Finally, I got around to reading Victoria Riskin’s graceful and loving biography of her parents, Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir (Pantheon), which was published earlier this year. Having read Wray’s autobiography, On the Other Hand when it came out, I thought I knew her story reasonably well, but there is much more to it than I ever imagined. She had a deeply troubled upbringing and a harrowing first marriage, to alcoholic screenwriter John Monk Saunders. That she kept her composure both publicly and privately says a lot about the stuff she was made of. Victoria became especially close to her mother in her later years and is justifiably proud of what this remarkable woman overcame to live a full and rewarding life into her 90s. Having lost her father when she was a child, Riskin is resolute in conveying his many attributes, giving him the credit he deserves as a doting dad and husband, one of the great writers of Hollywood’s golden age, and an organizer of his peers in what was then called the Screen Writers Guild. She is admirably restrained in discussing Frank Capra, who outlived his partner in making such great films as Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and went on to claim credit for everything to do with those pictures. There is so much to admire about both subjects that it’s a pleasure to engage with them in this warm and edifying biography. It earns my highest recommendation.
