $208,000, grossed $1.1 million worldwide, a very rich return for Haines, a second-echelon star usually paired with a more widely known costar (such as Lon Chaney or Marion Davies)."

I guess the hit films in which Haines starred with leading ladies like Joan Crawford, Anita Page, Eleanor Boardman, Leila Hyams, Mary Brian, Bessie Love, Madge Evans and in which Haines was the STAR don't count any more than his box-office pull or easy transition to sound.

[Brooksie]

Yet Eyman carps when dicussing the hit film Alias Jimmy Valentine: "The film, shot for the modest cost of $208,000, grossed $1.1 million worldwide, a very rich return for Haines, a second-echelon star usually paired with a more widely known costar (such as Lon Chaney or Marion Davies)."

I'm quite surprised - that's a major flub from someone of Eyman's stature.

[drednm]

I've enjoyed his books very much but every now and then he gets a little snippy.

Later he calls Robert Montgomery "one of the chilliest, most pompous actors ever to find his way to Hollywood" and that he "slid effortlessly into the brash-but-decent slots that had heretofore been relegated to William Haines."

Two birds with one carp.....

[FrankFay]

Michael Weldon said it well about Robert Montgomery: "Once you've seen him (in NIGHT MUST FALL) as a killer carrying a head in a box he begins to look demented in every other part"

My gripe with him is that in the 30's he was handsome to the point of being pretty and seemed to think that his looks alone were enough. I DO Like him in MR AND MRS SMITH.

Elizabeth Montgomery was quite a beauty- I wish she'd had talent to match.

[drednm]

I like Montgomery in some roles, but he always seemed a tad smug to me. I guess I dislike him most in those charming parlor comedies. Callow only works up to a certain age.

[Hal Erickson]

--"Later he calls Robert Montgomery "one of the chilliest, most pompous actors ever to find his way to Hollywood" and that he "slid effortlessly into the brash-but-decent slots that had heretofore been relegated to William Haines."--

I can assure you that if Robert Montgomery had been the media advisor to Adlai Stevenson rather than Eisenhower, film historians would be treating him more kindly.
It's all part of the unfortunate revisionism wrought from the political ideology of certain "experts": The "Capra and Disney were closet Nazis because they never voted for FDR" school of historical evaluation.

[Richard M Roberts]

--"Later he calls Robert Montgomery "one of the chilliest, most pompous actors ever to find his way to Hollywood" and that he "slid effortlessly into the brash-but-decent slots that had heretofore been relegated to William Haines."--

I can assure you that if Robert Montgomery had been the media advisor to Adlai Stevenson rather than Eisenhower, film historians would be treating him more kindly.
It's all part of the unfortunate revisionism wrought from the political ideology of certain "experts": The "Capra and Disney were closet Nazis because they never voted for FDR" school of historical evaluation.

Unfortunate revisionism from the man who has written books humanizing Louis B Mayer, Cecil B. Demille and is curently working on John Wayne? And he was far from the only person to call Robert Montgomery chilly or pompous, neither terms being politically specific.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[drednm]

My point in using the quote about Montgomery was to show the use of the word "relegate" in connection to Haines as another dig against Haines.

But in general there seems to be a real negative tone in Eyman's discussion of early goat-gland and talkie films. I guess he just doesn't like them.

While he seems sympathetic toward John Gilbert, Eddie Cantor, Bessie Love, etc. he dismisses many of the contemporary stars and many of the films while pointing out the inadequacies of the sound technology, the studio turmoil, and the money grasping tendencies of the studio executives.

His snipes at Haines, Richard Barthelmess, Joan Crawford, Paul Whiteman, Charles King, Alice White, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton, etc. seem a little harsh after all the text concerning technological problems.

[boblipton]

Montgomery was cast in callow roles long after he should have, but he was certainly able to evoke a steely gravitas when given a chance: consider THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, some of which he directed.

And like many of the excellent Hollywood actors of the 1930s (including Freddric March and Spencer Tracy) he should never have essayed an accent.

