TCR on Films: Roger Moore (1927-2017), Actor and Surprisingly Busy Author

Actor Roger Moore, who died two weeks ago at age 89, became a prolific author in his last decade. Semi-retired and dividing his time between homes in Monaco and Switzerland, the octogenarian Moore turned out three books -- My Word is My Bond: A Memoir (2008), Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies (2012), and One Lucky Bastard: Tales from Tinseltown (2014).

According to The Independent, shortly before his death Moore sent a manuscript for a fourth book to his publisher.

Moore writes in a droll, anecdotal manner similar to the authorial style of his old friend, David Niven, who penned the bestselling memoirs The Moon's a Balloon (1971) and Bring on the Empty Horses (1975).

In My Word is My Bond Moore offers a full life story beginning with his lower-middle class London childhood and ending with his volunteer work for UNICEF. In between, of course, is the acting career that started when he was still a teenager and cast as an extra in the British produced film Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. The first half of the book has lots of name dropping, especially those of long bygone British stars. Following the trajectory of Moore's career, his twelve-year stint as James Bond isn't addressed until the second half of the book.

TCR on Films -- "Life Could Be Verse: Reflections on Love, Loss, and What Really Matters" by Kirk Douglas

In Life Could Be Verse, a brief and often affecting volume, actor Kirk Douglas, who recently turned ninety-eight years old, shares poems he has written over the course of his long life and recounts the experiences that inspired the verses.

Kirk wrote his first poem -- about a sailing ship, though he had never seen the ocean -- for an English class assignment as a high school student in upstate New York back when he was still Issur Danielovitch, the child of impoverished Russian Jewish immigrants. He discovered that versifying helped him better understand his thoughts. "Throughout my life I have written poems that express my true feelings," Kirk explains in the book's acknowledgments.

The poems are simple but perceptive reflections set in singsong rhyme and might be called wise doggerel. Here are the opening lines from "Luck" -- They call it 'luck'/It can't be taught/It can't be borrowed/It can't be bought'. Kirk's movie stardom, though discussed in the book, takes a back seat to his roles of son, husband, father, and grandfather.

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TCR on Films: "Watch Me: A Memoir" by Anjelica Huston

In the recently published Watch Me: A Memoir, actress and sometime director Anjelica Huston picks up where she left off in her first book, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York (discussed in TCR in April 2014).

At the start of this second volume Huston is in her early twenties and has just arrived in Los Angeles. She has been a successful fashion model in Europe and New York but is eager to commence a new life in sunny SoCal after finally extrapolating herself from a difficult relationship with a mentally ill photographer old enough to be her father.

Anjelica is a new girl in town but, being the daughter of legendary film director and bon vivant John Huston, she is an extremely well-connected one. It isn't long before she meets rising star Jack Nicholson and they begin a lengthy reign as Hollywood's coolest couple. Woody Allen immortalized their partnership in Annie Hall in which Annie's acceptance by the in-crowd is represented by her being invited to a party at Jack and Anjelica's.

Jack and Anjelica are an unequal pair. Nicholson essentially replaces John Huston as the charismatic, energetic and famous man dominating over Anjelica's life. As Jack ascends to superstardom in Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and The Shining, Anjelica hangs around and smokes -- sometimes on Jack's movie locations, sometimes back home at Jack's house on Mulholland, sometimes at the homes of friends in Paris, London, New York, and Aspen.