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Rating: 
Summary: A POIGNANT INTRODUCTION TO A REMARKABLE WOMAN
Review: Filling a scant 77 pages, these intimate recollections by Oscar-winning actress Sandy Dennis are the distilled essence of a life lived with humor, valor, and grace. In a praiseworthy departure from the usual movie star memoir Ms. Dennis does not focus on her professional achievements, but rather on personal aspects of her childhood and offstage adult life. Few who saw her as the frightened foil for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," would envision the gallant courage with which she faced the ovarian cancer that took her life in 1992. Few who saw her confident Tony Award winning performance in "A Thousand Clowns" would recognize the vulnerable unpretentious woman who usually wore no make-up, "gave her hair passing attention at best," and happily shared her roof with over forty homeless cats. The vicissitudes of housing two score tabbies and toms were viewed with robust good nature. "Last year the condenser in the refrigerator burned up," Ms. Dennis writes. "The repairman discovered abnormal amounts of cat hair which had collected and caught fire. Exclamations of horror and surprise seemed pointless. The man was standing in a kitchen filled with some thirty very interested cats and they weren't bald." This memoir, the personal thoughts of a very private person, were found after her death. Handwritten on sheets of yellow legal-size paper, they lined the bottom of a filing cabinet in her home office. Characteristically unassuming, she may not have considered herself a writer. She is a delightfully gifted one. Ms. Dennis reminisces about a man she loved, her family, her friends, her animals, and her garden with a poet's tenderness. Her observations of our world spring from a generous soul. Describing the potency of time, an intensity of light, "painted sticks of sunshine," as she is dying, she writes, "My soft orange glass-shaded lamp slips me into twilight and then darkness. How I love." She did, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: A POIGNANT INTRODUCTION TO A REMARKABLE WOMAN
Review: Filling a scant 77 pages, these intimate recollections by Oscar-winning actress Sandy Dennis are the distilled essence of a life lived with humor, valor, and grace. In a praiseworthy departure from the usual movie star memoir Ms. Dennis does not focus on her professional achievements, but rather on personal aspects of her childhood and offstage adult life. Few who saw her as the frightened foil for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," would envision the gallant courage with which she faced the ovarian cancer that took her life in 1992. Few who saw her confident Tony Award winning performance in "A Thousand Clowns" would recognize the vulnerable unpretentious woman who usually wore no make-up, "gave her hair passing attention at best," and happily shared her roof with over forty homeless cats. The vicissitudes of housing two score tabbies and toms were viewed with robust good nature. "Last year the condenser in the refrigerator burned up," Ms. Dennis writes. "The repairman discovered abnormal amounts of cat hair which had collected and caught fire. Exclamations of horror and surprise seemed pointless. The man was standing in a kitchen filled with some thirty very interested cats and they weren't bald." This memoir, the personal thoughts of a very private person, were found after her death. Handwritten on sheets of yellow legal-size paper, they lined the bottom of a filing cabinet in her home office. Characteristically unassuming, she may not have considered herself a writer. She is a delightfully gifted one. Ms. Dennis reminisces about a man she loved, her family, her friends, her animals, and her garden with a poet's tenderness. Her observations of our world spring from a generous soul. Describing the potency of time, an intensity of light, "painted sticks of sunshine," as she is dying, she writes, "My soft orange glass-shaded lamp slips me into twilight and then darkness. How I love." She did, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Warm portrait of a great actress
Review: Her film and television work was amazing. Flawless performances in an impressive, diverse, career filled with project choices of an equal caliber. From "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" to "The Fox" to "That Cold Day in the Park" she showed a constant understanding of character, never compromising the integrity of a role through fruitless techniqiues. This slim autobiography was published on the day Dennis would have turned 60, if Ovarian cancer hadn't claimed her life when she was 54. Her story is atypical; not many Academy Award (and Tony Award) winning actors write more about their love of animals than themselves, and that is what sets this book apart from the overwhelming majority of celebrity autobiographies. While it would be much nicer to have her alive and well, happiness should be taken from the fact that she left behind a wonderful body of work, including these memoirs.
