Amazon.co.uk Review
Apparently Cecil B DeMille called the sight of Calamity Jane, played by Jean Arthur, hanging beside Wild Bill Hickock "the most erotic scene ever filmed". According to John Updike, Doris Day so disliked her marquee name that her friends called her, amongst other things, Suzie Creamcheese. If your response is "Who?" or "Who cares!" then this book may not be for you. If not, read on.
"Actors are our spectral friends [who] loom in our lives as large or maybe larger than our actual acquaintances" writes Melissa Holbrook Piereson, adding that "every global passion starts out embarrassingly personal". In an anthology that uses a range of styles to cover the lives and movies of a selection of "unsung" actors and actresses, the most enjoyable articles reveal as much about the author as their subject. Highlights include Patti Smith on Jeanne Moreau's way of smoking, Ginny Dougary on Liz Taylor(!) and Robert Polito on Barbara Payton. Greil Marcus takes an interestingly political slant on J T Walsh as does Malu Halasa on Robert Carlyle.
An inevitably mixed selection with as much to despair as delight the reader, OK You Mugs is recommended to all who take a serious interest in actors and their personas. --Stephen Portlock
Product Description
A book about the unsung heroes of popular culture: the character actors, the ones whose faces you always remember and whose names you invariable forget. It is a book full of autobiography, film buffery and Americana.