Haywire (book)
Encyclopedia
Haywire is a memoir
by actress and writer Brooke Hayward
(born 1937), daughter of theatrical agent and producer Leland Hayward
and actress Margaret Sullavan
. It is a #1 New York Times Best Seller and was on the list
for 17 weeks. In Haywire, Brooke details her experience of growing up immersed in the glamorous and extravagant lifestyle afforded by her parents’ successful Hollywood and Broadway
careers and tells the story of how her very privileged, beautiful family and their seemingly idyllic life fell apart.
– Brooke’s father, who was a charismatic gentleman and a well-known theatrical agent and stage, film, and television producer “who taught Fred Astaire how to dress and whom Katharine Hepburn called ‘the most wonderful man in the world’–even after he ended their romance…,“ and who “thrived on the glamorous Hollywood scene.“ His clients included Fred Astaire
, Jimmy Stewart
, Henry Fonda
, Ernest Hemingway
, Judy Garland
, Ginger Rogers
, Billy Wilder
, Gene Kelly
, Myrna Loy
, Herman Mankiewicz, Gene Fowler
, Gregory Peck
, William Wyler
, Frederic March, Boris Karloff
, Lillian Hellman
, Helen Hayes
, Dashiell Hammett
, Greta Garbo
, and Katharine Hepburn
. He was a Tony Award
-winning Broadway producer of Call Me Madam
, South Pacific
, Gypsy
, The Sound of Music
, and Mister Roberts
, among others. After his marriage to Margaret Sullavan (who was another client) ended in 1948, he went on to marry Nancy “Slim” Hawks
(later Lady Keith), and Pamela Digby Churchill
(later Harriman).
Margaret Sullavan
– Brooke’s mother, who was both a Hollywood and a Broadway star, by all accounts a superb actress, and known for her husky voice and “irresistible crooked grin.” She performed with the University Players
at Harvard, made her Broadway debut in 1926, and starred in 17 films including the classics Only Yesterday
(1933), The Shop Around the Corner
(1940), and Back Street
(1941). Before Leland Hayward, she was married to actor Henry Fonda
and director William Wyler
. According to Brooke, she loathed Hollywood, was fanatical about her privacy, and was determined to bring up her children properly in a perfect, beautiful home. Her death at age 50 (in 1960) by barbiturate poisoning was ruled an accidental suicide.
Brooke Hayward
– Brooke, who appeared on the cover of Life
magazine when she was 15, became a model and actress before she wrote Haywire. Her film and television credits include Mad Dog Coll, the Twilight Zone
episode "The Masks," and Six Degrees of Separation
. She has been married to Michael Thomas, Dennis Hopper
, and Peter Duchin
, and now lives in Connecticut and New York.
Bridget Hayward – Brooke’s younger sister. She was in and out of mental institutions in her teens, and worked at the Williamstown Theatre as an apprentice. She “succumbed to a recurrent, unexplained illness marked by epileptic seizures and bouts of severe depression” and her death at age 21 is considered to be a suicide.
William (Bill) Hayward – Brooke’s younger brother. He, too, was in and out of mental institutions like the Menninger Foundation
. He produced Easy Rider
in partnership with Peter Fonda
and loved motorcycles for the rest of his life. He shot himself in the heart in 2008.
Though their contributions (of “time, memories, and love”) are not marked as quotes in the text, Hayward also acknowledges:
– actor, director, and Oscar
-nominated screenwriter (The Graduate
) – and an epilogue by the author, both of which are dated May 2010. Henry introduces us to Leland and his "crazy kids," while Hayward’s epilogue discusses the years since Haywire was first published, thanks Henry for urging her to finish writing it, and, most notably, covers her brother William’s death (he shot himself in the heart in 2008). The "epilogue is remarkable for its uninflected tone. She offers nothing remotely consoling about redemption or overcoming adversity. And that is one of the most bracing and strangely affirming aspects of this book."
for 17 weeks. The New York Times Book Review
described it as “a Hollywood childhood memoir, a glowing tapestry spun with equal parts of gold and pain. As a book it is an absolute beauty – a Hollywood beauty, to be precise – with all the charm that term implies, the deceptive simplicity, the complex hidden machinery and, above all, the terrible cost.” Critics noted that the book, though published when Brooke was 39, deals mostly with her life up to her very early twenties and is mostly silent on her personal tragedies (the most evident of which were failed marriages) that occurred in the intervening years. The new epilogue addresses this issue, albeit briefly.