But I suspect, as others here have stated overtly, that had he been of the sort to have gone on the blacklist, his acting would have improved immeasurably.

Bob

[gjohnson]

I'm with Bob. I was going to bring up THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945).
Sit through one viewing of that film and you'll forget every tea & crumpets drawing room comedy that Montgomery was ever forced to walk through.

Gary J.

[FrankFay]

He had some interesting ideas as a director. His version of LADY IN THE LAKE is interesting with the first person subjective use of the camera, but the novelty wears off pretty soon- Mamoulian knew better and in Jeckyl & Hyde he switched to a more conventional viewpoint after the audience's curiosity was piqued.

RIDE THE PINK HORSE is a good piece of noir.

Maybe he should have directed more and acted less.

[drednm]

As I said I like him least when he's pseudo-British in those parlor comedies. I can stomach Norma Shearer in Private Lives but Montgomery is seriously miscast. Better choices would have been Ronald Colman, William Powell, John Gilbert, or Laurence Olivier.....

[Hal Erickson]

--"Later he calls ]

Unfortunate revisionism from the man who has written books humanizing Louis B Mayer, Cecil B. Demille and is curently working on John Wayne? And he was far from the only person to call Robert Montgomery chilly or pompous, neither terms being politically specific.

My father, a banker, had business dealings with Robert Montgomery, and he was indeed a cold, aloof and arrogant man. I'm merely suggesting that these traits would not be held against him by certain writers were it not for his politics.

Similarly, both Capra and Disney were men of MANY faults. But just because they weren't pro-FDR did not make them fascists.

This is what I meant about revisionism. There is a tendency to forgive and forget if you are sympatico with your biographical subject. I'm thinking of books like Gene Fowler's biography of his close friend John Barrymore, in which a cruel, drunken hedonist is made to appear a lovable scoundrel.
Or, conversely, Charles Higham's book on Errol Flynn,which holds it against Errol that some of his British pals were pro-fascist (not unusual in the late 1930s and early 1940s, especially in Britain) and weaves a whole new scenario of undercover work for the Nazis on fragmentary evidence (and manages to get even more digs into Errol when he ghosts Hal Wallis' autobio--as if Wallis himself was a paragon of virtue).

[drednm]

Politically, Cecil B. DeMille may have been the most posionous unelected man in the country during the McCarthy Era.....

[Hal Erickson]

Politically, Cecil B. DeMille may have been the most posionous unelected man in the country during the McCarthy Era.....

He was awful, and few would defend him...except, curiously, Edward G. Robinson, who credited DeMille for restoring his self-respect by giving him the sizable role of Dathan in TEN COMMANDMENTS at a time when Eddie G. had been graylisted and was otherwise relegated to secondary parts and inexpensive programmers.

But there were worse than DeMille. Ward Bond was by many accounts particularly reprehensible, especially when he was called upon to "clear" a politically risky actor for work. Several have reported how Bond made them grovel just to get an okay.

And just to be bipartisan, there are many nasty tales about blacklist victim Lillian Hellman--most of them involving lawsuits against people who dared to question the veracity her writings (some of which, like the source book for JULIA, have been largely discredited since her death).

[drednm]

Eyman calls Hedda Hopper the Madame DeFarge of the McCarthy Era.

DeMille, to give him credit, did hire Robinson but he refused to consider Burt Lancaster for Moses (Henry Wilcoxon's choice) because of his (Lancaster's) politics so he went with Charlton Heston.

The episodes in Eyman's DeMille book where DeMille is trying to oust un-American directors (all those Europeans) from the DGA are truly chilling. DeMille as "super patriot" and anti-Semite (he was part Jewish himself) is a truly disgusting man.

But they were part of a truly ugly era in America.

[daveboz]

[snip] Or, conversely, Charles Higham's book on Errol Flynn,which holds it against Errol that some of his British pals were pro-fascist (not unusual in the late 1930s and early 1940s, especially in Britain) and weaves a whole new scenario of undercover work for the Nazis on fragmentary evidence (and manages to get even more digs into Errol when he ghosts Hal Wallis' autobio--as if Wallis himself was a paragon of virtue).

