Back in the early fifties, celebrities did not tell much that was real about themselves in books or magazine articles. Everyone mostly told how wonderful and beautiful their life in showbiz was. Flaws were not written about. So when Lillian Roth broke the glittering façade and put an end to the ersatz razzmatazz of celebrity life in her tell-all autobiography I’ll Cry Tomorrow, it became a bestseller. The book is riveting, most revealing and honest. Much of it, at that time, seemed shocking.
A lovely and talented woman who made it to the top in New York and Hollywood, who had it all and lost it all, Roth in her autobiography wrote vividly about the spiralling effect that alcohol had on her career and life. Poignantly honest, she speaks of the horrors of many of her relationships and marital abuse.
Singer-songwriter Lou Majaw, currently reading the book, says, “While browsing in a bookshop, I came across the book and got curious with the synopsis on the back cover. I bought it then and there.”
“The book reveals Roth’s success and later her struggles having a slippery downfall in the nitty-gritty world of showbiz.”
Winner of the Christopher Award for “affirming the highest values of the human spirit” as well as being the basis for the biopic film of the same name that starred Susan Hayward in her Oscar-nominated turn as Lillian Roth, the author writes movingly about her 16-year battle and her 43-year absence from films, her myriad hospitalisations, failed marriages (five in all), alcoholic shakes, her near brushes with death due to alcoholic dependency and just the overall horrific ruin that addiction brought to her and those who cared for her.
At the height of her popularity, her name was in lights on three different marquees. She was a millionaire.
Yet behind all that razzle-dazzle and celebrity bravado was an insecure broken girl who was also privately coping with having been molested by an industry insider.
Trying to escape the engulfment, she found true love in her fiancé David Lyons, only to have him die later of tuberculosis, a tragedy that sent her on a downward drinking spiral.
In that journey to the pit, she always found comfort in a shot glass. Then it became shot glasses. Then it became a bottle. Losing jobs, gigs and fame, Roth auditioned more for doctors and inpatient facilities than she did for acting parts, but it was all to no avail, for no matter how hard she tried, she always ended up more wasted than before.
It was only when warned that death was imminent due to Cirrhosis that she made a true valiant effort, checking herself into the Westchester Division of New York Hospital, infamously known as Bloomingdale Hospital. After many months of detoxing, she found herself alone, unknown and penniless and still struggling with addiction.
It was only when contemplating suicide that she found Alcoholics Anonymous. She met Bill, one of the founders, and found comfort in the people who suffered. And they were amazing in their care and support of her. It was until the help of the AA members and her eventual conversion to Catholicism that Roth slowly began to shake loose the shackles of addiction.
“Reading the book, I have come to believe there’s rain and then rainbows in life! And that hope lies beyond the bright lights. Being a musician myself, it taught me that faith lies most in human values.”
“I would like to recommend the book to everyone. Such an inspiring story it is!” says Majaw.
Reading suggestions for the week:
1. Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
2. In the Cafe of Lost Youth by
Patrick Modiano