Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen - Book Review
Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen - Book Review
Book Review of David Grove's "Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen", a biography on the legendary horror actress published by BearManor Media 2010.
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While Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen (hereinafter referred to as JLCSQ, for no other reason than I like initialisms) may not compare with the salacious and somewhat sloppy memoir by Adrienne Barbeau (There Are Worse Things I Could Do), it's a decent companion piece, as JLCSQ also covers what it's like to work with slash master John Carpenter. Both women had very different relationships with him (Curtis was an actor only, while Barbeau married/divorced the man), and so it's interesting to compare notes.
JLCSQ begins at the beginning, with a straightforward intro from the author on his pursuit of writing an unauthorized (but, apparently accepted) bio of the actress who carved her horror niche in 1978's Halloween, followed by The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, and the Ozploitation flick Roadgames, to name a new. David Grove, a noted film journalist and reporter, talks about trying to capture Curtis's essence — especially in regard to what's made her legend endure while many of her contemporaries' have not.
Then the book begins in earnest, with quite a lot of back-story on the screaming subject's parents, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis — both of whom also starred in landmark scary movies (she in Psycho, he in The Boston Strangler), her childhood, their divorce, her early awkwardness and unusual, mix-n-match looks.
This weighty tome (500+ pages, in paperback format) features hundreds of interviews with Curtis's friends and colleagues - including Carpenter, the late Debra Hill, and many quotes from Curtis on herself as published throughout the years (and televised — it's a trip to read her word-for-word transcript from her first appearance on Saturday Night Live). While she didn't authorize this exhaustive bio, she was on hand to help fill in a few gaps, and her presence is very much felt. The book does shy away from outright criticism — it's fairly fawning, which is fine (let's just say David Grove is no Kitty Kelly), as JLCSQ is not meant to be anything other than a fond look at the actress and her oeuvres.
So while JLCSQ takes a journalistic and academic approach (but not without the author's candid opinions), it doesn't read like a text book, thankfully. Nor does it read like fiction — personally, I would have liked a little livelier tone, but that's just my taste, not a reflection on this bio. For horror fans that are just interested in the horror movies Curtis did, as well as a good, if gushing, recap of the slasher horror scene from the late 70s through the early 80s, it's worth a bits-n-pieces read.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson
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