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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, September 14, 2008

Stars recall glory days of old Hollywood

By Craig Wilson
USA Today

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser
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Remember when Hollywood was glamorous? Lots of stars do, and they're reliving the glory days. It seems every Hollywood celebrity of a certain age, from Tony Curtis to Robert Wagner, has written an autobiography this fall. Will they all find an audience? "It's really book by book, celebrity by celebrity," says Mitch Kaplan of Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. "It has to be a good book to do well."

Who's on the memoir marquee:

"Pieces of My Heart" by Robert Wagner; HarperEntertainment, on sale Sept. 23

Wagner, 78, describes his stormy argument with Christopher Walken aboard Wagner's yacht the night his wife, Natalie Wood, drowned off Catalina Island on Nov. 28, 1981. Wagner smashed a bottle of wine after Walken said Wood should devote more time to her film career.

When he learned Wood had died, Wagner writes, his "knees went out; everything went away from me."

His first love? Barbara Stanwyck. He was 22. She was 45. It didn't work out. He admits he would have always been "Mr. Stanwyck."

"The Legs Are the Last to Go" by Diahann Carroll; Amistad/Harper Collins, on sale Sept. 30

Carroll, 73, devotes a chapter to the men in her life and writes about her 1959 affair with actor Sidney Poitier. Both were married at the time. What was she thinking? "I wasn't," she writes.

On her groundbreaking role as a nurse on TV's "Julia" in the late 1960s: It made whites "feel comfortable with a black lead character who was not offensive to them in any way."

In 1962, fellow actors passed her 2-year-old daughter, Suzanne, around during rehearsals for the Broadway musical "No Strings." When she asked what was going on, her leading man, Richard Kiley, told her it was "good luck to touch a colored baby's head." Carroll stopped the game.

"Don't Mind If I Do" by George Hamilton; Touchstone, on sale Oct. 14

The ever-tan actor, 69, is known for his sense of humor. But he writes about serious matters, including witnessing a suicide attempt by Judy Garland after an evening they spent making milk shakes for her children.

Garland criticized the singing of daughter Liza Minnelli, saying her voice didn't have timbre.

After he broke up with presidential daughter Lynda Bird Johnson, Hamilton agreed to attend her 1967 White House wedding to Charles Robb — and stayed for 17 minutes.

"American Prince" by Tony Curtis; Harmony, on sale Oct. 14

The matinee idol, 80, has been married five times. On his 1951-62 marriage to Janet Leigh, which produced two children: "When Janet and I hit, we became the undisputed darlings of the Hollywood media. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor? Forget it. Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher? Not a chance."

Curtis says he didn't get the respect he deserved for his performance in 1957's "Sweet Smell of Success": "When the word got out that I was playing a despicable press agent, a bad guy, I got bum-rapped by Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper; the media refused to treat me like a serious actor."

On his drug use in the '80s: "One of the big reasons I started using cocaine was that I was told it was great for sex. It didn't make me superhuman in the longevity department, but it certainly did make my sexual experiences more intense."

"My Word Is My Bond" by Roger Moore; Collins, on sale Nov. 4

Moore, 81, stepped into the iconic James Bond role when George Lazenby refused a seven-picture contract. He remembers being pushed to the limit by the loud heavy-metal music Grace Jones played in her next-door dressing room when they filmed "A View to a Kill" in 1985. When she wouldn't turn it down, he threw a chair at the wall.

His first wife's opinion of him wasn't all that high. Doorn van Steyn told him he'd never be an actor. "Your face is too weak, your jaw's too big and your mouth's too small," she said.

He writes that Ava Gardner's breasts were superimposed onto Grace Kelly's body on a poster for the movie "Green Fire." Kelly was not amused.