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Title: Curtain

Author: Michael Korda

Narrator: Simon Jones

Format: Abridged

Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-13-10

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Felicia Lisle and Robert Vane - she the Oscar-winning star of the world's greatest epic motion picture, he the greatest English actor - are the perfect couple. That is, until Vane's moody genius and Felicia's private demons begin to tear them apart.

Members Reviews:

Show biz gossip

The thinly disguised story of Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh by someone who know them intimately during their glory years. Clever and delightfully gossipy!

The greatest trash the landfill's ever known

Just the kind of trashy, campy, gossipy novel that hits the spot when you need a fix. This isn't Literature, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes your brain says "give me a break", and for those times there are authors like Michael Korda. He fills a need.

This particular novel has leading characters based on Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Surely theirs was one of the greatest loves the world has ever known. Being that it is what it is, the focus of the book is twofold: sex and Shakespeare. Pretty trashy sex, too. Seriously, a torrid affair & a baby with your uncle-- What on earth? Discussed as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Then there's the whole question of the relationship between Olivier and Danny Kaye (known here as Randy Brooks); I'm sure if you're at all familiar with old Hollywood you've heard the rumours...

Silly book. Still I enjoyed it.

Theatre and sex

For lovers of classical theatre, Shakespeare and old fashione movie stars in the tradition of Hollywood in the 40's, this is the book for you! While most readers will have undoubtedly read another of Michael Korda's books, Queenie, which was the thinly veiled story of Merle Oberon, "Curtain" follows in the same style with, this time, thinly veiled allusions to Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, in this book, called Robert Vane and Felicia Lisle. The story begins in Hollywood, where following Leigh's Oscar winning performance in "Gone with the Wind", the two lovers are appearing together in a financially disastrous tour of the US, in a series of Shakespeare's plays. The first sign of Felicia's mental fragility appears when she has a nervous breakdown, is hospitalised in a private sanitarium and the bills have to be paid by their agent, Hollywood sleaze, Marty Quick. This puts them in his debt for years and even after the start of WW2 when they have returned to London, he follows them to show his complete control over what they can perform. It's a very sexy book , peopled by over the top characters in whom the readers will totally believe (and perhaps even recognise). If you love movies and their stars, if you love Shakespeare and the stage and love being able to pick out thinly disguised, well known people, you'll adore this book.

If You Liked "Queenie"...

If you liked "Queenie", you would hope to like "Curtain", but you'll be disappointed. It's a less-entertaining companion piece. This time, the central characters are based (at first) on still more people from Uncle Alex's wartime L.A. and London: Olivier and Leigh; their stage colleagues; Danny Kaye; a Billy Rose type. The structure is too close to "Queenie", the plot is too contrived, and the stars are quite tiresome over too many pages.