Banjo Eyes: Eddie Cantor and the Birth of Modern Stardom

Rating:
Summary: I Feel Like I Know Eddie Personally
Review: For years I've been looking for a good book on the great Eddie Cantor. Finally there is one! This book does a fine job of introducing us to Eddie Cantor the man. After reading this book, I feel like I know who he was. The books only fault is that it seems to be lacking details in some parts and has an excess of them in others. But that's to be expected when writing a book about a man who has been dead for over 30 years. It's a great book about a great man.

Rating:
Summary: Forgotten star poorly remembered
Review: Herbert G. Goldman, author of biographies on Eddie Cantor's contemporaries Al Jolson and Fannie Brice, can only be commended for reviving the memory of a great star, now sadly and unfairly forgotten. "Banjo Eyes" remembers Cantor, but fails almost completely at presenting a portrait of the life and career of this star of stage, screen, radio and television. Instead, Goldman offers a mundane laundry list of performance dates and far too much of his own armchair psychology. The book is poorly researched, badly written and atrociously edited (factual errors, typographical errors and misspellings abound). Goldman repeatedly takes a step down biographical roads, only to detour. For example: near the end of the book, he refers to Cantor as a serial philanderer. Yet, previously he has written about only one possible but unconfirmed affair (with comedian Joan Davis). Since Cantor's public image was that of a devoted husband and father, a proper biographer would have devoted considerable time to the topic of the star's fidelity, or lack thereof. But Goldman seems more interested in endless lists of Cantor's public appearances. When he does offer some intriguing nugget, Goldman's poor scholarship doesn't properly back it up with sources(Footnotes, Mr. Goldman. Footnotes). It's impossible to believe much of anything the author has to say. For instance, a reference to poor ratings for Cantor's radio show, will be followed up a couple pages later with a statement about how popular the show is. Did something happen in between? Goldman doesn't say. He meticulously records the large sums of money Cantor makes from various enterprises, but says he left only a modest estate after his death in 1964. Goldman half-heartedly guesses at where the money went, but offers no facts. This book is important only because Cantor was important and this is the only serious (!) biography of him to date. Hopefully, something better will come along.

Rating:
Summary: Cantor's greatness lost in book
Review: There is little doubt that Eddie Cantor was among the towering giants of the 20th-century entertainment industry. It is difficult to imagine a book about Cantor being boring, but Goldman has done it. Goldman likes to engage in armchair psychology and seeks to apply it to Cantor, with little success. Although Goldman's thesis -- that Cantor created modern stardom by cross-selling himself in different media -- is interesting, Goldman fails to articulate or support what is undoubtedly a very defensible thesis. Instead, he becomes mired in largely meaningless details of Cantor's life and does not capture the enormous impact Cantor had on American society.

The pictures in the book are poorly chosen, sometimes inaccurately described and abominably reproduced. Cantor's later life is given short shrift, and we get little sense of the poignancy of Cantor's final years.