Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . .
Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers, and hot off the presses.
Nancy Olson Livingston – A Front Row Seat: An Intimate Look At Broadway, Hollywood, And The Age Of Glamour. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2022. 355pp.
I was reading Nancy Olson Livingston’s memoir, A Front Row Seat, on the subway recently when a middle-aged African American woman next to me expressed curiosity about the elegantly beautiful blond woman on the cover. I said it was of a former movie star and she, mentioning that she was herself an actress, wondered if it might not be Grace Kelly. I said that was an excellent guess, but told her it was Nancy Olson, someone of the same Hollywood vintage. I, too, had noticed the resemblance, and, in fact, the book not only discusses Kelly, but has a picture of her.
Nancy Olson, who added the name Livingston after marrying her second husband, made what was likely her biggest splash in 1950, when she was still a 22-year-old undergraduate at UCLA. Under contract to Paramount, and with only one movie under her belt, 1949’s Canadian Pacific, starring Randolph Scott, she earned an Academy Award nomination for her role as Betty Schaeffer, the script reader in Billy Wilder’s classic Sunset Boulevard, starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson. This, however, didn’t translate into instant superstardom for the young starlet, which was just fine with her.
While she made other movies into the 60s, some of them, like 1960’s Pollyanna, commercially popular, and occasionally even after, her film career faded. It happened willingly, as she became disillusioned with the life of a movie star and transitioned into, for her, the preferable roles of wife, mother, and grandmother. In her book, the members of her extended family—including stepchildren—play important roles, some sadly (because of hemophilia, AIDS, and other heavy issues). Olson, despite her tragic losses, never descends on these pages into maudlin self-pity, though, emerging as the gracious, adoring, and proud matriarch of a fond, attractive, and gifted family.
During her many years living in Los Angeles, she was a socially prominent member of various cultural groups, often showing up at celebrity-studded parties, and becoming particularly involved with the Los Angeles Music Center. She served there in apparently nonpaying executive capacities in the areas of event planning and fundraising. These experiences are described in considerable detail, including the struggles she faced with another female executive whose unreasonable jealousy caused her considerable grief.
Now 97, Olson published her memoir three years ago, at 94, and it shows no sign of being written by anyone not in the prime of life. Her recall of incidents and famous people she knew is remarkable, and, in stories from decades ago, she often describes the details of her ensemble with startling detail, from her hairstyle to her clothes, shoes, and jewelry. You will not, unfortunately, get a similarly thorough account of her film, TV, or stage career (she did several Broadway plays, including as a replacement for Barbara Bel Geddes as the lead in Jean Kerr’s hit Mary, Mary). I was surprised to discover by a quick visit to Wikipedia just how many films and TV shows she appeared in, but doesn’t mention.
A Front Row Seat offers an imperfect index (not all the names mentioned in the book are there), but, in a world where such memoirs (see those by Barbra Streisand and Al Pacino, for example) neglect any index at all, it’s at least something. A chronology of her performance history, however, would have been appreciated. Photos are abundant but, given her proclivities, are more likely to represent her social and familial, rather than professional, life.
What we do get, though, is an intelligent, well-written account of her growing up comfortably in Milwaukee in a loving home, although not one without its interpersonal tensions. Her father was a respected physician, and her mother a cultured, exceedingly well-read woman with a strong interest in the arts, especially classical music. Nancy herself became a talented pianist. Her descriptions of middle-class family life in the Midwest during the 30s and 40s offer wonderfully nostalgic memories of those long-gone days.
Readers interested in Hollywood will get some choice insights into Olson’s experiences making movies and her encounters with famous directors and stars, not to mention some pages devoted to her theatrical work, and less to her TV background. Entertainment buffs will be happy to read about Olson’s take on the world of Hollywood, Broadway, and American letters, including her involvement (sometimes romantically) with names like Bing Crosby, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Billy Wilder, Gary Cooper, Gregory and Veronique Peck, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Ira and Lee Gershwin, John Wayne, Burton Lane, Arthur Schwartz, Fritz Loewe, Aldo Ray, Sydney Chaplin, Clifford Odets, Fred MacMurray, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, Oscar Levant, Jennifer Jones, Natalie Wood, Kitty Carlyle Hart . . . the list goes on. More than a few of these tales have something provocative to share.
Olson’s elevated social position led to associations with leading politicians as well, like Ronald Reagan. Olson, a committed liberal, nevertheless maintained an equitable relationship with Nancy Reagan, about whom she shares some interesting tidbits. More sensational, though, was her friendship with “Jack” Kennedy, about whose rather aggressive attempt to seduce her when they first met (years before his presidency) she reports. (Jackie Kennedy also makes a few entrances.)
The bulk of the book concerns such things as her dating history to important men, her therapy experiences (including EST), and the two unobservant Jewish men this Wisconsin WASP married. The first marriage, a failure through no fault of her own, was to the great librettist and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, whom she married in 1950, and to whose writing of My Fair Lady and Gigi she was privy. Nancy was the second of this sometimes cruel, notorious womanizer’s eight wives.
Her second marriage was in 1962. Made in heaven, it was to then Capitol Records executive Alan W. Livingston (born Levison), who later held important executive positions in the media. His important connections with artists like the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, and Don McClean, each of whom get coverage, were of historical importance. So much of the book is devoted to life with Livingston, both in L.A. and New York, and his successful career, including its occasional bumps, that A Front Row Seat could almost be called a double memoir. One does wonder at how Olson, a liberal, managed to live so long and happily with a Republican husband!
Nancy Olson Livingston had an interesting and productive life, and she has packaged much of it here. It may not satisfy those primarily concerned with film, TV, or theater history. There’s valuable material here, however, unmentioned in Alan Jay Lerner’s autobiography, so anything that contributes to our knowledge of this musical theater giant is welcome. Those interested in the pop music of the last century will also enjoy the chapters about Alan W. Livingston’s dealings with some of the era’s greatest recording artists, with commentary on that world as seen by an executive’s wife.
Nancy Olson herself was not a controversial figure, and she was never—despite her Oscar nomination—considered an important, versatile screen artist. Her contributions as an actress were mainly tied to her presence as a physically appealing, classy, and intelligent woman. She fit perfectly a type then in demand, and did her professional best to meet its requirements. She never talks in depth about acting, which seemed to come naturally to her.
Had her performing ambitions been greater, perhaps she would have blossomed into a memorable artist, one whose picture on a book cover might not have been confused by a subway rider for that of another actress she resembled, one who herself left a movie career behind for life as a wife and mother.
Next up: Trav S.D. No Applause—Just Throw Money: The Book that Made Vaudeville Famous.