Lena Horne and Vincente Minnelli: Their lives and loves celebrated in two great new bios

 The curtain has risen on two new show-biz bios: Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (Atria, $27) and Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer (St. Martin’s Press, $37.95). Each get two thumbs up, four stars, star billing--- call the raves what you will. Both are witty, thorough, informative and, best of all, a helluva lot of fun to read. 
      At first sight, Horne and Minnelli have little in common. However, MGM played pivotal, if opposite, roles in both their lives and careers. Horne blamed the studio for just about everything, including her difficulty in forging a career and racism. 
      Minnelli lusted after MGM as the only studio capable of creating his vision, and remained more loyal to the backlot than he did to friends or even, er, wives. Yet neither Horne nor Minnelli ever achieved anything resembling happiness; as the studio system Minnelli so relied on diminished to nothing, his ability to achieve his big-screen vision likewise disappeared . . . and Horne's anger and ambivalence to racial unrest fomenting from the ’30s through the ’80s pretty much controlled her career and life. 
      Emanuel Levy brings a scholar's eye to the Minnelli proceedings without once loosing a sense of immediacy and drama. His real success, rare in a biographer, is his ability to relate the day-to-day episodes with the arc of the director's life and career. Both Minnelli’s archetypal musicals and murky melodramas are thoroughly investigated; the topic of his homosexuality is not ignored but handled in straightforward narrative. 
      James Gavin’s book is also riveting drama. The author takes the middle road in tracing Horne's overwhelming anger. Neither blaming nor defending MGM, relating Horne’s stormy career from the Cotton Club to the Broadway and concert stage is a history of the black experience in the entertainment world of the 20^th century. The other great success of this book is that Horne’s rage and anger somehow never becomes boring or monotonous. Gavin keeps a weather eye on all of the famous people Horne knew, loved or hated (and sometimes both, depending on the time in her career) and provides fascinating sketches of them all.

 My book, Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demises of the Rich and Infamous,  is getting RAVE advance press!

Read all about it, then pre-order at amazon.com/Morbid-Curiosity-Disturbing-Demises-Infamous/dp/0399535276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251040889&sr=8-1!
 
Alan and Michelle Obama! nypost.com/seven/07292009/gossip/cindy/ladies_first_to_the_vineyard_181877.htm?page=2