Rating:
Summary: Unique voice and subtle beauty
Review: I knew Sandy Dennis. Not well and very briefly. Yet her death hit me hard. I'd always been surprised that no one had written a biography on her, as her life was tragically under-reported while she was alive. And as quirky and whimsical as she often appeared onstage and screen, a beautiful and fascinating woman lay beneath the greasepaint. This slender book of memories (and "memoir" was never better used to describe a book) is just as engrossing and revealing as Joanne Woodward's Preface promises it to be. In no way a "show-biz" book, it offers instead insight and poignant confessions of an exceptional human being. In my own book, which has yet to be published, I discuss my fleeting association with Sandy Dennis. But all one needs to know the person is to read this moving and surprisingly well-written memoir by the lady herself!
Rating:
Summary: A touching memoir
Review: Published on what would have been Dennis's sixtieth birthday, A Personal Memoir is not what one would expect in era of "kiss-and-tell" tomes from the Hollywod elite. There are no tired lists of professional accolades or conquered lovers famous and infamous, no gossipy prattle. In fact, the particulars of Dennis's chosen profession are rarely mentioned at all in this 77-page memoir, we are instead introduced to Sandy Dennis the person--a person whose life was filled with colors, unbridled compassion and many, many cats. In a scrapbook of prose--written, it appears, in fits and spurts when the muse allowed it--Dennis "recalls emotions...images" from her first trek at three years to the local store for jawbreakers to morning walks in the woods ("I like this kind of grey suspended morning. It will be, I think, a soft washed-out day"). Snippets of memory come alive in Dennis's vivid words--sticky baby fingers clutching a shaggy dog, fragrant New England foliage, fading images of a father seldom seen due to work and war. This Sandy Dennis, not necessarily the Sandy Dennis we see flickering in a grainy black-and-white film, is the one we are meant to remember. On screen, Sandy Dennis was powerful, and that power transfers beautifully to her own life. A Personal Memoir is uniquely poetic, and a very thoughtful read.
Rating:
Summary: A touching memoir
Review: Published on what would have been Dennis's sixtieth birthday, A Personal Memoir is not what one would expect in era of "kiss-and-tell" tomes from the Hollywod elite. There are no tired lists of professional accolades or conquered lovers famous and infamous, no gossipy prattle. In fact, the particulars of Dennis's chosen profession are rarely mentioned at all in this 77-page memoir, we are instead introduced to Sandy Dennis the person--a person whose life was filled with colors, unbridled compassion and many, many cats. In a scrapbook of prose--written, it appears, in fits and spurts when the muse allowed it--Dennis "recalls emotions...images" from her first trek at three years to the local store for jawbreakers to morning walks in the woods ("I like this kind of grey suspended morning. It will be, I think, a soft washed-out day"). Snippets of memory come alive in Dennis's vivid words--sticky baby fingers clutching a shaggy dog, fragrant New England foliage, fading images of a father seldom seen due to work and war. This Sandy Dennis, not necessarily the Sandy Dennis we see flickering in a grainy black-and-white film, is the one we are meant to remember. On screen, Sandy Dennis was powerful, and that power transfers beautifully to her own life. A Personal Memoir is uniquely poetic, and a very thoughtful read.
Rating:
Summary: The best and most touching memoir I have ever read.
Review: What a woman! Sandy Dennis has always been, in my mind, one of the most strikingly original and entertaining performers to ever grace the Hollywood screen. Watching her movies has given me a great deal of joy and happiness over the years, but until I read this book, I had no idea she had such an equally natural talent for writing. For those of you who buy this book expecting to read a conventional tell-all, you are in for a big surprise. Sandy's book, which she began to write not long after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, tells of this remarkable woman's courageous battle with the fatal disease. It also tells of her strong, warm relationship with her many cats , the furry friends that seldom left her side during that very difficult time. This is a book like no other. Every page is filled with love and compassion, laughter and heartache. It is a stunningly original and unforgettable work, much like the woman who wrote it.
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