DEATH of a Movie Star

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Although I thought the TV show (the venue of the novel) televised from Ventura, Ca was preposterous and the novel’s ending filled with soppy cornball fluff, I kinda liked the story. Go figure. At times the writing almost seemed childlike. Other times it felt macabre. But at no times did I feel like laughing, even though the novel’s back cover states...Get ready to laugh your head off. So I’m a little muddled over whether I liked the novel or not. I think (that) I’ll settle on...I liked it (sort of). I say sort of because I’m not sure the author, Timothy Patrick, even knows what genre his book belongs in. It’s rather freakish. So let me tell you a little bit about the story.

Lenora Danmore has a reality TV show, StarBash, which is aired on the site of her Ventura, Ca ranch for seventeen weeks per season (this is year four of the show). The show is a monster hit and is watched by 50 million people each week. Lenora is 87 years old and is building a movie museum on her property, mainly to highlight her egotistical career. The museum is very hi-tech with many androids (it’s the year 2020) taking parts in the scenes depicting her films. Her producer and TV host is Micah Bailey, who lives on Lenora’s estate. The show highlights 15 washed-up actors, who will be disparaged and shamed for seventeen weeks until one of them gets a second chance in Hollywood by winning the Greasy Dishrag (the show’s trophy) and a ten million dollar movie contract. For that contract, the contestants will absorb the show’s degradations with sad smiles on their faces.

So the world wants to know why Cassandra Moreaux, a respected Hollywood A-lister, would join the show as a contestant. Why would she be willing to take 17 weeks of insults (if she survives the full season without being fired)? Does she have evidence of Lenora helping blacklist her mom, Wendy Rainy, during the Joe McCarthy Red Scare era, thus ruining her mom’s career? And did the show purposely hire one time popular actress Brandi Bonacore, now a waitress, to be a contestant on the show because of her feud with Cassandra? And what is Lenora scheming in order to launch her self-centered museum? What type of revenge is Cassandra cooking up against Lenora. What’s Brandi’s reprisal against Cassandra going to be? And what’s on the agenda of StarBash’s host, Micah Bailey, who also owns the rights to the show? Wow, it seems like a lot of questions need to be answered (haha). Hey, I'm finally laughing!

Brandi knew, “The screwy thing was that because of the show’s popularity, if a down-and-out actor dared cross the line and did well on the show, then that suddenly popular rogue actor zoomed straight to the top, and the jobs came flooding in.” And Cassandra complained to Micah Bailey, “Every week you tell 50 million people that actors are less than human and deserve to be treated like shit.” Who is right? Are they both right? One thing for sure is that Lenora Danmore holds the Joker card. Now that you have a taste of this novel, you will have to buy your own copy to find out who wins the 10 million dollar movie contract. Is it Cassandra? Is it Brandi? Or is it one of the thirteen other contestants that I didn’t even mention?

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I understand that Timothy Patrick’s novel is a satire on Tinseltown, but is Hollywood that shallow? Are their egos that large? Probably. I do remember reading that Sylvester Stallone orders his servants not look at him while they are in the same room with him and when they leave the room, their eyes must be looking down on the floor as they back out of the room. I’ve never watched another of his movies (and I don’t even know if it’s true or not).

If you read Christina Crawford’s 1978 book, Mommie Dearest, you know how cruel actress Joan Crawford was to her daughter. It’s been said that Quentin Tarantino is well beyond self-assured. It’s been reported that Will Smith thinks that he is the biggest star in the world. Gwyneth Paltrow thinks she is so big that she doesn’t need to learn the plot of the movie she is in (I still like her). Alec Baldwin has been called “a complete ass.” Charlie Sheen has been called rich, arrogant and perverted.

And what can you say about Donald Trump? I rest my case.