As editor-in-chief of Knopf, Robert Gottlieb published memoirs by some of Hollywood’s greatest actresses. In his autobiography, ‘Avid Reader: A Life,’ he revealed all: “Part of my job was listening to their complaints about each other.”
Robert Gottlieb in 1974. Inset, two of his celebrity authors, Katharine Hepburn, in 1935, and Lauren Bacall, in 1944.Save this storyTo my surprise, I found myself editing a series of celebrity memoirs—not exactly what I had foreseen for myself when I got into publishing. The most visible of them was. I couldn’t resist her—partly because, having met her a few times, I felt I understood her and would be able to work with her.
The book came easily—she had an enviable fluency as a writer—and although it needed a good deal of standard editing, it never needed rethinking or re-structuring. The crucial thing was there on the page: Betty Bacall. We had only one moment of confrontation. There was a gorgeous picture of her on the front cover, and on the back I showed her with Bogart. Absolutely not, she exploded; this was her book, not his. That really pushed my buttons.
My great friend Irene Selznick had no time for either Betty or Swifty—she was from a different Hollywood. Irene came to me via Walter and Jean Kerr, who worshipped her. The daughter of Louis B. Mayer, the ex-wife of David O. Selznick, she was quintessential Hollywood royalty, who, when she left David, moved to New York and produced, becoming Broadway royalty. But I knew almost nothing about her when she arrived in my office—quiet, contained, yet very highly charged.
During these years, and the half-dozen that followed, we were in constant touch. At least once a week, usually at midnight, we would be on the phone for an hour or two. Often I would go up to the Pierre for a talkathon—about my family, her family, Hollywood, the past, the present, the future. Her severity of judgment combined with her immense reservoir of sentiment was perpetually seductive to me, and my equally judgmental nature met hers with glee and mutual respect.
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