It took nine tailors
(Book)

Adolphe Menjou is the man who made "suave" a noun. ("For this part we want somebody with plenty of suave--you know, the Menjou-type.") This memoir is, above all else, suave. It took nine tailors and thirty-five years as Hollywood's beloved man-about-town to make Adolphe Menjou what he is today. The autobiographical story begins with Menjou a waiter in his father's "Maison Menjou" in New York and ends in the present. It was Menjou's mustache and a rented top hat that brought him his first part in the movies. Since the beginning of his film career as a whip-wielding, mustache-twirling circus ringmaster in a 1913 Vitagraph silent film, this is the story of Menjou's climb to fame -- and to a five-figure salary and a peptic ulcer. The major portion of the book is devoted to Menjou's activities during the early and middle years of the silent film. Certain producers and their financial peccadillos, various directors and their special techniques, the birth of the Hays office, and the destruction of the world of silent-picture players by the advent of sound provide a colorful background for his fantastic progress. Working with Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, the immortals of early Hollywood, he made his special spot in that difficult town. The image -- superbly crafted by Adolphe Menjou and his tailors -- the as-yet unsurpassed prototype of the urbane ladies' man and wealthy roué has lingered longer than the silent era.

BSLW RECAT 2023