Daddy's Girl

By R.Z. Sheppard

A PRIVATE VIEW by Irene Mayer Selznick Knopf; 384 pages; $16.95

Early in this star-strewn memoir, Irene Mayer Selznick recalls one of the many admonitions that she heard from her father, the second M of MGM, Louis B. Mayer: "You can't run a house if you don't know how to cook. Your cook will have no respect for you." Years later, separated from David O. Selznick and temporarily cookless in a Manhattan apartment, L.B.'s daughter comes home to a ghastly vision of uncooked poultry in the refrigerator and the realization that "I had never touched a raw chicken."

Sometimes it is hard to take Irene Selznick too seriously--but only sometimes. A Private View is the story of how a bright, spunky tomboy from a beach-front house in Santa Monica surmounted advantages and an insufferable marriage to become independent and a successful Broadway producer. Only a hopeless churl could fail to see that behind the privilege and luxury is a woman of uncommon perseverance and good sense.

Ex-Husband David, the late moviemaker best known for Gone With the Wind, is treated with sympathy but still comes off as a monument to destructive compulsions and self-indulgence. Much of his legendary energy appears to have come from a vial of Benzedrine; his lavish spending distracted his attention from huge gambling debts; he was always late, and misspent his time writing gratuitous memos on rolls of two-inch-wide paper that snaked across his desk.

The author married Selznick in 1930 and assures us that until then, David's father put him to bed nightly. The Mayers and Selznicks were among Hollywood's pilgrim families, and to judge from Irene Selznick's recollection, her father was its Cotton Mather. He preached the doctrine of sound business practices, quality without ostentation and respectability. The best parts of A Private View deal with the '20s, when moguls were old-fashioned family men who made sure that their values got into their pictures. Selznick gracefully catches the small-town quality about the Hollywood of her childhood. Readers with a sociological eye may detect the beginnings of the suburban style (commuters, private clubs, recreational wardrobes) that would spread decades later.

Scores of famous names flutter effortlessly from Selznick's pages: Anita Loos, Irving Thalberg, Sam Goldwyn, Janet Gaynor, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo and Uncle William, known at the office as Mr. Hearst. Banker-Politician Averell Harriman coached her in bridge and croquet, and Howard Hughes wanted her to be his "woman friend" because, as Go-Between Gary Grant suggested, she was a "tested product."

The tests are not specified, though Selznick surely could have passed trials in patience, level-headedness and dependability. These attributes were severely stretched during her life with David, notably just after his father's death when he departed for a lively wake while Irene was left with the funeral arrangements.

Her organizational abilities were better appreciated on Broadway, where she produced A Streetcar Named Desire, among other plays. The New York stage chapters are perfunctory. Anecdotes, like Marlon Brando's fixing Tennessee Williams' plumbing, are sandwiched among routine theater business, tributes to friends and expressions of satisfaction. Missing are the two difficult men, father and former husband, who tempered the author's character and gave emotional texture to the earlier chapters. Having a life turn out well is a blessing, but conflict nearly always makes better copy than contentment. --By R.Z. Sheppard This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.