================

Higham is more of a fabricator than a weaver. He altered government documents and consciously invented phony stories about Flynn, as is shown in detail by the late Tony Thomas [Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was], and William Donati [an appendix in the autobiography of stuntman and Flynn pal Buster Wiles]. I wouldn't trust Higham on anything.

[FrankFay]

The only Higham I've ever read is "Orson Welles: the rise and fall of an American genius" 1985. It's quite an interesting read since Higham exposes Welles' statements about his own family and past as a series of outrageous fabrications and lies. Higham does have an axe to grind (Welles denied him interviews and when he gave them he lied) but it's all quite entertaining- apparently Welles seriously told interviewers that one of his relatives (aunt, grandmother- something like that) was a Witch. Being famous everyone bought the story immediately, even the poor woman's friends.

[stovelsten]

Regardless of whether Stenn was more emotionally motivated to write Clara's story or not, that doesn't change the historical accuracy of the biography. He might have been biased in his opinions of Clara, but the sources he used--i.e. various media outlets of the time and those who knew her--aren't.

(Swedish originated idiom crashed, sorry). As long as Stenn digs into archives and provides information unrelated to the "girl victim" dimension his data is generally reliable. I assume you got a copy of "Running Wild". On page 265 Stenn tries to prove Robert Bow's proposed rape of Clara. Watch out for when Stenn "mind-reads" Bow and uses her mother's (since 1930 known) prostitution as a "Trojan horse" (not the ball playing one) to make the unfounded "rape" claim stick. It's kind of beautiful...
[/img]

Yeah, I have a copy. While I don't think anyone will never know she was ever raped by her father for sure, I'm inclined to believe it. Considering she was physically and verbally abused by him and his really bad reputation I think it adds up. It might be speculative, but it certainly is feasible.

From chapter one Robert Bow is made a villain by Stenn. "Here (in Brooklyn) Robert Bow bought the bodies of underage girls while dreaming of an ideal one". How does Stenn know? Who told him this?
As I see it you could claim Clara preferred grapes to her morning coffee without sourcing it, but not this! Right through the book Robert Bow is unfairly treated by Stenn. Hence the "poisonous" composition on page 265. Once the reader is tricked to accept the "rape" claim, all the other proposed crimes of Robert Bow will be accepted. Unfortunately Robert Bow is not the only victim of Stenn's drama ambitions. On the opposite pole he is sucking-up to characters like Rex Bell and Budd Schulberg. Not to mention "The Institute of Living", whose medical malpractice during the Lobotomy-age he doesn't mention but certainly know of.
In "Girl27"(2007) Stenn dances on a grave belonging to proposed rapist...

[Brooksie]

From chapter one Robert Bow is made a villain by Stenn. "Here (in Brooklyn) Robert Bow bought the bodies of underage girls while dreaming of an ideal one". How does Stenn know? Who told him this?

I have always wondered what the source of the rape claim was. I had a vague idea that it was an open secret at the time, but surely such a serious claim needs to have more backing than that. Stenn is not the only biographer to make the allegation, and I don't think he was the first, either.

Was there something to it, or was it something we should throw in the Marion Meade bin?

[Nitratedreams]

(Swedish originated idiom crashed, sorry). As long as Stenn digs into archives and provides information unrelated to the "girl victim" dimension his data is generally reliable. I assume you got a copy of "Running Wild". On page 265 Stenn tries to prove Robert Bow's proposed rape of Clara. Watch out for when Stenn "mind-reads" Bow and uses her mother's (since 1930 known) prostitution as a "Trojan horse" (not the ball playing one) to make the unfounded "rape" claim stick. It's kind of beautiful...
[/img]

Yeah, I have a copy. While I don't think anyone will never know she was ever raped by her father for sure, I'm inclined to believe it. Considering she was physically and verbally abused by him and his really bad reputation I think it adds up. It might be speculative, but it certainly is feasible.

