`    The celebrity autobiography is, in the main, a genuine roll of the dice. Depending upon the celebrity and the quality of the prose, it can be either colorful or drab, lively or dull, engrossing or boring. My (vast) book collection contains two such tomes, both qualitative by and of themselves, but even more so when the authors touch upon a particular part of their (quite colorful) lives. They are, respectively, Joan Collins’ s original autobiography Past Imperfect, when she deals with her late-1950s affair with Harry Belafonte; and Eddie Fisher’ s autobiography Been There, Done That, when he talks about his 1950s tryst with Mamie Van Doren.   

    We’ ll start with Past Imperfect, Collins, and Belafonte. Collins begins by talking concerning how her career stood at that point (”I was a commodity now. A young, sexy saleable commodity and my studio employers took full advantage of this fact and were pushing me into film after film”) and expressing sadness regarding how motion pictures were back then (”Movies, unfortunately noted more for their visual beauty and scenic splendour than for their integrity and realism”). After describing the state of her apartment, she gets into the previous night with Belafonte (”I glanced at the other side of the King-Sized Hollywood bed–a necessity in any young bachelorette’ s apartment–and could almost see the indentation where his tall, lithe body had lain [Throughtout her rememberance, Collins never refers to Belafonte by name, always calling him "he" and its variants]“). She then goes into further detail concerning said night (”Although it was the second time we had been to bed together I was nervous…My reputation as a ‘Playgirl’ always ready for excitement and adventure would be enhanced no doubt, but the studio would frown on this alliance”). Later, we find out that the two discovered each other when they appeared together in Island In The Sunand that she first really noticed him  during the pre-shoot cocktail party (”Tall, dark, and handsome was an understatement. About six feet one or two his black hair was close cropped and curly and his skin was the colour of caramel toffee. His body…revealed that he was slim and muscular and almost hairless”). She tells of how she went on drinking Belafonte in (”I feasted my eyes on his warm brown eyes and aristocratic nose. He was indeed a gorgeous hunk of man…His sex appeal made women of all ages go weak at the knees and I, never one to let male beauty go unappreciated, seemed to be no exception to this rule”) yet bluntly discloses her reservations regarding him (”[H]is reputation was not good. Love ‘em and leave ‘em seemed to be his credo and…I was cautious of men who were overly conscious of their sexual power”). Later, she tells of how crew members confirmed her suspicions (”[M]y British compatriots…went to some lengths to let me know that this fabulous man was considered to be a ladies’ man ‘Par Excellence,’ and that one of his ambitions was said to be to make love to as many beautiful women as he could possibly find”) and how she went loony when in his vicinity during Brunch (”I was seated next to him–a Caribbean goody if I ever saw one!”). Some time later, she speaks of how she silently rebelled against the crew members’ warnings (”God damn them, I thought furiously. Interfering busybodies. I didn’ t belong to them…I decided to enjoy his engaging personality, and forget about ‘the boys’ [It should be said here that back then Belafonte was the charming, sexy, open-shirted she-babe-magnet of old, not the self-righteous, race-baiting shrillster he is today]“) and, some time afterward, tells in further detail of Belafonte’ s then-considerable sexiness (”One thing I gathered from lunching with my handsome friend–he was smart and he was cool. He was no [20th-Century-Fox studio head Darryl] Zanuck to press his advances on to a woman. Why should he? Women flocked to him. I saw them in the hotel lobby, going dithery and weak over his tall, sensual body, always clad in tight pants and shirt open to the waist as he walked by, not at all oblivious to the effect his presence had on them”). And Collins is particularly moving–and arousing–as she relates of how she and Belafonte walked along the beach (”I was wearing a bare shouldered, white cotton dress which showed off my deep tan. I took off my sandals to walk where the ocean lapped at the sand”). She continues moving and arousing as she goes into greater detail (”‘I guess I won’ t see you again,’ I said quietly after we had walked silently along the surf for a while…He was still looking out towards the ocean, the moon making his face into a carved bronze statue and the wind blowing the white cotton shirt out from his body like the sails on a ship”). And Collins tops even herself in her rememberance of their sharing her bed in her apartment (”He was very endearing and had, apart from the best body I had ever seen on a man, the most extraordinary skin. Almost as soft as a girl’ s…Certainly as I looked at our bodies entwined on the sheets there was little difference in the colour of skin. I was nearly the same colour from Barbados and Acapulco–only his skin was smoother than mine!”). Finally, though, Collins puts the affair in its proper perspective (”It had been a delicious interlude, but it was only an interlude and we both knew it”). Truly, Collins’ s tale of her tryst with Harry Belafonte–an affair which, for some strange reason, she has since disawoved–is proof definite that, during her heyday in the 1950s, the future scheming bitch who would make the Carrington family’ s lives sheer hell was one hot number.   

    All that being said, we go on now to Eddie Fisher’ s autobiography Been There, Done Thatand his story of his affair with Joan Collins’ s sister 1950s filmic sexpot Mamie Van Doren.   

    Fisher, like Collins, starts off well, telling of how in his life he had “relationships” with “sex symbols like Kim Novak and Mamie Van Doren.” He, much later, details how his comings-together got started (”Joan Olander [Van Doren' s genuine name] was a gorgeous eighteen-year-old chorus girl [Fisher employs the word "gorgeous" to describe Van Doren a total of half a dozen times]. She had a perfect figure. Better than perfect. I was told she had been married and divorced at fifteen, and had been dating former heavywight champion Jack Dempsey since she was sixteen… We made a very cute couple. She fell in love with me and told Dempsey, but what was he going to do about it? He was married…I knew she was using me…She was the last woman I slept before I was inducted”). Fisher continues to enthrall as he tells of his travel to Van Doren after his stint in the service (”[W]ith one of the most beautiful women I’ d ever seen waiting for me in a bed at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I took the train to Los Angeles. By the time I reached the hotel I could barely contain my anticipation”). And when he tells of what happened once he reached her, he genuinely kicks into high gear as far as engrossing readability is concerned (”Five minutes after I got [to the hotel] we were in bed having sex. And when we were done I couldn’ t wait to get away from her…The only level on which we connected was physical and…I was shocked when I realized that that wasn’ t enough…[B]eing with her…left me feeling unfulfilled”). And his wrap-up of his tale of his period with Mamie V. D. is both sexy and touching (”[S]he was always looking past me for the cameras. At the famed Mocombo restaurant one evening I refused to have my picture taken with her, but I didn’ t hesitate to be photographed with the great actor Edward G. Robinson. She was furious. She told me ‘You can just kiss my lily-white ass,’ then marched out of the place by herself”). Even when he sadly looks back upon his period with her, he’ s moving (”With Mamie Van Doren and so many other [women] [sic] sex was all physical”). In all, a lively and spicy and thrilling rememberance of a period with one of the 1950s really hot tomatoes.   

    (Even in the afterword of his book, Fisher conjures up the Mamie Van Doren presence with style and sexiness. He quotes her as asserting: “We [she and Fisher] had a lot of fun. He can write anything he wants about me; just don’ t tell anyone I was a bad lover.” To which our hero responds: “That I couldn’ t do–everything I’ ve written in this book is true”)   

    In sum, Joan Collins’ s look-back at her dalliance with Harry Belafonte in Past Imperfect and Eddie Fisher’ s rememberance of his fling with Mamie Van Doren in Been There, Done That definitely bear out the truth of the statement of Cyrinda Foxe, a part-time model, made to Life magazine in an issue covering the nostaglia-for-the-1950s craze during the 1970s: “The ’50s were so much sexier.”