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bkish's review against another edition
3.0
This is a challenging review for me to do. I dont remember Billy Rose and I know the name and associate him with lot of pizazz and showmanship and wealth. He was a brilliant jewish man who grew up on lower east side NYC very poor. His mother Fanny (same name as his first wife Fanny Brice) brought over many of her relatives and others from the old country and at various times many of them were living in the same lower east side apartment. Billy was born William Rosenfield so he changed his name to fit his showman image.
As a boy he learned what people who worked as secretaries did to get work - shorthand. He became quickly an expert and famous. So he had something at a very young age that set him apart and enabled him to get beyond his family's poverty. He hated his father David who didnt succeed in life and he identified more with Fanny. He had two sisters close to one not with the other - Polly his friend and forget other name.
this book is an excellent telling of Billy's life his successes and failures (married 5 times a few times to same woman). He owned started night clubs so it was the night life that he liked. He also was a known and successful songwriter and he produced theatre plays maybe he wrote some of them. It is said that he did things for his fellow Jews. I ? that and I am a jewish woman. Billy had great wealth and bought mansions and collected art. He had all the manifestations of Success that he sought.
As I was reading this at some page I began to dislike this man. As I continued to read I continued to dislike him. It was interesting to read about all his marriages all except for his first marriage to Fanny Brice which was "platonic" were to much younger woman and except for his last wife the women were not jewish.
Cohen really did research for this biography. He talks about how Billy Rose worked with someone named Katz from Israel to have built an Art Garden and he fundraised for it and contributed some of his own art collection.
What really puzzled me as I read this is with so many women he had no children. I suspect he was impotent. This is a man who lived an external life and extraverted life yet to me he was a hollow man. I think this is my main objection to this biography is that Mark Cohen made no attempt to analyze his character altho he gave us the readers good information...
Judy
As a boy he learned what people who worked as secretaries did to get work - shorthand. He became quickly an expert and famous. So he had something at a very young age that set him apart and enabled him to get beyond his family's poverty. He hated his father David who didnt succeed in life and he identified more with Fanny. He had two sisters close to one not with the other - Polly his friend and forget other name.
this book is an excellent telling of Billy's life his successes and failures (married 5 times a few times to same woman). He owned started night clubs so it was the night life that he liked. He also was a known and successful songwriter and he produced theatre plays maybe he wrote some of them. It is said that he did things for his fellow Jews. I ? that and I am a jewish woman. Billy had great wealth and bought mansions and collected art. He had all the manifestations of Success that he sought.
As I was reading this at some page I began to dislike this man. As I continued to read I continued to dislike him. It was interesting to read about all his marriages all except for his first marriage to Fanny Brice which was "platonic" were to much younger woman and except for his last wife the women were not jewish.
Cohen really did research for this biography. He talks about how Billy Rose worked with someone named Katz from Israel to have built an Art Garden and he fundraised for it and contributed some of his own art collection.
What really puzzled me as I read this is with so many women he had no children. I suspect he was impotent. This is a man who lived an external life and extraverted life yet to me he was a hollow man. I think this is my main objection to this biography is that Mark Cohen made no attempt to analyze his character altho he gave us the readers good information...
Judy
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