From chapter one Robert Bow is made a villain by Stenn. "Here (in Brooklyn) Robert Bow bought the bodies of underage girls while dreaming of an ideal one". How does Stenn know? Who told him this?
As I see it you could claim Clara preferred grapes to her morning coffee without sourcing it, but not this! Right through the book Robert Bow is unfairly treated by Stenn. Hence the "poisonous" composition on page 265. Once the reader is tricked to accept the "rape" claim, all the other proposed crimes of Robert Bow will be accepted. Unfortunately Robert Bow is not the only victim of Stenn's drama ambitions. On the opposite pole he is sucking-up to characters like Rex Bell and Budd Schulberg. Not to mention "The Institute of Living", whose medical malpractice during the Lobotomy-age he doesn't mention but certainly know of.
In "Girl27"(2007) Stenn dances on a grave belonging to proposed rapist...

Arrrgh. Any valid response to this is going to require my picking up my copy of 'Running Wild' again, isn't it? 'Always Sunny in Philadelphia' is on and I don't really feel like debating this anymore. I think Clara will forgive my taking a break to defend her kick-ass honor to watch 'Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth'.

[Harold Aherne]

Gary Giddins' Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams is not at all poisonous towards its subject--indeed, Giddins' work is in many ways a corrective for statements made about Bing by, well, another Gary. But I was offended at Giddins' comments about and interpretation of certain male singers who preceded Crosby: he states that "[Jolson] reigned during an era when most popular singers--Billy Murray, Nick Lucas, Gene Austin--were tenors, often effeminate or sexually ambiguous". Billy Murray. Sexually ambiguous. Really.

And poor Jack Fulton's singing gets labeled "effeminate" *twice* in the book! I'm not sure what kind of point Giddins is trying to make with his repeated discussion of effeminacy in male singers of the 20s, whether it's an excuse not to take them seriously or to write them off as un-modern, but I found it merely tiresome.

Another swipe at Billy Murray also irritated me: "...no recitation of past sales figures can incline us [sic] to listen to Billy Murray records or to read Lloyd C. Douglas novels or to buy Walter Keane paintings". And why should sales stats, by themselves, compel anyone to worship Crosby? Part of Giddins' own case for him is based on box office figures and Billboard charts (in the latter case, unfortunately, Giddins relies on a source that has been thoroughly debunked).

We'll have to see how the second half of Giddins' biography turns out, if and when it gets finished. Until then, the definitive Crosby bio may have yet to be written.

-Harold

[Hal Erickson]

The only Higham I've ever read is "Orson Welles: the rise and fall of an American genius" 1985. It's quite an interesting read since Higham exposes Welles' statements about his own family and past as a series of outrageous fabrications and lies. Higham does have an axe to grind (Welles denied him interviews and when he gave them he lied) but it's all quite entertaining- apparently Welles seriously told interviewers that one of his relatives (aunt, grandmother- something like that) was a Witch. Being famous everyone bought the story immediately, even the poor woman's friends.

Higham lost me in his first Welles book (1970) in which he criticizes Orson for the "carelessness" of featuring Fanny Minafer (Agnes Moorehead) among the gossips who discuss the Amberson family in the opening scenes of MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. This, suggests Higham, is an error of continuity.
Huh? In the beginning of the story, Fanny isn't a part of the Amberson household because her brother hasn't yet married Isabel.

This is almost as dumb as Pauline Kael suggesting that the scene in which Welles eats his dinner in the newspaper office in CITIZEN KANE was actually a rehearsal shot caught by the camera crew as a gag, which Welles used in the film to show he was a good sport. How the hell can a camera crew--especially Gregg Toland's--catch anyone by surprise?

[stovelsten]

From chapter one Robert Bow is made a villain by Stenn. "Here (in Brooklyn) Robert Bow bought the bodies of underage girls while dreaming of an ideal one". How does Stenn know? Who told him this?

I have always wondered what the source of the rape claim was. I had a vague idea that it was an open secret at the time, but surely such a serious claim needs to have more backing than that. Stenn is not the only biographer to make the allegation, and I don't think he was the first, either.