Another New York Times
writer noted that one of Haywire’s themes contributed to a 1970’s trend: "'Survival,' as opposed to action and creativity, seems to be the dominant motif in much of 70’s popular culture
, especially in some books… Brooke Hayward’s childhood, described in 'Haywire,' has been discussed as if it had been the domestic equivalent of an Iranian torture chamber."
made-for-TV movie by the same name. First aired in 1980, it starred Lee Remick
, Jason Robards
, and Deborah Raffin
and was produced by Brooke’s younger brother, Bill Hayward. A New York Times TV writer made note of its non-chronological “ambitious time scheme” and called it “an exceptionally fine-tuned television drama.”
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
by actress and writer Brooke Hayward
Brooke Hayward
Brooke Hayward is an American actress and writer.-Early life and career:Born in Los Angeles, Hayward is the eldest, and only surviving, child from the marriage of former agent turned film-, television-, and stage producer Leland Hayward and actress Margaret Sullavan...
(born 1937), daughter of theatrical agent and producer Leland Hayward
Leland Hayward
Leland Hayward was a Hollywood and Broadway agent and theatrical producer. He produced the original Broadway stage productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and The Sound of Music.-Early years:...
and actress Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
. It is a #1 New York Times Best Seller and was on the list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
for 17 weeks. In Haywire, Brooke details her experience of growing up immersed in the glamorous and extravagant lifestyle afforded by her parents’ successful Hollywood and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
careers and tells the story of how her very privileged, beautiful family and their seemingly idyllic life fell apart.
Important characters
Leland HaywardLeland Hayward
Leland Hayward was a Hollywood and Broadway agent and theatrical producer. He produced the original Broadway stage productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and The Sound of Music.-Early years:...
– Brooke’s father, who was a charismatic gentleman and a well-known theatrical agent and stage, film, and television producer “who taught Fred Astaire how to dress and whom Katharine Hepburn called ‘the most wonderful man in the world’–even after he ended their romance…,“ and who “thrived on the glamorous Hollywood scene.“ His clients included Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Jimmy Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
, Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
, Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...
, Herman Mankiewicz, Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat...
, Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
, William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
, Frederic March, Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
, Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, and Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
. He was a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning Broadway producer of Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam
Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.A satire on politics and foreign affairs that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed...
, South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
, Gypsy
Gypsy: A Musical Fable
Gypsy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business...
, The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
, and Mister Roberts
Mister Roberts (play)
Mister Roberts is a 1948 play based on the 1946 Thomas Heggen novel of the same name.The novel began as a collection of short stories about Heggen's experiences aboard the USS Virgo in the South Pacific during World War II...
, among others. After his marriage to Margaret Sullavan (who was another client) ended in 1948, he went on to marry Nancy “Slim” Hawks
Slim Keith
Nancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith was a New York socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set...
(later Lady Keith), and Pamela Digby Churchill
Pamela Harriman
Pamela Beryl Harriman , also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the United States Democratic Party and a diplomat...
(later Harriman).
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Sullavan
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
– Brooke’s mother, who was both a Hollywood and a Broadway star, by all accounts a superb actress, and known for her husky voice and “irresistible crooked grin.” She performed with the University Players
University Players
The University Players was primarily a summer stock theater company located in West Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, from 1928 to 1932. It was formed in 1928 by eighteen college undergraduates...
at Harvard, made her Broadway debut in 1926, and starred in 17 films including the classics Only Yesterday
Only Yesterday (1933 film)
Only Yesterday is a 1933 drama film about a young woman who becomes pregnant by her boyfriend before he rushes off to fight in World War I. It stars Margaret Sullavan and John Boles. The film was based on the novel Briefe einer unbekannten by Stefan Zweig, though he was not credited...
(1933), The Shop Around the Corner
The Shop Around the Corner
-External links:* Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, Issue 1, 2010...
(1940), and Back Street
Back Street (1941 film)
Back Street is a 1941 drama film made by Universal Pictures, directed by Robert Stevenson. The film stars Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan. It is a remake of the 1932 film of the same name, also from Universal. The film follows the 1931 Fannie Hurst novel and the 1932 film version very closely,...
