Word: orphaned
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...worry about the excesses of plot. A.L. Levine is what this book is all about, and Halberstam's hero rises to beat back any challenge. Levine is a marvelously charming character: a poor Jewish orphan who works his way up from the seediness of the Bronx to the sweaty good times of a travelling salesman in the South, onward into the cushy, three-piece suited life of a millionaire real-estate developer and Democratic Party kingmaker, stopping off in countless bedrooms at every chance. Weaving together flashbacks and scenes from Levine's suddenly conceived campaign for the Presidency, Halberstam chronicles...
...Davis is a claque person: his fans bestow upon him an adoring worship that outstrips the sum of his actual gifts. He is a passable dancer (though he does not dance in this show), his voice is only as strong as the mic it is hooked to, and an orphan out of Annie could match his acting. Like Minnelli, Davis projects the image of an overage child parched for affection, aggressively demanding approval, and working onstage with a grueling intensity. Not "no sweat" but all sweat...
Part of the problem is that little Damien has miraculously aged almost a decade in the two years since we left him tearless at his parents' grave, a nominal orphan at five. That angelic-looking child - so hard to believe Satan had anything to do with him! - is now a broody cadet in a military school. Though the deviltry goes somewhat further than short-sheeting the beds or spreading rumors about saltpeter in the food, there is still not enough contrast between Damien's visible aspect and his true nature to make him either lively or ironic...
...biggest impression was made by an autobiographical sketch of Gorky's. It "was an excellent metaphor for how I felt. One must consider the idea of the artist as orphan, an orphaned prodigy, whose parents find him some where?the bulrushes, perhaps. To pretend to be an orphan, alone, is a form of narcissism. I suppose all children have this disgusting form of self-pity; but more so the artist, who is Robinson Crusoe. He must invent his stories, his pleasures; he succeeds in reconstructing a parody of civilization from scratch. He makes himself by education, by survival, by constantly...
...film is an adaptation of a Paul Gallico story about a fledgling song-and-dance woman (Sissy Spacek) who enlists in a second-rate U.S.O. troupe during World War II. A shy orphan with a sweet smile and no discernible talent, Verna fervently believes that a U.S.O. tour overseas will speed her way to superstardom. She even imagines that Rodgers and Hammerstein will write her a musical after the war and promises her fellow troupers supporting roles. Though her pulpy fantasies of fame and fortune are ludicrously out of reach, her brave self-confidence wins over her battered G.I. audiences...