Buddy Beaverhausen Book Nook: Illeana Douglas' Tell-All Memoir

I've always admired actress Illeana Doulas at the movies. Some may not know she is Melvin Douglas' granddaughter, so she is from Hollywood royalty.

She was in my very home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at a New Year's Eve party to which I was invited but could not attend. This was well before I moved here from Manhattan. She was a guest of our friend, Marcus and the party was in my friend Kevin's apartment.

I was especially smitten with Ms Douglas, at the movies, in the 1996 film directed by Allison Anders, Grace of My Heart. So I was as pleased as punch to read her recent memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper: and a Life I Lived in and out of the Movies, now in hardcover from Deckle Edge and -- of course -- on Kindle. Available at Barnes & Noble and other fine bookstores, and on Amazon.com and audio cd.

Douglas devotes an entire chapter, gratefully, to her starring role in Grace of My Heart. This Allison Anders film is one of my favorites from the 1990s. Douglas has only positive things to say about Ms Anders, though she speaks candidly throughout her book -- really a collection of personal essays -- about others, so there's no shortage of gossip in these pages.

I Blame Dennis Hopper was released in November and takes its title from the fact that Illeana's parents were inspired to move to a hippie commune from their comfortable upper-middle class home, and that's where Illeana was raised. She talks about her longtime romantic relationship with Martin Scorsese and about working with Robert DeNiro. She is a wonderful name-dropper, discussing her meetings with other celebrities, like Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers.

I highly recommend this tell-all, probably the best book of its kind since Grace Jones' memoirs.

Video Beaverhausen: Grace of My Heart

One of my all-time favorite flicks is Allison Anders' 1996 Grace of My Heart. Ms Anders is known as an indy director. With this film, she ventured into the majors with Martin Scorsese for Universal.

Scorsese and Douglas had a long-running relationship. In the director's remake of Cape Fear, she was the woman who had her face partly bitten off by Robert De Niro. She is also the granddaughter of screen legend Melvyn Douglas. I admire Ms. Douglas' naturalistic acting style.

Illeana is a big LGBT supporter. In the '90s, I often spotted her at the cafes and bars in Chelsea with her gay male friends. She was born and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Grace of My Heart has a great supporting cast. John Tutorro plays a very Phil Spector-like producer. Matt Dillon and Eric Stoltz are also in this. Bridget Fonda plays a closeted lesbian singer. Douglas' character writes her a song expressing her personal turmoil. Lesley Gore, on whom this character is based, co-wrote the number.

This film gave '60s girl-group music a big boost in the mid-'90s, making it popular again. Back then, a lot of people took my adoration of that genre as a little eccentric.

The storyline is about a woman songwriter and how the times shaped her work as much as her music shaped the times. It has a strongly feminist message. Douglas' character is a composite of Carole King and Ellie Greenwich with a little Joni Mitchell and a dash of Everywoman added.

By the way, the girl group at the beginning of the film were actually lip-synching to '90s revival girl-group For Real. Elvis Costello wrote the title song, "God Give Me Strength." Lily Banquette supplies vocals for Bridget Fonda.





Available at Amazon.com.