#ClassicFilmReading: Life is a Banquet by Rosalind Russell

Oh, to have Auntie Mame's vivacity! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death. 

This was my penultimate book for the Classic Film Reading Challenge, a memoir written by Rosalind Russell with Chris Chase and released following her death from cancer in 1976. Her husband of 35 years, Frederick Brisson, wrote the foreword and gave a view into their relationship and her battle, and you can feel the love between them. 

Though you'd expect a larger-than-life tale from someone who so wonderfully and grandly portrayed Auntie Mame, Syvlia Fowler, Hildy Johnson, Sister Kenny, Lavinnia Mannon, or Mama Rose, you quickly find out that Rosalind, though she was accustomed to the finer things in life, lived pretty ordinarily, even at the height of fame. 

She spells it out in the introduction, on why she never wanted to write a book. She says there were three reasons: "I couldn't write a sensational, confessional book because for thirty-five years I'd been married to one husband," "I couldn't write a lofty book emphasizing my patrician background (one of those 'Skeffington Smythe Middlebaugh was related to John Quincy Adams, who was my great-great-great-grandmother's fiancé for six months' jobs)," and "I couldn't write a book Swifty Lazar would agree to read. Swifty, a super agent and maker of big deals, told me my life simply wasn't interesting enough to write about. Too normal, he said." 

But I found myself totally engaged with Rosalind's tale: she kept her head on straight, never (outwardly) feared voicing her opinion or standing up for what she felt she was worth, and totally committed herself to every task (she only ever pulled diva rank once, apparently, by pretending to be sick well into filming The Women so that she could get above-the-title billing with Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford). 

She totally loved her husband, though it took forever for her to agree to marry him (and she only agreed to a date when Cary Grant, their mutual friend, literally brought Freddie to her front door one night). She totally loved her son. I love the story she tells of how she'd bring him onto film sets so he could see her at work, and so he wouldn't have the idea that actors aren't hard workers (though she also admits to being very happy that he ultimately decided not to become an actor himself). 

Of her career, she talks about climbing to the top and achieving fame and glory while flapping her mouth to stay Varsity Team-adjacent (as she refers to the Cary Grants and Myrna Loys and Joan Crawfords of Hollywood). At the height of her fame, and shortly after her marriage, she walked away from another seven-year contract at MGM all because she didn't want to be tethered anywhere as she built a home and family. She and Freddie, though they travelled widely and often, bought a house with cash in 1941 and stayed their for the rest of Rosalind's life.

She had her passion projects and fought to bring them to the screen (this is how we got Sister Kenny and Auntie Mame); and when she wanted to branch out, she headed east and starred on Broadway. Backstage gossip at the Oscars, where she lost four times? She barely mentions her nominations at all, let alone how she felt losing on Oscar night. Towards the end of the book, she lists a few of the awards she's received over her career, which takes up a paragraph, writing, "That's it. The obligatory laundry list. I'm only going to do it once in these pages, because I can't stand books where actors quote all their good reviews and catalogue their honors. I just wanted to prove I could lay it on with the best of 'em, if I set my mind to it." 

With her natural humour, Rosalind (and Chris Chase) put together a great memoir of an always-in-demand actress with a zest for life. I'd definitely recommend this to any classic film fan!

Up next, my final book in the Classic Film Reading Challenge (which may take me all month to finish): A Life of Barbara Stanwyck, Steel True 1907-1940 by Victoria Wilson.