(Bought at Barnes and Noble on sale for $10) Carrie Courogen's detailed and enjoyable biography of the comedy legend Elaine May made me think of Orson Welles. Both May and Welles were regarded as geniuses who acted in, directed and wrote a successful early picture (A New Leaf for May and Citizen Kane for Welles), but never fulfilled this promising beginning--or so the conventional wisdom goes. Both were never really able to confine themselves to the Hollywood power structure in order to make the movies they wanted to. Were Welles and May too perfectionistic and individual to play ball with the studio bigwigs? Or were they just undisciplined brats? The Hollywood party line is that May overindulged herself while making A New Leaf and Mikey and Nicky, and had a reasonable comeback with The Heartbreak Kid since she concentrated on just directing Neil Simon's screenplay and did not act in it. But she blew all her goodwill capital on the colossal flop Ishtar which along with Heaven's Gate became a byword for bloated disasters. She saved her reputation by becoming Tinseltown's go-to script doctor, fixing up Tootsie, Reds, and Heaven Can Wait, only taking credit on the last named.
Courogen makes the case that May's exile status was not entirely her own fault. Plenty of male directors like Kubrick, Scorsese, Bogdanovich and Coppola went way over budget, produced box-office stinkers and were given a second, and sometimes a third, chance. In the 1970s and 80s, you could count the number of women directors on the fingers of one hand and still have a few digits left over. But sexism was not the sole cause of her erratic movie work. She would film endless takes, spend months editing miles of footage and sometimes refuse to turn over the final print at the deadline, resulting in legal battles.
The author also examines May's penchant to remain behind the scenes. Hence the title which was May's gag biography on an early comedy album with Mike Nichols. Her performing partnership with Nichols and their dynamic effect on comedy is carefully scrutinized. May was brilliant at creating new characters and improvising while Nichols edited their sketches and reigned her in. Once they split up, Nichols went on to become a top director while May struggled to maintain a solid career arc. She is a brilliant writer, but her playwrighting efforts were variable. Rarely more than one act, her works ran the gamut from wildly funny (Hotline, George Is Dead, Adaptation, Power Plays) to so-so extended sketches (Mr. Goggle and Mr. Preen, After the Night and the Music, Adult Entertainment, Taller than a Dwarf). As an actress she is also fantastic, winning a Tony Award for The Waverly Gallery and the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress for Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks. She was a highlight of Enter Laughing, Luv and Allen's woebegone Amazon series Crisis in Six Scenes.
May is finally getting the industry recognition she deserves with several life time achievement accolades including an honorary Oscar. Courogen's bio beautifully chronicles May's eccentric path.
