Biographies are my guilty pleasure. Once I attempted to write down everything I had read in the past decade (I had it all noted down in my diary) and was a bit embarrassed to discover that quite a big chunk of my choice were celebrity biographies. And not even some scientists, writers or genuinely interesting people but actors and pop singers. After I realised this, now I warily pass by these titles, the little voice cautioning me against falling in the same trap - after all, it all comes down to superficial curiosity and dirty laundry waved as a victory flag. The celebrity cult now thrives on digging deep into secret closets and proving to everybody that stars are "just like the rest of us" if not even worse.There is a difference, though, between biographies and autobiographies. Biographies are written by somebody else - a person who often never even met its subject - and are result of research, interviews and effort. Autobiographies on the other hand are often just a vanity project, where people usually gloss over anything unpleasant and describe themselves shiny like baby's ass. Or they go into another direction and our all their frustrations and venom for the whole world to see, expecting this "poor me" stance to win our hearts. There are good and bad books in both options, as biography writers can be very good indeed (Sam Guralnick is excellent, for example, his biography of Sam Cooke covers much more than just a singer but the whole atmosphere of society back than) and some celebrities actually show a surprisingly deep insight (Simone Signoret) - this is probably the reason why I always return to this kind of books.
"Hello, Gorgeous" is by far the most serious and meticulously researched biography of Streisand I have read so far, surpassing both James Spada and Shaun Considine in depth, understanding and even style - William J. Mann is a joy to read, specially as he has different perspective: he focuses exclusively on first few years of Streisand struggle upwards, up to her "Funny girl" triumph on Broadway, so the whole book is basically only a chapter in her long career, but a immensely important since these formative years defined her work and personality. This "early years" aspect had already been used in similar effect in biography of Shirley Bassey by John L. Williams (published two years before this one).
What William J. Mann does very successfully here is presenting a theatre life in New York some fifty years ago, weaving seemingly a cast of hundreds into a story behind the rise of new singing phenomenon who secretly considered her nightclub engagements as "job for floozies" and saw herself as a serious actress. Of course, Streisand could not have done it all by herself and this is where author spotlights old friends, colleagues, lovers, producers, managers and agents who were all there along the way - and countless cabarets of Manhattan that were all never ending auditions one way or the other before recording deal and Broadway finally recognised what a marketable product this young, unusual and eccentric girl might be. A final matter of profit was all that mattered here and this is why all these people were using promotion gimmicks of all sorts to build a media hype around this strong-willed 20 years old who went from being eccentric and "kookie" to a fashion trend setter.
Streisand's story was told so many times before that its a wonder Mann came up with anything new at all, but he writes with a spark instead of just listing dry facts. Occasionally he might have gone overboard with weather descriptions back in 1962 but personally I didn't mind, it became a cute after a while. For everybody who is dead set against Streisand's success and drive, I would like to point that this young girl had to swallow a lot herself on the way to where she is now - contrary to accepted belief that she was ruthless and ambitious, she was for example blackmailed into four-movies contract with producer Ray Stark - and after making four movies for him, in 1974. she gave him antique mirror with description "paid in full".
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