Charmed Lives: A Family Romance [Paperback]

If this book wasn't impossible to get a hold of, I would have probably bought it for everyone I know. Unfortunately as of now, only used copies of it (why would anyone want to sell it? ) show up occassionally in shops and online auction sites. I first read this book about ten years ago in Hungarian translation (and with the pages referring to the 1956 revolution conveniently edited out) and I was immediately hooked by it. My father and I faught daily for the only copy we had. It is a fascinating, incredibly well written story of a family of three boys who made it from the Hungarian countryside all the way to the top of the Hollywood and English elite. It is one of the most inspiring rags-to-riches stories I've ever read. It also offers a great insight to how movies and stars were made in the Hollywood Golden Age. I still laugh out loud while reading the anecdotes of which the book offers plenty. Written by the nephew of Alexander Korda, and son of famed Art Director Vincent Korda, Michael offers an insider's view on how the post WWII era high society lived. This book is a rare gem, funny as hell, uplifting, educational. A must for movie buffs.

"It isn't Enough to be a Hungarian," a sign that hung in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's commissary read. "You Must Also Work." The Korda brothers, three talented movie makers who are the subject of Michael Korda's "Charmed Lives: A Family Romance," sure did.

Not that the world's too familiar with the idea of Hungarians that work. We have the idea of the odd, prickly fellow. Or the slick one. Theodore Bikel as the Hungarian former student of Henry Higgins' in "My Fair Lady." The charming dinner guest who makes off with his host's silver-- or his wife. Or the Gabor girls, with their fondness for husbands, diamonds, and Slivovits.

Actually, my Dad, a shrewd man, used to say that the climate of Hungary was varied-- lots of micro climates as they say-- so many things grew in their forests, their fields, and their farm house barns. He said the most beautiful women were Hungarian: they knew how to use all the things that grew to make handy creams and potions: and witness several of the great ladies of cosmetics. My Dad also always used to say that Hungarians were the best cooks: they too learned how to use everything that grew around them.

Be that as it may, certainly Sir Alexander Korda, central figure of this memoir, was noted throughout his long career for an ability to charm money out of empty safes. And yes, his work output was prodigious. As is that of his nephew Michael, editor in chief at Simon and Schuster, who wrote "Male Chauvinism!," "Power!," and "Success!," and contributed to the New York Times, "Vogue," "New York Magazine," and "Glamour." In Michael's last talk with the uncle he loved, the fatally-ill Sir Alexander warned him that the family movie production company, London Films, would not survive his death, and that the family's wealth, glamour and power might not, either. "It isn't going to be enough to be a Korda, either." As if.

But to go back to the beginning. The Kordas were born -- as Kellners, for they were Jewish-- in a dreary anonymous village on the Hungarian plain. Their mother was a widow, they were poor. Alexander went to Budapest, became Hungary's leading film director by age 21. He got out just a skip ahead of the coming White Terror repression, went on to repeat his success in Vienna and Berlin, marrying, along the way a beautiful fiery Hungarian film star. (Is there any other kind?) Took her to Hollywood, the better to make her an international star, but then along came talkies. She had a gutteral voice, a strong mittel European accent: think "Lina Lamont" in "Singing in the Rain." Wasn't to be.

So Alexander went to London, and single-handedly founded the British film industry with the great success of "The Private Life of Henry VIII." Life was lived with the rich, the famous and the beautiful: Winston Churchill, H.G. Wells, Lord Beaverbrook, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Pamela Digby Churchill, Charles Laughton. Sir Alexander married again, to Merle Oberon, and made her an international star on his second stay in Hollywood. He proved most useful to Britain during World War II, and was knighted for his efforts. Along the way, he'd managed to pull his two brothers out of Hungary and into the film business: Zoltan, who directed "The Four Feathers," and "Cry the Beloved Country,"and Vincent, who became a talented art director-- and fathered Michael.

Young Michael fell in love with his glamorous and powerful uncle Alexander early on, and was a sympathetic, involved player in the family saga. His telling of that saga pulses with life-- not only in the later years, when he was there, but also in the earlier ones, that he only heard about. He's observant, obviously brought a fine eye and ear to bear on the world about him from a very early age. And he's a fine, clean writer; though, as you'd expect, he's most vivid on the events when he was there.

Such as his quixotic trip to Hungary, shortly after Alexander's death, to try to help out in its abortive revolt against the Soviet Union in 1956. He drove in in a car packed with penicillin and delivered it to the Central Hospital without charge. Nobody quite knew what to make of it.

Korda also writes with great understanding and empathy of Sir Alexander's young third wife, Alexa, with whom he seems to have been enthralled as a teenager. Her story is a sad one: Sir Alexander, who could not resist his Pygmalion impulses, changed her from a chubby cheerful young woman to a reed-thin, chain-smoking, high-fashion snob, dependent on the needles of London's leading Dr. Feelgood. She eventually committed suicide by drugs.

Korda is also very vivid about his own early education, at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the Royal Air Force, and at the snobbish, super expensive Le Rosey School in Switzerland. His book is quite entertaining, and the Korda family remain charming people with whom to spend some time.

The saga of the Korda family is part of the history of movie making. Actually it is a big chunk of movie history between 1930 and 1950, because the Korda brothers were three and managed to work in Europe and in USA at the same time, which was rather infrequent at the time. They were directors, productors, art directors, talent scouts and much more, and viewed all together they lead as their descendent Michael put it "charmed lives". One memoir is not enough to describe their composite interests and lives as demonstrated by many biographies dedicated to them. The oldest brother and well recognized family leader was Alexander and principally on him this book is focalized.
From rural Hungary to Paris, Hollywood, and back to London, Alexander's life weaves through many international circles touching high society, intellectual groups, political leaders drawing into his charming aura his brothers and many of the most beautiful women of those times such as Maria Korda, Merle Oberon, and Vivien Leigh.
Some biographies are written by scholars, some by journalists, but unfortunately we have few written by relatives. This is one of those, a biography of relationships, inside information, memories and facts only known to family, with a touch of the Author's judgment that gives it an not displeasing emotional quality.
The pure enjoyment I received from this book was enriched by a plethora of information on the movie world and the everlasting classical films directed and produced by the Kordas such as "The lives of Henry the VIII" and "That Hamilton woman" just to mention two.
A monument to Alexander, and a tribute to Vincent and Zoli, this book is a must in the library of every movie fan, but is enjoyable also by those that love a good story especially when its true.