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WORK TITLE: Mission
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://robertmatzen.com/
CITY: Pittsburgh
STATE: PA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married, wife’s name Mary.
EDUCATION:College graduate.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, screenwriter, and movie director. Worked for ten years as a communications specialist for NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
AWARDS:Muse Award, American Association of Museums, for When the Forest Ran Red.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Robert Matzen grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His first book, Research Made Easy: A Guide for Students and Writers, was published right after he graduated from college. Matzen would go on to work as a communications specialist for NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He also became a filmmaker who wrote and codirected the 2001 documentary film When the Forest Ran Red: Washington, Braddock & a Doomed Army. The film is about a young George Washington and his role in the Seven Years’ War, or the French and Indian War, which was fought twenty years prior to the Revolutionary War.
Errol Flynn Slept Here
Matzen is the author of feature articles and movie retrospectives and is a public speaker who discusses topics related to U.S. history and classic Hollywood. He is also the author or coauthor of several books about Hollywood movie icons. He is coauthor with Michael Mazzone of Errol Flynn Slept Here: The Flynns, the Hamblens, Ricky Nelson, and the Most Notorious House in Hollywood. The book discusses the history of a house built on Mulholland Farm by the movie star Errol Flynn. A notorious playboy, Flynn had secret passages built into the house as well as many two-way mirrors to spy on people he entertained and who stayed as houseguests.
The book’s origins stem from trips both authors made separately to Mulholland Drive to see the home Flynn built. They both took photographs of the home, and it was subsequently demolished. Although most of the book focuses on Flynn’s time at the house, the authors also discuss subsequent owners, including Christian songwriter/performer Stuart Hamlin and actor and rock ’n’ roll singer Ricky Nelson. “Just when you think every bit of Hollywood history and lore has been explored, along comes a book that’s inventive, surprising and impossible to put down,” wrote IndieWire Web site contributor Leonard Maltin.
Errol & Olivia
In Errol & Olivia: Ego & Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood, Matzen explores the professional and personal relationship between actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, a two-time Academy Award winner for best actress. De Havilland was only nineteen years old when she first met Errol Flynn during a screen test. The two would eventually star in several films together in the 1930s and 1940s, including the classic The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Matzen delves into the personal and professional lives of both actors, including their longtime fondness for each other. Although Flynn was well known for his wild side, which included going to court after two girls who were minors accused him having sex with them, Matzen points out that de Havilland was not the innocent sweetheart she typically portrayed in her films. In addition to numerous affairs, she sued movie mogul Jack L. Warner in order to get out of the studio system and work independently. According to Matzen, she played a major role in ending the system. “Errol and Olivia is a must-own for anyone with an interest in Hollywood’s history,” wrote Film Radar Web site contributor Gordon S. Miller.
Fireball
Matzen examines the death of film star Carole Lombard in a plane crash in his book titled Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3. Matinee examines the events that led to the airplane crash into the side of Nevada mountains in 1942 and also explores the subsequent struggles that her husband, actor Clark Gable, went through following her death. Lombard’s death occurred on a trip in which she was part of a troupe traveling the country encouraging people to buy war bonds and stamps after World War II had begun. As a result, she was the first Hollywood star to die in aiding the war effort. The U.S. War Department even offered to provide a funeral service with full military honors, but Gable felt his wife would not have wanted the spectacle.
Matzen also delves into the difficult effort to recover the bodies and into the lives of the twenty-one other people who died in the crash, which included Lombard’s mother. In addition, he addresses the mystery of why the plane, flown by an experienced pilot on a clear night, crashed. “Matzen shows how Lombard’s bubbly personality and democratic nature provoked profound mourning in Hollywood and around the country after her death,” wrote Library Journal contributor Stephen Rees.
Mission
In Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, Matzen provides an in-depth examination of the life of Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart. Matzen focuses primarily on the first thirty-eight years of Stewart’s life, with an emphasis on Stewart’s time serving in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Stewart entered the military as a private and ended up taking part in twenty flying combat missions over Germany and France. In the process, he rose to the rank of colonel.
Although Matzen writes of Stewart’s life growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania and his subsequent move to Hollywood, he focuses largely on Stewart’s military experiences, including examining Stewart’s relationship with his fellow service members. Upon his return to Hollywood, Stewart was a changed man and largely shed his shy, boy-next-door persona, a fact reflected in the edgier characters he subsequently portrayed in films. Matzen also details Stewart’s difficulty at first in reestablishing his career, which took off again after he starred in the classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life.
