Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Imitation of Life
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The author of ALL ABOUT ALL ABOUT EVE tackles a classic Douglas Sirk movie, 1959's IMITATION OF LIFE, starring Lana Turner—a movie that is campy, thematically rich, and best of all, set against the backdrop of its glamorous star's tabloid-headline life. The Barnes & Noble Review "I hope I'll always retain a fan's enthusiasm," Sam Staggs declares at the beginning of Born to Be Hurt, his love letter to director Douglas Sirk's 1959 classic Imitation of Life. "Look what happens to those who don't: Their writings convince you that movies are punishment." Staggs, author of All About All About Eve, is nothing if not enthusiastic. Every page of his book is brimming with passionate devotion to the film that gave top billing to Lana Turner -- who serves up a campy performance as actress Lora Meredith -- but is remembered for the plot surrounding Lora's African-American nanny, Annie, and her light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, who rejects her mother and passes for white. Staggs' breathless interviews with Juanita Moore, who played Annie, and Susan Kohner, who played Sarah Jane, greatly enrich the book, but the author doesn't stop there, turning up information on seemingly every other member of cast and crew. He also recounts the turbulence behind the scenes: The film was Turner's first following the murder of her gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, at the hands of her teenage daughter (a shaken Turner apparently became so hysterical filming Annie's funeral that her on-set hairdresser slapped her and then hugged her, a scene that itself sounds straight out of a sudsy melodrama). In dissecting the cult favorite, which was reviled by reviewers upon its release but has since been reappraised, Staggs manages to bring in Thoreau, Nietzsche, and Shakespeare, making this infectious book as over-the-top as, well, a Douglas Sirk film. --Barbara Spindel
Introduction Recapturing the Past 11 A Small Giant 152 The Good and Faithful Servant 223 A Few Things in Movies 324 Susan Sightings 405 An Intimate Confession from Susan Kohner 496 Becoming Sarah Jane 557 If Love Could Kill 608 Will Lana Win the Oscar? 699 "Take Away the Sweater and What Have You Got?" 7310 A Portrait of the Artist as Hero and Bully 8011 Sirk du Soleil 9212 Hitler's Madman 9813 The Shaky Megastar and the Sepia Hollywood Hope 10414 Locations, Locations 11215 Two Little Girls 11816 "Was Jesus White or Black?" 12117 Sorrow Set to Music 12618 The Rocking Chair Blues 13019 The Lady and the Bullfighter 14120 No Beefcake, Please, We're Republican 14821 Pretty Baby 16022 "If Troy Donahue Can Be a Movie Star, Then I Can Be a Movie Star" 17123 Further Down the Credits 18224 Jack Weston and the Citizen's Arrest in Beverly Hills 19425 Joel Fluellen 20026 The Kind of Playwright Who Flings His Manuscript in the Fire 20927 "My Family at the Studio" 21728 The Business of Glamoo 22829 "Turn Again to Life, and Smile" 23930 The Case of the Missing Screenwriter 24431 Gowns by Jean-Louis 25532 Underscore 26333 The Unknown Mogul 27034 "Goin' to Glory" 27935 Hallelujah! 28736 Nobody Liked It but the Public 29237 The Compromised Oscar 30338 Mr. and Mrs. Weitz 30539 A Late Encounter with L. T. 31040 Imitation of Half-Life 31741 Gentlemen Prefer Lypsinka 32642 There Once Was a Lady Named Fannie 33343 John M. Stahl 33844 No Falling Diamonds 34345 The Bizarre, Conflicted Reality of the Era 35346 Miss Bea, Aunt Delilah, the Tragic Mulatto, and the Movie Star Spy36047 Reflection of Life 372Acknowledgments 375Selected Bibliography 379Notes 385Index 399
