City of Girls
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Published by Riverhead Books /Penquin Random House 2019
Pages 469 Price $28

Best seller lists of books can be misleading. I have been disappointed in the New York Times Best Seller List in the past, but this time they found a winner in the book “City of Girls” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I loved it. It is beautifully written with compassion, humor, and insight. Gilbert’s writing style brings you right into the novel.

The author begins her story in the prologue by explaining that 89- year- old Vivian has received a letter from Angela, a woman she has only had contact with three times in her life; once when she sewed her wedding gown, once to say her father died, and once to say her mother died in 2010. In the third letter Angela included, “Now that my mother died could you tell me what you were to my father?” A haunting mystery permeates the book as flashbacks of Vivian’s many traumatic experiences are revealed.

Chapter one opens with the following: “In the summer of 1940, I was 19 years old and an idiot. My parents sent me to live with my aunt Peg who owned a theater company in New York City in Greenwich Village called the Lily Playhouse. I had recently been excused from Vassar College on account of never attending any classes. Looking back at it all I cannot fully remember what I had been doing with all my time. But my parents could not control me so I was sent off to aunt Peg.”

Vivian was overwhelmed as she stood in Grand Central Station waiting to be picked up by her aunt. Vivian says, “New York in 1940 looked like an orchard trapped in a paper weight.” That was her first impression as she was sent out of conventional life and invited into a creative life in a New York theater group. The story evolves as she enters a different world.

Aunt Peg says, “Welcome home, kiddo,” as Olive Thompson, her aunt’s secretary, brings her into the theater. Aunt Peg was too busy with her theater group to meet Vivian at the station. So Olive picked her up at Grand Central instead. Vivian meets the chorus girls in the Lily Playhouse and they try to help her adjust to New York.

The whole story is one of love, warmth, humor, and creativity. Everyone is broke but the play must go on and some how they make ends meet and share what little they have.They all live for theater and the hope of being recognized one day.

Vivian has brought with her clothes, some books, and a sewing machine. The girls are so impressed that she can sew!

Celia and Gladys ask if she can create costumes. Vivian says yes and she makes friends right away because she can fill a need for the girls. They all are responsible for their own costumes. Each chorus girl has her own story of survival. Vivian, having grown up in a boarding school environment, sheltered from the life of chorus girls, receives an education in life much broader than Vassar College had offered.

Vivian became costume director of the Lily Playhouse and was happy. She states, “No one stopped me from calling myself that because nobody else wanted the job.”

As the story evolves, exciting adventures dealing with the girls emerge. Olive and Vivian go to the Stork Club in New York to straighten out Walter Winchell at his table. He was once the most powerful man in the media. In 1941 the Stork Club was Winchell’s unofficial office. Olive squelches an outrageous article with photos that would be obscene, reflecting badly on the Lily Playhouse (and Vivian), if it went into the paper the next day. This is an incredible story of pathos, humor, loss and survival  of  women in the theater in New York during World War II.

Things were desperate because of lack of funds but by 1950 Vivian stopped designing costumes for the Lily Playhouse. She decides to  sew copies of wedding gowns from Bonwit Teller’s, and opens, with her friend Marjorie, a boutique.They develop their own high style wedding gown shop and have many traumatic experiences. I laughed and cried at the same time at the difficulties they faced and were able to overcome.

Vivian had many lovers. She was a liberated woman before Women’s Liberation and as co- owner of the shop and creative designer, she gained self confidence to always remain independent. This intricate, amazing,and wonderful story with natural dialogue, sharp humor, and insight into the human condition, is worth reading. The humor will touch your heart as well as the love story. Did Vivian have a great love? Was it with Angela’s father? If you want to find out you will have to read the book. I recommend it highly.

***
Doris Day:The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door
by David Kaufman
Published by Virgin Books 2009
Pages 535 Price $19.95

Doris Day died on May 13, 2019 at the age of 97; therefore reading a biography of her seems appropriate.

Oscar Levant, concert pianist and radio star, once said,”I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.” Levant’s humor always had a cutting edge. Real humor turns the absurd into the acceptable. In the 1950’s that statement was acceptable only because it was absurd. Doris Day was always visualized as “the girl next door.” However, this book reveals she had a tragic life.