“Military and movie buffs alike will revel in this vivid portrayal of a man who successfully straddled two worlds,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Library Journal contributor Rees remarked: “Overall, an illuminating, recommended look at a hidden chapter in Stewart’s life.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, November 15, 2013, Stephen Rees, review of Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3, p. 92; August 1, 2016, Stephen Rees, review of Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, p. 97.
Publishers Weekly, August 29, 2016, review of Mission, p. 84.
Small Press Bookwatch, February, 2017, review of Mission.
World War II, September-October, 2016, Paraag Shukla, review of Mission, p. 74.
ONLINE
Cinema Sentries, http://cinemasentries.com/ (February 6, 2017), Tim Gebhart, review of Fireball.
Film Radar, http://www.filmradar.com/ (November 5, 2010), Gordon S. Miller, review of Errol and Olivia: Ego and Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood.
Florida Weekly Online, http://fortmyers.floridaweekly.com/ (October 6, 2010), Larry Cox, review of Errol and Olivia.
IndieWire, http://www.indiewire.com/ (November 29, 2009), Leonard Maltin, review of Errol Flynn Slept Here: The Flynns, the Hamblens, Ricky Nelson, and the Most Notorious House in Hollywood.
Let the Movies Move Us, https://moviemovesme.com/ (December 22, 2016), Ulkar Alakbarova, review of Mission.
Margaret Lockwood Society Web site, https://margaretlockwoodsociety.wordpress.com/ (January 24, 2014), “Interview with Robert Matzen, Author of Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3.”
Robert Matzen Website, https://robertmatzen.com (June 3, 2014).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Matzen broke into print just out of college with the mass-market Bantam paperback, Research Made Easy: a Guide for Students and Writers. His mentor at Bantam Books was New York editorial legend Toni Burbank, who, says Matzen, “provided lessons for a lifetime.” He is the author of seven books and also a filmmaker whose 2001 feature When the Forest Ran Red aired on PBS, earned six national awards including a Muse Award from the American Association of Museums, and became the most respected documentary on young George Washington and his role in the Seven Years War in America. It was the experience of recreating colonial-era battles and shooting on location at Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, that inspired Matzen to take a more intimate approach to retelling history. “I want you to feel the heartbeat of these people who once lived,” he says.
Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen
Climbing Mt. Potosi in October 2012.
For 10 years Robert worked as a communications specialist for NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. There he provided writing support and also used his experience as a filmmaker to write and direct a dozen films for NASA at facilities including Dryden Flight Research Center, Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, and other NASA facilities around the nation. He calls working with and directing astronauts his “dream job.”
Matzen’s interest in aeronautics and in Hollywood history led to his two most recent books. Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 took an unconventional look at the life of Carole Lombard, and at the plane crash that killed her in January 1942. For this book he obtained TWA’s confidential files on the crash, examined the two federal investigations into the loss of Flight 3 along with testimony from the coroner’s inquests of the 22 crash victims, and undertook a dangerous climb of Nevada’s Potosi Mountain to the crash site, which he documented in the introduction of Fireball.
His 2016 release, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, tells the story of Stewart’s career as a combat pilot in World War II as seen through his own eyes and those of the men who fought with and against him. This time the author interviewed veterans of the 445th Bomb Group who flew with Stewart, combed through thousands of pages of U.S. Army Air Forces records, visited key sites in England, France, Holland, and Germany, and flew in B-17 and B-24 four-engine bombers like those Jimmy Stewart piloted in the war.
Robert lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife Mary and their three cats, Simone, Francois, and Angelique.
REINVENTING THE HOLLYWOOD BIOGRAPHY
Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe by Robert Matzen
Stepping out of the B-17 Memphis Belle after a checkout flight in 2014.
Robert Matzen takes a different approach to the traditional Hollywood biography, in part using storytelling skills honed as a feature documentary filmmaker. In 2009 he teamed with Michael Mazzone to write Errol Flynn Slept Here, a book about Hollywood legend Errol Flynn that revealed the subject through an examination of the house he built. The following year, Matzen released Errol & Olivia about Flynn and long-time co-star Olivia de Havilland, in which each character’s perspective on the other tells their unusual love story. His 2014 award-winning bestseller Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 surprised reviewers with its unusual take on the life and death of screwball actress Carole Lombard.
