Rating: 
Summary: Interesting read about Haines; but, not the best "study...
Review: ...of Gay Hollywood"... I enjoyed reading this book. I knew nothing about William Haines's life...And this book tells an interesting story without getting into unnecessary "juicy details", that fill up many other gay people's bios, regardless of whether they are true or not. Nowadays, many authors seem to think that its their duty to write A LOT about sex and to insert every gossip imaginable into every single chapter of their books, when it comes to writing about gay people. I am grateful to Mann for not doing that. Of course, he gives us a fair share of "gay insights" and "outtings" (whether they are true or not, again, it is hard to tell, but none of them is distasteful. He also can not resist the temptation of sounding somewhat "prophetic" and judgemental about gay actors, just like so many other authors do. It is especially obvious, when Mann talkes about Cary Grant. (BY THE WAY, the book says very little about Cary Grant directly in relation to Willaim HAINES, as one of the critics claimed it does). I mean, we do not really get to hear what Haines had to say about Cary Grant ( and about many of his so-called friends, for that matter...). THIS IS WHAT I DID NOT LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK. I realize, that it is a bio, not an autobio, but still...If there was not enough credible material about others, why mention them at all? Why not just talk about the main man, Haines? He seems to have been an interesting enough subject to fill three bio book, not just one. Anyway, despite minor shortcomings, this BOOK IS TASTEFULLY WRITTEN, and that in itself, is an achievement among the endless stream of rubbish that is published today.
Rating: 
Summary: Fabulous!!!
Review: A great untold story of gay Hollywood-- of Hollywood in general. The author really puts Haines' story in context. Fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed by the approach to William Haines' life
Review: After hearing William Mann describing his book on NPR, I was surprisingly disappointed by Wisecracker. Mann is to be lauded for his thorough research and conscientiousness in presenting all plausibilities and possibilities in documenting the life of gay movie star turned interior designer Billy Haines. In the end, however, I was left feeling rather unsatisfied and regretting my investment of time in reading 464 pages. For me, the factual meat of the story could have been condensed into a two-part Vanity Fair article that would also have allowed for a splashier and more illustrative use of photographs. For instance, if the Jack Warner estate was arguably Haines' greatest work why not show interior photographs? Documented evidence of Haines' efforts would have allowed the reader to make up his own mind rather than being left with the implied and ironic assessment that openly gay movie mogul David Geffen engaged in a form of desecration through the total renovation of the estate that now belongs to him. Billy Haines was a real-life antithesis to Norma Desmond. His career and life were much more successful and fulfilling after he left pictures. He was admirable for living an openly gay life at a time when such a lifestyle was rare and took courage. His story is worth telling and knowing, but to fill almost 500 pages, a fictionalized biographical approach, in the manner of Dominick Dunne or Gore Vidal, would have allowed Mann to be less scholarly and more evocative. Mann is a respected author of fiction. The story could have been a far juicier and enjoyable read but Mann would have had to have loosened his tether to documented fact. The book Mann wrote is commendable, but I believe there is a better book that could have been written.
Rating:
Summary: Details Beyond the Usual Lore
Review: Billy Haines stories crop up occasionally in the legends of Hollywood, but just as tales of his quips or conquests. "Wisecracker" filled in the details of an extremely interesting and ultimately inspiring life. I agree with other reviewers who were put off by the author's conjecture, but the later chapters of the book rely more on interviews from surviving friends and acquaintances - some quite well-known. Haines' ultimate creative achievements and his enduring relationship with Jimmie Shields are impressive. I would recommend this book to anyone with interest in the early years of Hollywood or the social interweave of names like Hearst, Davies, Crawford, Bloomingdale and Annenberg.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, well-researched, and moving
Review: First the bad news: Way too many sentences like "We don't know if Cole Porter was actually present, but there's every reason to believe he might have been and had a rollicking good time." (I made this one up, but there are lots like it.) And, since the author is clearly an intelligent and expressive writer, the many dangling modifiers, awkward constructions, and outright misspellings suggest that the publisher is relying on a computer spell-checker instead of a human editor. On the other hand: The book is fascinating. It's amazing that a man as once-famous as Haines effectively dropped off the face of the earth (and least as far as public recognition is concerned), and Mann does a great job of explaining why. He also recreates the Hollywood of the '20's and '30's with great vividness -- including a whole lot of juicy gossip. Is it all true? Is it responsible? Who knows. But Mann's extremely even-handed treatment of Ronald Reagan, for one, lends much credibility to the narrative. And I defy anyone to read the last few pages without shedding at least a couple of tears.
Rating: 
Summary: AN ALMOST TRUE BOOK
Review: For those looking for an introduction to the career of William Haines and for some insights into gay life in the 1920s and 1930s, this book will suffice. But it has as its grounding assumptions several false facts.
1) William Haines was not the biggest moneymaker or the biggest star at MGM in 1930. He was not the Gay Gable. That "fact" is gleaned from one minor poll of distributors and is not reflective of the reality that by 1930 -- even 1929 -- Haines was fading.
