Word: fedoras
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Given the success of his three previous novels (The Other, Harvest Home, Lady), Tryon is likely to draw quite a house. Crowned Heads reels off four novellas about imaginary film stars: Fedora, a mysteriously ageless movie queen; Lorna Doone, a onetime "All-American cookie" who has begun to crumble; Bobby Ransome, a former child star with growing pains; and Willie Marsh, an elegant old leading man with some shabby private habits. Though the paths of these four characters have sometimes crossed, their stories are chiefly linked by the book's epigraph, which Tryon has lifted from Shakespeare...
...plain fact that this is often not true has never weakened the formula's appeal, and Tryon plays it for whatever it is worth. No facet of his characters' exquisite unhappiness remains unbuffed. "There are better ways to amuse oneself than by being a movie star," Fedora pouts. "Movie star," Willie Marsh snarls. "It's a crock...
...back in production. No clef is needed for this roman. Real stars parade by in abundance. Tryon also provides long lists of plausible but fictive movies and imaginary songs that set America humming (Ditto, Really Truly True). Even the four principal characters are amalgams of known personalities. Fedora owes something to Garbo, Dietrich and Gloria Swanson; lest readers think that she is any of these ladies, Tryon puts them all in Fedora's story...
...Jagger: a silver cross, a photo of a naked lady and a silver snuffbox for cocaine. Someone asked Bob Dylan whether the Stones phenomenon marked the end of rock 'n' roll or the beginning of something new. Resplendent in aviator glasses, checked shirt and a white fedora, Dylan answered with a grin: "It's the beginning of cosmic consciousness...
...genre of gossipmongers was falling victim to the permissive times. As one pressagent lamented, "Nobody's shocked any more." The syndicated outlets for his column fell from a onetime high of nearly 1,000 to slightly more than 100. With press card tucked in his gray, snap-brim fedora as of old, Winchell still occasionally turned up at the scene of a major story, but the old fire was gone. "Yes, by Christ," he said, "I think I am a little bored...