Now Matzen presents Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, revealing bomber pilot Stewart as the real-life action hero in the story (hidden for 70 years) of what he did in World War II prior to returning home to star in the beloved It’s a Wonderful Life. In Mission, the author recreates the world of the actor-turned-soldier as seen through the eyes of Stewart himself as well as a young B-24 radioman, a German civilian, and the general of German fighters whose job it was to bring down Allied bombers under Stewart’s command. As the GoodKnight Books publicity materials state, “Meet the George Bailey you never knew, until now.”
To experience the reinvented Hollywood biography, explore Robert’s books and follow his blog.
Robert’s Matzen’s works are published by GoodKnight Books, a boutique publisher of high quality titles about Hollywood’s Golden Era.
Columnist
Robert has written feature articles and movie retrospectives and reviews for a variety of publications. His national bylines include commentary on the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 on FoxNews.com, and an essay about Jimmy Stewart’s frame of mind while making It’s a Wonderful Life in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker
Robert Matzen has presented before audiences ranging in size from 12 to 1,200 and is available to speak before your organization about topics related to U.S. history and classic Hollywood. Contact Marina Gray at GoodKnight Books for more information.
Interview with Robert Matzen, author of Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3
By themitfordsociety ¶ ¶ Tagged carole lombard, clark gable, errol flynn, fireball, goodknight books, MGM, olivia de havilland, william powell ¶ Leave a comment
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I received a review copy of Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 from Goodknight Books and I have to say, I knew nothing about Lombard at all except a few things: she was very beautiful, extremely talented and she died young. So you might wonder why this book, which is not a traditional biography in any sense of the word, would serve as my springboard to learning about Lombard’s life. First of all, I am a big fan of old Hollywoood, so of course Lombard’s name appears here and there, and we all know she was married to William Powell, and then to Clark Gable. Matzen gives her story a unique approach; he uses the infamous plane crash to move the story along, interweaving facts from the accident, the build-up before she boarded the plane (everyone told her to use the train) and the characters she met before and during her journey. Don’t fret, this isn’t a story about aviation and its disasters (says she, who is afraid of flying) – the reader is treated to flashbacks from Lombard’s life, as she travels to her untimely death. I thought the entire book was paced like a documentary, and indeed it would make a fascinating one. Matzen also gives Lombard’s story a masculine edge, often his writing reads like a ’40s detective novel, which is entirely appropriate given her penchant for swearing and using rough language. A contrast to her Patrician beauty. All in all I adored this book, I read it in one day.
Click here to purchase the book. And here to read more about the publisher.
Lombardheadshot
(Note from author: I love these questions, by the way. RM) << Thank you, Robert! Q. What inspired you to write the biography in this non traditional way? What gave you the idea to mirror her life with the tragedy of the plane crash? The story of the plane crash moves at a mile a minute; the story of her life unfolds like a life, day by day. I wanted the reader to be plunged into the final moments right away and set the essential story in motion. Because the plane crash was a 70-year-old mystery, I’d build real and false clues into the narrative so the reader would make mental notes. Is this going to be important later? And then I set about answering the question, “Who was Carole Lombard and why should we care about this character?” By chapter 2 when we start to learn about her, there was already forward push to the narrative. I have always liked the “you are there” approach to storytelling, and have applied it to biography in the past. Otherwise, you are covering largely familiar ground with a reader who knows about Carole Lombard. This happened, then that happened. Boring! But if you break the chronology up with a story that’s right in front of your face and being lived in the cold and the dark by heartbeats, I believed it would be effective. A few reviewers have hated this approach, but most of the readers I’ve talked to have mentioned it right away as one of Fireball’s assets. Q. How long did it take you to write the book? I had written an academic volume about Lombard 20 years ago and had a lot of accumulated research upon which to draw. Plus I am a goal-oriented, one-track thinker and once I start something, it becomes my passion. That said, the actual writing of Fireball from front to back took about a year, applying old research and conducting new research with the help of two very talented investigators. Q. What methods of research do you use? There are two answers to this question, and they overlap. When researching a person, I try to avoid relying on second-hand sources recounting familiar stories. I believe that an accurate portrait can only be created with primary sources—people who were capturing quotes through interviews with Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, or people who knew them. Not only had I interacted with people who knew them while writing the academic volume back in the day, but I also found a wealth of untapped material in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, and was able to find a few people still around who knew these people. About the crash, I stuck to primary sources as much as possible, which to me means accounts of an event that were immediate and told by eyewitnesses. There is a core of such material about the