Book Review: Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir

Victoria Riskin's dual biography of her parents, FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN: A HOLLYWOOD MEMOIR, has just been published.

Riskin's book is a superbly detailed history of popular actress Wray, who was immortalized onscreen in KING KONG (1933), and Oscar-winning screenwriter Riskin, equally chronicling their personal lives and career histories. It's extremely well written and researched, which combined with the author's personal experiences and knowledge makes an absolutely top-drawer biography. I enjoyed it as much as any film book I've read in the last few years.

Both Riskin and Wray came from humble family backgrounds and worked their way up the American ladder of success in Hollywood. Riskin, the son of a New York tailor, fell into show business as a teenager. He got a job working for shirtmakers who had a side business producing two-reeler comedy shorts; after seeing some he told his employers he could do a better job himself. He thus became a film producer at the age of 17, then spent years writing for the stage before migrating to Hollywood early in the sound era.

Riskin would become best-known for his many collaborations with director Frank Capra, which included IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay Adaptation, and MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (1936), LOST HORIZON (1937), YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1938), and MEET JOHN DOE (1941). A stroke in 1950 cut short his career at a relatively young age, and he died of complications in 1955, at the age of 58.

Wray was born into a poor Utah family which faced struggles with her mother's mental health, her teenaged sister's death during the 1918 flu epidemic, and the father ultimately abandoning the family. When she was 14 a family friend took pretty young Fay to Hollywood -- a strange story in and of itself -- where she enrolled in school and before long was working in silent movies. Wray worked onscreen steadily from 1923 to 1942, leaving the business for marriage to Riskin, then returning to acting in 1953 as family finances dwindled in the wake of Riskin's stroke.

Wray lived a long life, passing on in 2004 at the age of 94, nearly a half-century after losing her husband; she had married a doctor nearly 16 years after Riskin's death. That marriage lasted for almost two decades, until her husband's passing in 1991.

FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN is an absorbing tale of a couple who found each other at relatively mature ages and enjoyed only a few happily married years together before being beset by serious illness and death.

Beyond their personal story, the book also chronicles the evolution of Hollywood, from silents to the sound era and on to television, where Wray did considerable work after she returned to acting, through the mid '60s, with a final return to the screen in the TV-movie GIDEON'S TRUMPET (1980) starring Henry Fonda.

Many letters between Riskin and Wray survived, which add richness to the depiction of their relationship, and Victoria Riskin's own memories give the book added poignance, particularly when discussing her happy early childhood, before everything irrevocably changed, and her mother coping with her father's illness and the need to resume her career. I was especially struck by the brief yet memorable description of Victoria taking her mother to revisit Lark, Utah, the mining town where she had grown up; it's now a ghost town. Author Riskin's backgrounds in both writing and psychology doubtless contributed to her producing an insightful, polished book.

This month Southern Californians will have the opportunity to meet Victoria Riskin and celebrate the work of her parents in a new film series, Fay Wray + Robert Riskin, at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. I'll have complete details on the series posted here on Monday, March 4th. (March 4th Update: Here is the film series preview!)

For even more on Fay Wray and Robert Riskin, please visit the Fay Wray-Robert Riskin Blogathon being hosted this weekend by Once Upon a Screen and Classic Movie Hub.

FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN: A HOLLYWOOD MEMOIR was published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House. The book is 397 pages including the index. Photographs are published directly on the pages and are good quality reproductions, with many from the author's personal collection. It's a very nicely produced book which is a pleasure to look at as well as to read.

FAY WRAY AND ROBERT RISKIN: A HOLLYWOOD MEMOIR is an engrossing book which receives my highest recommendation.

Thanks to Pantheon Books for providing a review copy of this book.