The allegation is repeated by several other biographers, but only after the publication of "Runnin' wild"(1988). The uncritical use of Stenn's exploits proofs what "Costal reporter" proofed some 80 years ago: Among the blind, a squint - eyed is the king.

[spadeneal]

Gary Giddins' Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams is not at all poisonous towards its subject--indeed, Giddins' work is in many ways a corrective for statements made about Bing by, well, another Gary. But I was offended at Giddins' comments about and interpretation of certain male singers who preceded Crosby: he states that "[Jolson] reigned during an era when most popular singers--Billy Murray, Nick Lucas, Gene Austin--were tenors, often effeminate or sexually ambiguous". Billy Murray. Sexually ambiguous. Really.

And poor Jack Fulton's singing gets labeled "effeminate" *twice* in the book! I'm not sure what kind of point Giddins is trying to make with his repeated discussion of effeminacy in male singers of the 20s, whether it's an excuse not to take them seriously or to write them off as un-modern, but I found it merely tiresome.

Another swipe at Billy Murray also irritated me: "...no recitation of past sales figures can incline us [sic] to listen to Billy Murray records or to read Lloyd C. Douglas novels or to buy Walter Keane paintings". And why should sales stats, by themselves, compel anyone to worship Crosby? Part of Giddins' own case for him is based on box office figures and Billboard charts (in the latter case, unfortunately, Giddins relies on a source that has been thoroughly debunked).

We'll have to see how the second half of Giddins' biography turns out, if and when it gets finished. Until then, the definitive Crosby bio may have yet to be written.

-Harold

Gary is a good guy, and definitely a good writer. And there is a certain subjectivity among some of the New York music writers who deal with singers that I feel tends to work against some of the correctives that one welcomes in their texts. It's like the meal is not fully digested: in the list above, he names three singers who really don't belong in the same category.

Style in popular music changed across the board circa 1920 in such a drastic fashion that it is difficult to understand today, and the singers born after 1900 were not a force quite yet. By 1931, when Crosby hit his peak, I think, as a stylist, a lot of the singers who had made hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of records, were either wrapping up their careers or already gone. The pre-1900 singers were able to adapt to the idea of swinging or at least syncopation to varying degrees -- Vernon Dalhart, Irving Kaufman and Arthur Fields got it, Billy Murray and Frankyn Baur got it a little bit, Henry Burr, Lewis James and really most of the rest got it not at all. To condemn these multiple generations of singers for not being able to learn the new trick -- particularly the way Bing Crosby was able to do it -- is unhistorical.

One fellow I know who is a writer and an expert in this field loves Crosby and does not love Russ Columbo; he finds him unlistenable and says Columbo is not part of the canon. Columbo had his own style very different from Bing's, and his forward influence worked in a different direction -- Perry Como, Dean Martin, even James Brown. In classical music criticism we have learned time and again that the biggest fish in the stream does not exclude the study of species that may seem of lesser value, or size; just because Beethoven is huge around 1800 does not negate the work of Jan Ladislas Dussek. Serious popular music criticism is still a relatively young field compared to formal musicology -- indeed, sometimes one wonders if it may have started TOO late -- and these writers do not seem to have yet learned the lesson.

spadeneal

[Daniel Eagan]

The only Higham I've ever read is "Orson Welles: the rise and fall of an American genius" 1985. It's quite an interesting read since Higham exposes Welles' statements about his own family and past as a series of outrageous fabrications and lies. Higham does have an axe to grind (Welles denied him interviews and when he gave them he lied) but it's all quite entertaining- apparently Welles seriously told interviewers that one of his relatives (aunt, grandmother- something like that) was a Witch. Being famous everyone bought the story immediately, even the poor woman's friends.

Higham lost me in his first Welles book (1970) in which he criticizes Orson for the "carelessness" of featuring Fanny Minafer (Agnes Moorehead) among the gossips who discuss the Amberson family in the opening scenes of MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. This, suggests Higham, is an error of continuity.
Huh? In the beginning of the story, Fanny isn't a part of the Amberson household because her brother hasn't yet married Isabel.