crash in newspapers as related by reporters who actually climbed the mountain and watched the investigators at work. There is a tremendous wealth of information about the crash in Washington, D.C. that no one had ever reviewed, and my DC researcher found all that in no time. I never would have found it; she snapped her fingers and there it was. We’re talking 2,000 pages. She also pointed me to the TWA archives full of confidential information about the crash of Flight 3. Lastly, I wanted to portray the others on the plane as living, breathing human beings with bright futures ahead of them, and this involved tracking down and speaking with relatives, and relying on obits and other documented information about their lives. A geneology researcher helped me with that part. Q. Where do you think Carole’s career would have gone had she not died? She was always taking the pulse of her own career. Always, always, the way a hypochondriac takes his or her own pulse. She had seen that dramatic pictures didn’t work for her and had completed one comedy and was about to make two more when she died. One of those, My Girl Godfrey, could have vaulted her back to the top as a screwball comedienne. Because of her business sense I firmly believe that Carole would have embraced television like Loretta Young did. In fact, the entire history of early television might have been changed if Carole had been on the scene and agreed to have a show crafted around her like I Love Lucy was for Lucille Ball. Lombard could have become the focus of early television instead of Lucy. But of course that’s idle speculation. Q. Do you think she would have remained married to Gable? Tough, tough question. I guess, no, I don’t think so. Under existing conditions, I believe it would have lasted a long time and that Carole would have hit the magical age of 40 or 42 and thought, What am I trying to do here? What am I building with this self-centered, emotional island of a man? The ultimate irony in Fireball is that Carole needed two things from Clark: communication and commitment. I think she could have accepted the occasional fling from him with anonymous actresses—it was a tradeoff for being the mate of the most famous movie star in the world. But he didn’t know how to contribute to a marriage. He didn’t appreciate what he had in Lombard until she was dead. Then, boy did he learn a lesson. If only he could have shown her what he learned, but he couldn’t. He had to live without her, and live with the knowledge that this was the woman for him. Q. What lessons do you think the aviation industry learned following the crash? Despite the great advances in aviation from 1930 until the time of the crash of Flight 3, this was still the era of seat-of-your-pants flying, and many of the airline captains were former Army or barnstorming pilots. Commercial aviation was still being invented, there just weren’t that many rules, and any crash taught investigators a lot, resulting in guidelines that became new rules. For example, there was a radio beam for planes to follow, but around Las Vegas the weather was always clear and the flight crews flew by “contact” with the ground—what they could see. They didn’t bother to use the radio beam. In the wake of the investigation, flight crews were ordered to use the radio beam at all times. Also, weight of the aircraft was an issue and there would be no more fudging of the numbers to make sure an overloaded ship was cleared for takeoff. Q. Was the airline sued? TWA was sued by the family of Alice Getz, the stewardess of Flight 3. But MGM, Clark’s studio, represented Carole and her traveling companions, Elizabeth Peters, who was Carole’s mother, and Otto Winkler, who was Gable’s press representative at MGM. We will never know what the under-the-table amount was in this matter. There is no written record of it. Most of the people on the plane were soldiers, and at the time, TWA and the War Department were working very closely together and so there weren’t going to be any lawsuits involving those cases. Q. What type of projects can we expect in the future? I have always been drawn to old Hollywood, and used to think only in terms of biographies. But Fireball was an eye opener, and I learned the power of looking at a significant event from all angles. I think I’d like to try that again. Q. Can you tell the Margaret Lockwood Society a bit about yourself? I was raised in the Pittsburgh area and still live there. My wife Mary and I are nearing our 20th anniversary. I used to be a big reader, back when there was time, and my heroes were Alexandre Dumas and Robert B. Parker. Both writers used elements of mystery in their stories, Parker much moreso, of course, and I always liked that. I’ve been a professional writer for more than 25 years and a filmmaker for more than 20. My day job has always involved writing and editing, and I spent 10 years supporting communications efforts for NASA’s aeronautics program. That background came in handy when sifting through all the aviation-related information in the crash investigations. Fireball is my sixth book. Two previous books have been about Errol Flynn—one about his infamous house and the other about his professional and personal association with Olivia de Havilland. I’ve been an on-air or on-mic expert about Flynn, de Havilland, Lombard, and Gable, for various documentaries over the years. As a filmmaker, I’ve done lots of things as writer, producer, and director, but I guess my claim to fame is a documentary called When the Forest Ran Red about George Washington and the French & Indian War, which appeared on PBS and is still considered the classic interpretation of that conflict. It’s no coincidence that When the Forest Ran Red uses the same style of storytelling as Fireball: plunging the viewer into the middle of an unfolding story as a participant who doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Or, really, the viewer does know, but it doesn’t matter because they’re hooked and must find out what happens next, and why.
Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Paraag Shukla
World War II. 31.3 (September-October 2016): p74.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 World History Group, LLC
http://www.historynet.com/
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MISSION
Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
By Robert Matzen. 416 pp. GoodKnight Books, 2016. $28.95.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
An in-depth look at the first 38 years of Jimmy Stewart's life--his Pennsylvania childhood, his Hollywood stardom, his service as a B-24 bomber pilot in the skies over Germany, and his return to Hollywood to make his first postwar film, It's a Wonderful Life.
Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Publishers Weekly. 263.35 (Aug. 29, 2016): p84.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Robert Matzen. GoodKnight, $28.95 (408p) ISBN 978-0-9962740-5-0
Even before Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart went off to war, he was a fighter, working hard to prove his passion for military aviation to the U.S. government. In this meticulously researched book, film historian Matzen (Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3) provides the rich, detailed backstory of Stewart's time as a WWII bomber pilot. He delves deep into Stewart's restless spirit, chronicling his family's legacy of war service, his rise to movie stardom, the many women in his life, and his struggles to fly and serve his country. Matzen paints a revealing picture of a man who defied bureaucratic and health obstacles to become a U.S. Army Air Force squadron commander. He depicts the excitement and horror of life in a bomber crew as Stewart commanded a series of missions over Germany, interspersing his story with those of other WWII survivors, such as radio operator Clem Leone and Gertrud Siepmann, who was a young child in Germany during Hitler's rise to power. He also shows that, although considered a war hero, Stewart had difficulty getting reestablished as an actor until Frank Capra cast him in It's a Wonderful Life. Military and movie buffs alike will revel in this vivid portrayal of a man who successfully straddled two worlds. (Oct.)
Matzen, Robert. Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Stephen Rees
Library Journal. 141.13 (Aug. 1, 2016): p97.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Matzen, Robert. Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe. GoodKnight. Oct. 2016. 356p. photos, notes, bibliog. index. ISBN 9780996274050. $28.95. film
Unlike many Hollywood stars, James Stewart (1908-97) didn't make morale-boosting combat films during World War II; he was busy flying combat missions over Europe. Like many veterans, he preferred not to talk about his experiences when the conflict was over. One of the first major studies of the actor's risky missions over Nazi Germany, this title chronicles Stewart's improbable rise from small-town life in Indiana, PA, to his college years at Princeton, where he acquired his love for acting and befriended Henry Fonda, Joshua Logan, and Margaret Sullavan. His shy persona attracted the likes of actresses Marlene Dietrich, Olivia de Havilland, Norma Shearer, and Loretta Young. The bulk of this book covers Stewart's stay in England, his relationships with fellow crew members, who dealt daily with fear, loneliness, mud, and bitter cold. Stewart returned from Europe a changed man, reflected in his edgy, sometimes angry antihero roles in 1950s westerns and Alfred Hitchcock films. Author Matzen relies on extensive research and the cooperation of surviving crew members; however, as in his Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3, small details and comments about the subject's thoughts must be taken on faith. VERDICT Overall, an illuminating, recommended look at a hidden chapter in Stewart's life.--Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA
Matzen, Robert. Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3
Stephen Rees
Library Journal. 138.19 (Nov. 15, 2013): p92.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Matzen, Robert. Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3. GoodKnight. Jan. 2014. 350p. photos, notes, bibliog. ISBN 9780988502512. $26.95. FILM
Little more than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, actress Carole Lombard (1908-42), her mother, and 20 other passengers were killed when their plane crashed into a mountainside near Las Vegas, NV. Lombard was returning to Hollywood following a war bond rally in her native Indiana. This work alternates coverage of her film career; her much beloved image, which combined looks, style, and down-to-earth humor; her romances, culminating in her marriage to superstar Clark Gable; and her final flight, which led to an arduous recovery effort. Matzen, who has written titles about Gable, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland, depicts Gable as a "wounded narcissist" who truly loved Lombard--but that did not prevent him from having numerous affairs. Matzen shows how Lombard's bubbly personality and democratic nature provoked profound mourning in Hollywood and around the country after her death. Despite rumors that the crash was caused by Nazi saboteurs, it seems the "mystery" was nothing more than pilot error. This volume would have been better served by a conventional chronological arrangement; the resuks of the crash are described in graphic, excessive detail. Additionally, the author is one of many who presume to describe what a real-life person may have been thinking at a particular moment, a writerly conceit that seems questionable. VERDICT On balance, the book is recommended, with reservations, for vintage-film buffs.--Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA
Rees, Stephen
Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Small Press Bookwatch. (Feb. 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
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Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
Robert Matzen
https://robertmatzen.com
Good Knight Books
c/o Paladin Communications
9780996274050, $28.95, HC, 400pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: In March 1941, Jimmy Stewart, America's boy next door and recent Academy Award winner, left fame and fortune behind and joined the United States Army Air Corps to fulfill his family mission and serve his country. He rose from private to colonel and participated in 20 often-brutal World War II combat missions over Germany and France. In mere months the war took away his boyish looks as he faced near-death experiences and the loss of men under his command. The war finally won, he returned home with millions of other veterans to face an uncertain future, suffering what we now know as PTSD. Younger stars like Gregory Peck were now getting roles that might have been Stewart's, and he didn't know if he would ever work in Hollywood again. Then came It's a Wonderful Life.
