Haywire, Brooke Hayward. (Paperback 0553194038)

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Haywire
Author: Brooke Hayward

At the reception after her sister Bridget's funeral, Brooke Hayward said to Tom Mankiewicz, "I'm the daughter of a father who's been married five times. Mother killed herself. My sister killed herself. My brother has been in a mental institution. I'm 23 and divorced with two kids." Mankiewicz replied,"Brooke, either you've got to open the window... more » right now"--they were on the 10th floor, overlooking Park Avenue in her father's apartment--"either you've got to open the window right now and jump out, or say,'I'm going to live,' because you're right, it's the worst family history that anybody ever had, and either you jump out the window or you live."

Hayward decided to live, and to write about her family history. She did it so well that this book stays in memory long after many have faded.

Hayward's father, Leland Hayward, was the most colorful, dynamic and successful of theatrical agents. He repped such stars and celebrities as Greta Garbo, Ernest Hemingway, Judy Garland, Billy Wilder, Gregory Peck,Boris Karloff, Lillian Hellman, Fred Astaire and Dashiell Hammett. He was elegant, flamboyant, high-powered. After Sullavan, he would go on to marry the famously beautiful Pamela Digby Churchill, who clearly didn't care for his kids.

Hayward's mother, Margaret Sullivan, was a beautiful and beloved star of stage and screen. She'd been married to Henry Fonda: the Fonda and Hayward children were always close. They had everything. Jimmy Stewart as a babysitter. A house of their own, separate from their parents'. Nannies and tutors. Going up in daddy's private plane, with daddy, who just loved to fly, at the throttle-- almost before they could walk. Hollywood extravaganzas for birthday parties.

Their lives were as privileged as any American children's, and would likely be envied by minor princelings and princesses abroad. The kids were beautiful, intelligent, sensitive, charming. Brooke was on the cover of Life magazine at 15, bought her first convertible, juggled modeling and The Actors Studio, while Bridget began working backstage, as she'd wished to, at the Williamstown Playhouse, the most famous and prestigious of summer theaters. Yet the potential for disaster was there all the time; in the end, it was no good. Bridget committed suicide before she was 21; Bill was in Menninger, a prestigious mental hospital, and only Brooke was left to try to understand what went so wrong.

Obviously, a lot went wrong, and Hayward only had to get it in writing, with honesty and sensitivity, to produce a riveting book. The sensitivity she had, and she somehow found the honesty to record the almost Greek tragedy that the Hayward kids lived. She's produced a deeply moving, affecting book that I think you'll find hard to put aside, providing you can find it,of course. And I think that, like me, you're liable to remember this book for quite a time to come.

"Haywire" is a history of people who acted with overwhelming emotional extravagance, extreme self-centeredness, and great carelessness. Brooke Hayward might almost be the issue of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "careless rich couple," Daisy and Tom Buchanan, who, in the end,cost Jay Gatsby his life in "The Great Gatsby."

ISBN-13: 9780553194036
ISBN-10: 0553194038
Pages: 368
Rating:

Currently 4.1/5 Stars.

4.1 stars, based on 4 ratings

Publisher: Bantam Books
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 4
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Kathleen C. (Woodchuck) reviewed Haywire on 6/23/2005 + 83 more book reviews

From the ffp I'm the daughter of a father who's been married five times. Mother killed herself. My sister killed herself. My brother has been in a mental institution. I'm twenty-three and divorced with two kids. Her mother was Margaret Sullavan, the actress with th throaty voice that broke in the high reggisters nd the smile that could break your ehart. Broadway and movie audiences loved her. So did Henry Fonda, William Wyler, Jed Harris, Leland Hayward. but she wanted most of all to be a perfect mother--and she tried too hard.Her father was Leland Hayward, the Toscanini of the telephone who made million-dollar deals for Garbo, Hemingway, Judy garland, Lillian Hellman and who taught Fred Astaire how to dress. Katharine Hepburn called him "the most wonderful man in the world." But he neer quite heard what his children said. Haywire is a Hollywood childhood memoir, a glowing tapestry spun with equal parts of gold and pain. As a book it is an absolute beauty--a Hollywood beauty, to be precise--with all the charm that term implies, the deceptive simplicity, the complex hidden machinery and, above all, the terrible cost." -- Lois Gould, The New York Times Book Review 1977

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Becky T. reviewed Haywire on 4/17/2007 + 3 more book reviews

Very Telling!

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