(1941). Before Leland Hayward, she was married to actor Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
and director William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
. According to Brooke, she loathed Hollywood, was fanatical about her privacy, and was determined to bring up her children properly in a perfect, beautiful home. Her death at age 50 (in 1960) by barbiturate poisoning was ruled an accidental suicide.
Brooke Hayward
Brooke Hayward
Brooke Hayward is an American actress and writer.-Early life and career:Born in Los Angeles, Hayward is the eldest, and only surviving, child from the marriage of former agent turned film-, television-, and stage producer Leland Hayward and actress Margaret Sullavan...
– Brooke, who appeared on the cover of Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine when she was 15, became a model and actress before she wrote Haywire. Her film and television credits include Mad Dog Coll, the Twilight Zone
Twilight zone
-Television series and spinoffs:*The Twilight Zone, the anthology television series and its franchise:**The Twilight Zone , the 1959–1964 original television series***Twilight Zone: The Movie, a 1983 film based on the original series...
episode "The Masks," and Six Degrees of Separation
Six Degrees of Separation (film)
Six Degrees of Separation is a 1990 play written by John Guare that premiered at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center on May 16, 1990, directed by Jerry Zaks and starring Stockard Channing...
. She has been married to Michael Thomas, Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, and Peter Duchin
Peter Duchin
-Life and career:Duchin was born in New York City, the son of pianist and band leader Eddy Duchin. His mother was Marjorie Oelrichs, a Newport, Rhode Island and New York City socialite who died unexpectedly when he was just five days old. He was raised by close family friends, statesman W...
, and now lives in Connecticut and New York.
Bridget Hayward – Brooke’s younger sister. She was in and out of mental institutions in her teens, and worked at the Williamstown Theatre as an apprentice. She “succumbed to a recurrent, unexplained illness marked by epileptic seizures and bouts of severe depression” and her death at age 21 is considered to be a suicide.
William (Bill) Hayward – Brooke’s younger brother. He, too, was in and out of mental institutions like the Menninger Foundation
Menninger Foundation
The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
. He produced Easy Rider
Easy Rider
Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
in partnership with Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
and loved motorcycles for the rest of his life. He shot himself in the heart in 2008.
Contributors
Throughout Haywire, Hayward uses snippets of oral history from interviews she conducted with people who knew her immediate family members (several of whom qualified as “family friends”) to provide outside perspectives on what they were like and on how the family operated. Many of these contributors are notable:- Jimmy StewartJames Stewart (actor)James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
- Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
- Jane FondaJane FondaJane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
- Peter FondaPeter FondaPeter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
- Truman CapoteTruman CapoteTruman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
- Sara Mankiewicz – wife of Herman J. MankiewiczHerman J. MankiewiczHerman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane . Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott, said that Herman Mankiewicz was...
- Tom MankiewiczTom MankiewiczThomas Frank Mankiewicz was a screenwriter/director/producer of motion pictures and television, perhaps best known for his work on the James Bond films and his contributions to Superman: The Movie and the television series, Hart to Hart.-Early life and career:Mankiewicz was born in Los Angeles on...
- Paul OsbornPaul OsbornPaul Osborn was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for writing the screen adaptation of East of Eden as well as South Pacific, The Yearling, The World of Suzie Wong and Sayonara....
- Millicent Osborn – wife of Paul Osborn
- John SwopeJohn Swope (photographer)John Swope was a photographer for Life Magazine, and a pilot.He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1908.He attended Harvard University in 1930...
- Hank Potter
- Joe CottenJoseph CottenJoseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
- Josh LoganJoshua LoganJoshua Lockwood Logan III was an American stage and film director and writer.-Early years:Logan was born in Texarkana, Texas, the son of Susan and Joshua Lockwood Logan. When he was three years old his father committed suicide...
- William WylerWilliam WylerWilliam Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
- Diana VreelandDiana VreelandDiana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...
- King VidorKing VidorKing Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
– Margaret’s director on So Red the Rose - Nancy (“Slim” Hayward) KeithSlim KeithNancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith was a New York socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set...