For the next half century, Stewart refused to discuss his combat experiences and took the story of his service to the grave. Mission presents the first in-depth look at Stewart's life as a Squadron Commander in the skies over Germany, and, his return to Hollywood the changed man who embarked on production of America's most beloved holiday classic.
Author Robert Matzen sifted through thousands of Air Force combat reports and the Stewart personnel files; interviewed surviving aviators who flew with Stewart; visited the James Stewart Papers at Brigham Young University; flew in the cockpits of the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator; and walked the earth of air bases in England used by Stewart in his combat missions of 1943-45. What emerges in Mission is the story of a Jimmy Stewart you never knew until now, a story more fantastic than any he brought to the screen.
Critique: Exhaustively researched, exceptionally well written, "Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe" is as informed and informative as it is thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation. While certain to be an enduringly popular addition to community and academic library American Biography collections and a 'must' for all Jimmy Stewart fans, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe" is also available in a Kindle format ($9.49).
Book Review: “Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe” by Robert Matzen
Posted on December 22, 2016 by Ulkar Alakbarova in Book Reviews // 0 Comments
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George Bailey (so easily and flawlessly performed by James Stewart) is one of the kindest persons one can dream of to meet. He helps troubled souls, provides loans, money and even forgives people’s debt to his bank if it’s necessary. But who will help him when he is in desperate need? Who will provide him a hand to pull him out of under the bridge when he was about to jump off?
An angel from Heaven is sent to help George to face life like if he had never been a part of. He shows him what would have happened to those if he would not have help them. What would have happened with the life itself, if he would not have lived? Yes, the life with George was more wonderful, charming and splendid. He had his own mark to leave in people’s heart who relied on him the same way the as in Robert Matzen’s book “Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the fight for the Europe” will do the same to you.
Matzen’s book highlights the most prominent time of Jimmy Stewart’s life you could easily compare with George Bailey’s character, while Jimmy was fighting for Europe, George did the same for his people, more than anyone could have done in their entire life. From the book you will get a chance to learn that those powerful, sometimes stressed out and intense characters portrayed by Jimmy Stewart came from his own experience while he was in WWII.
Ingrid Bergman in one of her letters her friend said: “the reason Humphrey Bogart was casted in Casablanca was because there were no other lead man left in Hollywood due to war”. Yes, Jimmy Stewart was one of those men who felt responsible to stand for his country at any cost. However, there is another fact you will learn from Matzen’s book, is why and how Jimmy Stewart loved the airplanes. And why he wanted to serve in the war as a pilot, to participate in many combat missions, had witnessed his friend’s fulling on the battlefield, while he was smartly navigating in his airplane to target the enemy.
There is another interesting and intriguing part of Jimmy Stewart’s life is covered in Mission, and that, I must say will certainly trigger an interest in you: how a very shy with a very soft-voice young man becomes an actor. How he with his best friend Henry Fonda moved to Hollywood in 1934 where they both gained the reputation of being playboys. Despite their reputation, both men remained professional to their craft, belief and goal-oriented, that eventually helped them, thanks to their incredible acting talent, to become Hollywood’s most interesting actors to watch.
