Close - occasionally even felt like too close - look at the life of showbiz icon whose life encompassed everything from Cotton Club, 1940s Hollywood in M-G-M days, Las Vegas stardom and 1960s civil rights movement to late career bloom in 1980s and beyond. In fact, this lady covers the whole 20th century. I wanted to read this book forever and it was even better than I expected as it works on two levels: not only as psychological portrait of its subject but also as a much wider, panoramic sweep of the whole society and how it changed with time. James Gavin took a heroic task that could have easily result in just another idolised celebrity biography but he is too intelligent for that - by poking the story from different angles and allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions, he sympathises but only to the point, never shying away from obvious truth no matter how unflattering it might be.
The book was very detailed and fascinating as it presents not only popular perception of Horne as a heroine-who-survived-all-odds but closely inspects the cracks in the image she cultivated trough the decades. It would be too simplistic to focus only on sanctified, cleaned up picture of black beauty who was not allowed and constantly wronged in racially segregated post-WW2 America but as Gavin points, she was in fact pampered and treated far better than anybody else (to the point that other black actors resented her) and as for her sporadic and completely decorative movie work, lack of serious roles might had more to do with her acting talent than with racial prejudices, which unconsciously Horne must have known because it was easier to boast about what might have been than to admit she often pulled out of projects proposed to her. Well documented involvement in 1960s civil rights protests comes off as a personal, angry crusade against the world that wronged her and black community took it with suspicion - she was not some tired Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat in a bus but fashion plate driven in limousines from one well paid Las Vegas job to another. Gavin also explores Horne's music and explains how her image constantly eclipsed everything else - she was successful as glamorous nightclub performer but never taken seriously as a singer and public rarely bought her albums, finding something icy and off-putting about her cobra-like persona. To some extent, most of successful performers might be opportunists but Horne's willingness to always blame others (and create her own version of story) eventually catches up with her and under close scrutiny shows lifelong anger and hatred that curiously have a lot in common with her old nemesis, Ethel Waters. Both women were scarred by bad experiences, sacrificed personal happiness for success in the business and were quick to construct their own story when it suited them. That late career bloom (famous celebrated "The Lady and her Music" show), Gavin explains, was simply another carefully prepared and acted role that celebrated longevity in business, while obscuring and twisting the facts.
Fascinating.
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