- Hardcover: 255 pages
- Publisher: Barricade Books; 1st Edition edition (September 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0942637968
- ISBN-13: 978-0942637960
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 16 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Although ostensibly a biography of the actress, Conner's ( Golf ) book seems more like a disjointed collection of quotes from publications on early Hollywood. The brief facts about Lupe Velez's short life (1908-1944) sink under the weight of mainly familiar items not only on her affairs but on many other notorious couplings in the film colony: Gable and Lombard, John Gilbert and Garbo, Clara Bow and everybody. As for Velez, "The Mexican Spitfire," she was a teenager when she arrived in the U.S., appearing briefly in a revue in Hollyood before landing the plum role with Douglas Fairbanks in The Gaucho that launched her career. Among her sexual partners, Conner counts Charlie Chaplin, Gary Cooper and Johnny Weissmuller, the swimming star she married in 1933 and divorced in 1938. Then, with fewer good roles coming her way and pregnant by a small-time actor who deserted her, Velez committed suicide. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Dizzyingly dreadful bio of the once-famous ``Mexican Spitfire,'' who racked up lovers like billiard balls and married Tarzan, a.k.a. Johnny Weismuller. Paste-up can't get more cockeyed than this, with Conner (Golf!, 1992, etc.--not reviewed) giving fuller sketches of Velez's endless lovers and many colleagues than of the actress herself (1908-44), who doesn't show up for pages at a time while we read potted lives of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, or whomever. The Chaplin pillow-talk is especially sappy: Chaplin, Conner says, kept his affair with Velez hidden and therefore nothing is known about it; meanwhile, the author offers the tidbit that Chaplin's 14-year-old mistress, Lilita Grey, was the original for Nabokov's Lolita, a piece of gratuitous information that Conner fails to support. A lifelong hellion born in Mexico during a hurricane, the tiny, ever-strife-ridden Velez said that she was born fighting. By her mid-teens, she was already an entertainer, thought herself a star, and, following stage appearances in Hollywood with Fannie Brice, entered films. Her first starring role was in The Gaucho, opposite 45-year-old Douglas Fairbanks, with whom, Conner suggests, Velez had a brief fling that depressed Mary Pickford for five years. Readers will find themselves buffeted by bios of Hollywood folk only glancingly acquainted with Velez (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom Velez hisses as he sings at a party), and few will be able to keep a scorecard on the actress's lovers or to separate them from figures in passing whose pointless bios merely add fluff. Life with Weismuller, Conner says, left the actor bruised and so scratched that only studio makeup artists kept him filmable. Velez killed herself early on, overdosing on Seconal, her bedroom gaudily decorated for the farewell performance. A benchmark in the art of paste-pot bio--and winner of the Plan Nine from Outer Space Award as the worst movie book ever written. (Sixteen pages of photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
loved it!, April 30 2001
By charlie jackson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lupe Velez and Her Lovers (Hardcover)
After reading posted reviews, I was hesitant to purchase this book. After my wife gave it to me Christmas 2000, I was very pleasantly surprized to find myself reading such details of Lupe's life and those of her lovers that I had to finish that very night. It was somewhat convoluted when concerning the lives of so many people but after all, the title IS "Lupe Velez and Her Lovers". I was neither disappointed nor surprised to be reading details of Gary, Russ, Jimmy, Johnny, Carole, et al. These people were intregal parts of her life, all contributing to her happiness, her misery, her excitable personality. One irritant constant throughout the book was the writer's insistence on using her full name when referring to her. That, coupled with a few grammatical errors, are my only negative impressions of the entire book.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
So-So, Dec 26 2007
By Jess W - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lupe Velez and Her Lovers (Hardcover)
Seeing as there are little or no biographies out there about Lupe Velez, I guess this one will have to do. The book seems to concentrate more on her directors, costars, lovers, etc. with only little snippets about Lupe herself. I wish I could say I completely loved this book, but...nah...
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
A very poor, second rate biography, Dec 6 1999
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lupe Velez and Her Lovers (Hardcover)
This is one of the most disappointing biographies I have read in a long time. Lupe Velez was one of the most exciting and colourful characters in Hollywood and this book told us more about her co-stars than about her. Don't know how the author managed to get a publisher.
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