While Matzen’s book highlights Jimmy Stewart’s piloting skills and his love for his country, it’s the aftermath of the war which shapes Stewart’s personality in such a wonderful and profound way that could have melt any icy heart. After the war, the book highlights Jimmy Stewart suffering PTSD throughout filming Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which, by the way, was his first picture after the WWII. And just to know that simple fact will make you change your perspective towards Frank Capra’s film, as I am sure you will start noticing something new in Jimmy Stewart you had not noticed before.
In conclusion, Mission is the book that should be read not only by Jimmy Stewart’s fans or movie lovers, and by those who are interested in WWII. In its compelling and grabbing narrative, it gives you an exclusive and refreshing look into Jimmy Stewart’s youth, family life, movie career and his friendship with notable people, whose names will always be part of the most fascinating part of the Golden Era of Hollywood. Yes, the book certainly manages to bring you everything you need to know about James Stewart, moreover, you will even compare him with the title of the book, as Stewart himself was on a special mission since the day he was born. The mission, to show us mortals how wonderful life is when you had someone like him living long enough to be remembered even by many generations after. Almost like an example how to become immortal. Because he is!
Book Review: Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen
Using numerous interviews, a personal climb to the crash site, and government documents, Matzen constructs the story deliberately.
By Tim Gebhart on February 6, 2017 4:51 PM | 0 Comments
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Like the rest of America, World War II transformed Hollywood. Within 10 days of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a "coordinator of government films" as a liaison between the government and the motion picture industry and to advise Hollywood in supporting the war effort. And just 40 days after Pearl Harbor, the first Hollywood star would die in pursuit of the latter.
Known for her beauty and her roles in popular screwball comedies, Carole Lombard became one of the highest paid actresses during the 1930s. She appeared in more than 30 films that decade. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her 23rd among women on its list of the 50 greatest female American screen legends. Lombard was also the envy of many female movie fans, eloping with Clark Gable in 1939 while he was shooting Gone with the Wind. Gable would be devastated and Hollywood shocked when, on January 16, 1942, Lombard died at age 33 when a commercial airplane slammed into a mountain some 7,000 feet above sea level southwest of Las Vegas.
Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 explores the chain of events that led to Lombard being on the flight as she returned from heading a war bonds drive in her home state of Indiana. Originally released in 2014, an expanded trade-paper edition was released last month on the 75th anniversary of the crash. After the book was initially published, additional remains were found at the remote crash site and DNA testing identified one of three previously unidentified victims of the crash. Author Robert Matzen weaves this information and additional interviews into the anniversary edition.
Using numerous interviews, a personal climb to the crash site, and government documents, Matzen constructs the story deliberately. Roughly the first half of the book alternates between detailing Lombard's life and the events leading up to the crash. The idea of sending movie stars on tours to sell war bonds was pitched to the Hollywood Victory Committee, of which Gable was a chair. Lombard had a movie scheduled for release in January 1942 so she opted to do the kickoff tour. Despite that, she never should have been on the plane.
With the tour heading to Lombard's home state of Indiana, she asked her mother to go along. Called "Petey" by family and friends, Lombard's mother hated flying and agreed to go only on the condition there was no air travel. The War Department had barred stars on bond tours from traveling by air so Lombard assured Petey the trip would be made by train. Gable asked MGM press agent Otto Winkler, who worked closely with Gable, to accompany Lombard and her mother.
The trip to Indianapolis, departing January 12, included stops in Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, as well as Chicago. Lombard was scheduled to return January 19, the day her new film, To Be or Not to Be, was due to sneak preview. Co-starring Jack Benny, the film was a dark comedy about a company of Shakespearean actors in Poland when Germany invaded. Gable, meanwhile, left January 9 for New York City. He stormed out of their house that day, however, after he and Lombard fought about his dalliances with other actresses.
In Chicago, Lombard decided to fly to Indianapolis while her mother stayed on the train. Her day in Indianapolis drew thousands of people and sold more than $2 million in war bonds. Impressed by the convenience of flying there and impatient to return home to Gable, Lombard convinced various high-ranking officials to giver her priority status for a plane trip home. When Winkler and Petey strongly objected to the decision, Lombard agreed a coin flip would decide. She won.
