Curtain by Michael Korda

This book was referenced in Martin Gottfried's awesome biography of
Danny Kaye, so I requested it from the library, and despite the fact that it's taken
me something like 6 weeks to read, I'm glad I got it. The biographer Gottfried
came down firmly on the side that the great comedian Danny Kaye was
heterosexual, but in this novelized account of the sometimes rocky friendship
between Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Danny Kaye, Michael Korda has his
Kaye analog lead Olivier into a homosexual liaison, which makes the Leigh
character Kaye's lifelong enemy.

In this novel, Korda calls the great Shakespearean actor who represents
Olivier "Robert Vane, n and Leigh gets the moniker "Felicia lisle." Most of the
book is concerned with the tension between these two, caused initially by her
inability to get a divorce from her husband even though they are openly living
together, their joint careers in Hollywood and on the British stage through the
middle, and interwoven with his waning sexual desire for her. The book
chronicles her breakdowns on stage, and looks at how the couple perform well
together, but how in their heart of hearts, they want to out-act the other.

Because my interest lies mostly with the character Randy Brooks, the
early part of the novel is more interesting to me. I'm sure if I knew more about the
careers of Laurence Olivier or Vivien Leigh, more of it would seem relevant to me
and I would understand all the references. But since I'm coming at the story from
the background of knowing more about Danny Kaye than the other two
thespians, there are characters who don't click for me, like showman Marty Quick
with whom Felicia has an affair and then kills near the end of the book. It would
be more interesting if I knew who he was supposed to be in real life.

However, that said, the book is very well written, and even if it does seem
crude at certain points, there is a strong enough storyline here to keep me

. interested through the impossibly long 776 pages. I recognize that Korda throws
a twist into the Danny Kaye narrative when he has his analog, Randy Brooks, die
is a plane crash during 'WWII, a mission he volunteers for rather than have his
homosexuality be revealed to the public by promoter Quick. As Kaye did not die
in a plane crash, I'm not sure how much of the Olivier story mimics their real
lives. As I've stated before, since I haven't read a biography of Laurence or
Vivien, I don't know where Korda's story turns into fiction: with Vivien's affair with
her uncle?; with Vivien murdering Quick?; Or at the heart of the thing, with the
Olivier-Kaye affair?

What I do know, is despite the ordeal it was to read through the mountain
of material here, the Korda novel was almost always entertaining, and read very
much like the juicy insider's story that, to a large extent, it probably is. I would not
mind reading more of what he has written, as well as having someone tell me
how it compares to the Olivier's actual lives.

Submitted by Gerti