This is almost as dumb as Pauline Kael suggesting that the scene in which Welles eats his dinner in the newspaper office in CITIZEN KANE was actually a rehearsal shot caught by the camera crew as a gag, which Welles used in the film to show he was a good sport. How the hell can a camera crew--especially Gregg Toland's--catch anyone by surprise?

Wasn't Higham the one who "proved" Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy?

[fossy]

Rin Tin Tin: That Son of a Bitch is a total bowser.

According to Rin Tin Tin story there have been eleven Rin Tin Tins. So I suppose that makes eleven sons of eleven bitches.


www.rintintin.com/story.htm

[Richard M Roberts]

My father, a banker, had business dealings with Robert Montgomery, and he was indeed a cold, aloof and arrogant man. I'm merely suggesting that these traits would not be held against him by certain writers were it not for his politics.

Yet, how is it different when you're admitting Montgomery was cold, aloof and arrogant, and Eyman is calling him the same thing. Are you being biased because of his politics?

Similarly, both Capra and Disney were men of MANY faults. But just because they weren't pro-FDR did not make them fascists.

Perhaps not, but Disney being the only mogul apart from Hal Roach who welcomed Leni Riefenstahl to America in 1938 certainly didn't make him a Red. And considering the number of employee strikes the Disney Studio suffered in the early 40's and the way he fought unionization st his studio shows a lack of liberal tendencies on his part. And it is interesting to realize that as the man who made some of the most liberal films to come out of the 1930's, Capra was a card-carrying Republican.

This is what I meant about revisionism. There is a tendency to forgive and forget if you are sympatico with your biographical subject. I'm thinking of books like Gene Fowler's biography of his close friend John Barrymore, in which a cruel, drunken hedonist is made to appear a lovable scoundrel.

Well, there seemed to be a number of people who forgave Barrymore for quite a lot, and they actually knew him at the time. Admittedly some of them were probably drunken hedonists too, but as drunken hedonists go, he must have had some positive traits to balance it out.

Or, conversely, Charles Higham's book on Errol Flynn,which holds it against Errol that some of his British pals were pro-fascist (not unusual in the late 1930s and early 1940s, especially in Britain) and weaves a whole new scenario of undercover work for the Nazis on fragmentary evidence (and manages to get even more digs into Errol when he ghosts Hal Wallis' autobio--as if Wallis himself was a paragon of virtue).

Well, I don't know anyone who takes Charles Higham seriously these days as a biographer, and trying to lump Scott Eyman in with him is trying to mix baloney with the best prime-choice steak. I think Scott Eyman is about the finest,fairest and least agenda-driven (except perhaps, in only writing about celebs that he knows will sell books) film biographers we have writing at the moment, and since the most revisionism he has been doing lately is making some of these more conservative movie personalities more human and understandable in their faults, and showing the good they did as well, I completely disagree with your opinions of him.

And though I don't disagree that many lesser biographers let their agenda get in the way of telling their subjects stories, I find far more than right-wing bashing fueling that fire. I find the "everyone in Hollywood was Gay, especially the serial Womanizers who were working rather hard to hide it" agenda just as problematical, and anything that slavishly holds to the nonsensical "auteur" theory in giving all creative credit to whomever they are writing about on everything they ever did equally suspect.

The problem with all biographies is that they are written by another human being, who is going to have opinions, beliefs, and attitudes that are going to be part of their work, however hard they try to stop it. You have to take that into account when you read their works, and deal with it. Autobiographies aren't any better, because self-delusion is just as strong an agenda as anything else. The truth is we;ll never get closer to the past than the occasional crumb of fact, and the rest is strained through many other eyes and attitudes. thats why it never hurts to have a number of biographies on someone by many different folk, leaving you to strain it through your own attitudes and prejudices and figure out for yourself what you believe.


RICHARD M ROBERTS