David Kaufman relates in his book, “Doris Day, The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door,” that Doris’s third husband, Marty Melcher, completely controlled every story about his wife and client. He was her business manager. Kaufman further said,”Marty created the image of Day like a commodity.”

Kaufman spent eight years doing research on Doris Day and there are 25 pages of footnotes documenting interviews and research in the back of the book. His book reveals with immense detail, compassion, and humor that Doris was a driven figure, not a happy- go- lucky girl that she portrayed in films. He states in the book that Day was a superb singer whose first hit, “Sentimental Journey,” during World War II helped to define a fraught era.

Following the years in the 1940’s as a big band singer, she worked on the screen with such famous stars as Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson, James Cagney, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, and Jack Lemmon to name only a few. Doris made 39 movies in 20 years.

Kaufman was inspired to write about Day because he was a great admirer of hers and because of a discovery of a book on her life written by A.E. Hotchner, titled, “Doris Day Her Own Story.” It revealed a tragic figure, a cynical and discouraged woman, not the exuberant, sunny disposition image, that the public knew. So he wanted to do his own research on Day’s life.

Kaufman found out that indeed, she had a tragic life. As the success of the 1950’s and 1960’s faded, Hollywood’s attitude towards films changed. Doris and Marty Melcher did not change. Having created his wife’s image of the nice girl next door, he refused to let Doris portray anything less, as reality films (like “The Graduate,” and “Easy Rider,”) were coming into vogue.

Doris Day was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff in 1922, daughter of William Kappeloff and Alma Sophia Weltz. She loved listening on the radio to the big bands of the 1930’s and 1940’s: Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. Her favorite singer was Ella Fitzgerald.While singing with the Les Brown Band she got a job singing on the Bob Hope radio program once a week and was in minor films like “Calamity Jane” (1953).

Her breakthrough came in 1955 in the film “Love Me or Leave Me,” portraying Ruth Ettinger, the jazz singer. In real life her own experiences mirrored Ruth Ettinger’s life. Doris had many tragedies. Her manager husband controlled her funds and helped create her image but cheated on her with other women.

Doris always worked. She sang in a band  to make a living, or constantly worked on a films to provide an income. Her son, Terry, grew up without a mother. Terry was brought up by his grandmother. He was a tad wild in school but did date Candice Bergen as a teenager. However, they grew apart. He was too wild for her.

Terry was sent to military school and it was a nightmare there for him but he survived. Ironically, he was separated from his mother again. As he matured, he was drawn to music and became a music producer. He later married and had a son Ryan but Terry died of cancer at 62, a tragedy in Doris Day’s life. Time, work, and creativity are great healers of tragedies.

Doris starred in many films. An unusual Alfred Hitchcock film, “The Man who Knew Too Much,” is a fascinating political mystery in 1958. It is a great classic and its timeless theme is  appropriate for today.  The song in the film which she sang, “Que Sera, Sera,” won the Best Original song from the Academy. Hitchcock was not sure Doris could carry a serious dramatic role  but became very pleased with her professional skill at intuitively meeting the needs of the character she was portraying. Other memorable films Doris stared in include,”Pajama Game” (1957) “Pillow Talk” (1959), and ”Lover come Back,”(1961).

After her husband’s death in 1968 she found out she was bankrupt through his poor investments and was devastated. He also had committed her to a T.V. series that she was not happy with but she tried her best to make it a success. However, by the end of 1973 the public’s taste had changed and her style was considered passé. Disappointed and disillusioned, she poured her energy into charity work, mostly for the care of animals.

Yet, Doris was not forgotten. She was given awards in 2000 from the American Film Institute and from the Kennedy Center but refused them because they required her attendance.

This book shows with warmth, affection, and great detail,  the difficult and complex life entertainers like Doris Day live. It is not all smiles and roses in the real lives of entertainers. This is a wonderful book for film lovers and for all those who are interested in the history of the film industry, especially those interested in the talented and courageous life of Doris Day. I recommend it.

— Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine. She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years. She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist,” and has now completed another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”