– Leland Hayward’s wife after Sullavan - Bill Francisco – Bridget Hayward’s boyfriend at the time of her death
- E. B. GriffithsEdward H. GriffithEdward H. Griffith was an American motion picture director, screenwriter and producer. He directed 61 films from 1917 to 1946. He was born in Lynchburg, Virginia and began his career in motion pictures as a screenwriter in 1916, and advanced to the position of a director of two-reelers...
– Margaret’s director on Next Time We LoveNext Time We LoveNext Time We Love is a 1936 melodrama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Ray Milland. It was written by Melville Baker with Preston Sturges and Doris Anderson, who were both uncredited, based on Ursula Parrott's 1935 novel Next Time We Live, which...
Though their contributions (of “time, memories, and love”) are not marked as quotes in the text, Hayward also acknowledges:
- Billy WilderBilly WilderBilly Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
- Frederic and Florence March
- Peter HuntPeter H. HuntPeter Huls Hunt is an American theatre, film, and television director and a theatrical lighting designer.Hunt was born in Pasadena, California, the son of Gertrude and George Smith Hunt II, a Minnesota-born industrial designer. Hunt began his career as a lighting designer at the Williamstown...
- Charles and Ray EamesCharles and Ray EamesCharles Ormond Eames, Jr and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Eames were American designers, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film.-Charles Eames:Charles Eames, Jr was born in...
- George CukorGeorge CukorGeorge Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
- Jules Stein
- Swifty Lazar
- George AxelrodGeorge AxelrodGeorge Axelrod was an American screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play, The Seven Year Itch , which was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe...
- Bill and Greta Wright
- Kenneth Wagg – Margaret SullavanMargaret SullavanMargaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...
’s husband at the time of her death - Martha Edens
- Kathleen Malley
Introduction and Epilogue
The 2011 paperback edition includes an introduction by Hayward’s family and personal friend Buck HenryBuck Henry
Henry Zuckerman, better known as Buck Henry , is an American actor, writer, film director, and television director.-Early life:...
– actor, director, and Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-nominated screenwriter (The Graduate
The Graduate
The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
) – and an epilogue by the author, both of which are dated May 2010. Henry introduces us to Leland and his "crazy kids," while Hayward’s epilogue discusses the years since Haywire was first published, thanks Henry for urging her to finish writing it, and, most notably, covers her brother William’s death (he shot himself in the heart in 2008). The "epilogue is remarkable for its uninflected tone. She offers nothing remotely consoling about redemption or overcoming adversity. And that is one of the most bracing and strangely affirming aspects of this book."
Reception
Within a month of its publication, Haywire was “heading for what appears to be a huge commercial success.” It became a #1 New York Times Best Seller and was on the listNew York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
for 17 weeks. The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
described it as “a Hollywood childhood memoir, a glowing tapestry spun with equal parts of gold and pain. As a book it is an absolute beauty – a Hollywood beauty, to be precise – with all the charm that term implies, the deceptive simplicity, the complex hidden machinery and, above all, the terrible cost.” Critics noted that the book, though published when Brooke was 39, deals mostly with her life up to her very early twenties and is mostly silent on her personal tragedies (the most evident of which were failed marriages) that occurred in the intervening years. The new epilogue addresses this issue, albeit briefly.
Another New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
writer noted that one of Haywire’s themes contributed to a 1970’s trend: "'Survival,' as opposed to action and creativity, seems to be the dominant motif in much of 70’s popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
, especially in some books… Brooke Hayward’s childhood, described in 'Haywire,' has been discussed as if it had been the domestic equivalent of an Iranian torture chamber."
Movie
Haywire inspired a Warner Bros.Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
made-for-TV movie by the same name. First aired in 1980, it starred Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
, Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
, and Deborah Raffin
Deborah Raffin
Deborah Iona Raffin is an American film and television actress.Raffin was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Trudy Marshall, a Brooklyn-born former movie actress, and Phillip Jordan Raffin, a restaurateur and meat/brokerage executive.She appeared in several 1970s Hollywood films...
and was produced by Brooke’s younger brother, Bill Hayward. A New York Times TV writer made note of its non-chronological “ambitious time scheme” and called it “an exceptionally fine-tuned television drama.”
External links
- http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307739599|Haywire at Random House, Inc.
- Haywire at The Internet Movie Database
- | LA Times article
- Random House Word & Film article