2) Haines was fading partly because he was losing his looks -- an odd thing to say about a thirty year old man -- but true. He was getting heavy; he was losing his hair, and he was losing the boyish look that had been the source of his appeal.
3) Anyone who has ever seen a Haines talkie will understand why his career faded. His wiseguy personna did not translate well to the talking screen. He was, in a word, obnoxious. He looked like a big obnoxious stiff.
4) Mann says that changing mores in Hollywood, mores that would soon result in the Hays Code, partly brought about Haines's downfall. Wrong. Haines was already finished by 1932, long before the Code was instituted. And in any case the Code wasn't a product of some kind of consensus within Hollywood. And there could have been no moral re-trenchment in Hollywood, in anticipation of the Code, because in 1932, no one saw it coming. And to know that, all one has to do is watch some 1932 movies.
5) Half the people Mann says were gay weren't.
6) Some of the sex stories are specious, undocumented, seventy-year-old gossip.
7) Haines gayness was a nuisance, so far as MGM was concerned, but if his movies were making money the studio would have kept him indefinitely. He was dropped because his movies were tanking.
There was an honest story to tell here. Haines was a fairly major actor (for about three years). He was gay. He was out. He traveled in an interesting circle. That's all here, too. It's just the connections, the conclusions, the assumptions and the assertions that need to be taken with a bucket of salt.
Rating:
Summary: A good read!
Review: He was big, briefly, in silent films...and then a precipitous fall. Why is only one aspect of this good biography. There's been some criticism that the book focuses too much on Haines' film career but I got the impression that had there never been a film stint there never would have been a decorator, or at least one as big at Haines apparently was. The film career set the stage for all that followed. This isn't hagiography. It's a pretty candid telling of what it must have been like to have been gay in the motion picture colony -- sort of a mixed bag of plusses (the studio seems to have "taken care of" some of his scrapes with the law) and minuses (studio demands that he dump his male partner). Nice job of research and pointing out where it's the author's conjecture.
Rating:
Summary: Ultimately Disappointing
Review: I bought this book with high hopes, and as much as I hate to say it, I'm disappointed. There is quite a bit of info on William Haines' movie career here, and that is the best part of the book. Sadly, though, I feel the author runs into trouble in three places. First, he tries to give us a lot of context about the Hollywood of the time, but much of what he presents is quoted from other books, nearly all of which I've read and few of which I feel were adequately researched themselves. There is already too much classic-movie "scholarship" based on old press handouts and issues of "Photoplay"; I wish Mann had either dug harder for primary sources or left out material that could not be backed up by more substantive research.
My second quibble is that Mann devotes most of the book to Haines' acting career- which occupied only twelve years of his subject's life- and only a small portion to the decorating career Haines enjoyed for decades after he left the movie business. The info Mann gives on this period is well-researched, but there is not anything like enough of it.
My third reservation is my largest. In 1936, Haines and his lover Jimmie Shields were accused of molesting a young boy in Manhattan Beach, CA. They were run out of town; there was a hearing that ended in a dismissal. Up to a point, Mann seems to have made an admirable effort to get at the facts. Unfortunately, in his zeal to uncover the whole story, Mann found and interviewed the boy, now a retired mayor of Manhattan Beach. The ex-mayor says the molestation DID take place, and that the perpetrator was Jimmie Shields. Mann then does both his readers and his interviewee a grave disservice. Mann asserts that this may be a "false memory" implanted in the boy's mind by the adults involved in the case, saying this is a common phenomenon. Well, yes, it IS- but I think whether that is true in this instance is a determination that should be made by a doctor, not a biographer.
Don't get me wrong- this isn't a terrible book. It's just not the book I hoped it would be, and the section about the Manhattan Beach incident left me cold. Contradicting an interviewee is something a biographer should do only with provable facts in hand.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL Biography of a Star!
Review: I got much more out of this biography than I expected. I wanted to learn more about Billy Haines, and his struggle to be openly gay in Hollywood, and about his long marriage to Jimmie Shields. But, what I learned was how alot of people in Hollywood were gay, and openly so, but then became closeted later. Stars I never knew were gay, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert and many others. The book was fascinating. Lots of gossip, Hollywood stories, movie star information, but more than all that its a book about the amazing life of Billy Haines, and more than 50 year love affair with his companion Jimmie Shields. The book was well researched and never really left me wanting more. I recommend this book as a source for Hollywood lovers, and for gay men and women. A story all would enjoy, and a life worth reading about.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL Biography of a Star!
Review: I got much more out of this biography than I expected. I wanted to learn more about Billy Haines, and his struggle to be openly gay in Hollywood, and about his long marriage to Jimmie Shields. But, what I learned was how alot of people in Hollywood were gay, and openly so, but then became closeted later. Stars I never knew were gay, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert and many others. The book was fascinating. Lots of gossip, Hollywood stories, movie star information, but more than all that its a book about the amazing life of Billy Haines, and more than 50 year love affair with his companion Jimmie Shields. The book was well researched and never really left me wanting more. I recommend this book as a source for Hollywood lovers, and for gay men and women. A story all would enjoy, and a life worth reading about.
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