Carole_Lombard.jpgDue to delays leaving Indianapolis the next morning and at five stops en route, the plane refueled in Las Vegas rather than the originally planned Boulder City, Nev. There, however, sat enough Army Air Corps men who had priority and could fill the TWA DC-3. Threatening even to call Howard Hughes, TWA's owner, Lombard convinced the counter agent to let her party remain on the plane. Some 13 minutes after take-off on a moonless night, the plane flew into a granite cliff some 7,800 feet up Mt. Polosi at 180-200 miles per hour. The impact was such that the nose of the plane remained sticking out from the rock of the cliff.
The terrain quickly challenged any thoughts of rescue. Even using what were barely paths through the rock-strewn terrain left everyone some 2,000 feet shy of the crash site. Even horses couldn't make it to the site; it was necessary to climb by hand through a steep boulder-strewn ravine. Hopes disappeared when the first personnel reached the site the next morning.
[It] looked for all the world like the city dump. Luggage everywhere; the twisted fuselage of the plane, a tangled mass of aluminum, wires and cables, seats, shattered glass, random hunks of engine, and melted rubber. Wedged in here and there were passengers, or rather, what was left of passengers; pieces of passengers.
After Gable was notified, he flew in and he demanded to be taken to the scene while efforts were being made to locate his wife's body. Once there, he broke away from those around him and tried to climb the mountain before realizing it was impossible. He retreated to a nearby hotel and casino where he drank in shock.
Although Lombard and Gable form the centerpiece, Fireball recognizes she wasn't the only casualty. Matzen relates the stories of Petey and Winkler, the three-person flight crew, and several of the 15 Army Air Corps personnel on the plane. He also details the experiences of those who searched for the plane and helped recover the bodies as well as several people scheduled to be on the flight when it left Las Vegas but were bumped because of the priority afforded the military men. Matzen's narrative nonfiction approach makes the book highly readable but it relies on a trait of that style that irritates some readers -- it takes us into the unknowable reactions and minds of individuals.
For example, Matzen tells us what Petey was thinking on the first leg of the flight. He describes the thoughts of several airmen while sitting in the terminal awaiting the flight in which they would die. We are told "Gable's skin crawled over his bones" on boarding his flight to Las Vegas and his thoughts of Petey while sitting in the hotel room.
Still, Matzen examines the crash from all aspects, including how an experienced pilot and co-pilot could fly into a mountain miles off their course. The crash preceded the existence of so-called "black box" recorders and the plane's instrumentation was so destroyed that it was of no use. No official cause was ever established but even the possibility of sabotage was considered. Some believe the course and altitude that took the plane into the side of a mountain were those recorded in the initial flight plan for a departure from Boulder City.
Fireball looks at more than just the story of a plane crash. It tells us of Lombard's and Gable's lives, both individually and as a couple. It gives insight into the effects of the crash on the families of the victims. It also explores Hollywood of that era, looking at not only the studios and social life but the day-to-day concerns, such as the MGM representatives with Gable in Nevada who were worried about what would happen "if Gable went up there and fell off the goddamn mountain."
After all, that "goddamn mountain" was already responsible for a gruesome and singular tragedy.
Errol Flynn Slept Here:
Errol Flynn Slept Here:
Leonard Maltin
Nov 29, 2009 11:44 am
The Flynns, the Hamblens, Rick Nelson, and the Most Notorious House in Hollywood By Robert Matzen and Michael Mazzone
Just when you think every bit of Hollywood history and lore has been explored, along comes a book that’s inventive, surprising and impossible to put down. It exists because in 1987 and 88 the authors, independent of one another, visited Los Angeles and traveled to Mulholland Drive in the hope of seeing the home Errol Flynn designed and built. Each one made his way onto the property—
one by dint of sheer nerve, the other waved in by unconcerned workmen—and shot photos, unaware that the house would soon be torn down. In the years since they have conducted an impressive amount of research into the history of the home and its owners over the years: Flynn, then songwriter/performer Stuart Hamblen, and finally Rick Nelson, whose sons have vivid memories of a place they found spooky.
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The bulk of the book is devoted to Flynn, and presents a fresh, spirited yet even-handed biography of the actor with special emphasis on the years he spent planning, building, living and reveling in the place he referred to as a farm, spanning eight hilltop acres. In the main house the actor designed secret staircases, sliding panels, and famously, a two-way mirror in the ceiling of the guest room and another alongside a guest bathroom. The colorful text is accompanied by scores of rare and unusual photos, including publicity pictures from the 1930s and 40s and the color shots taken in the house’s final days.
This handsomely produced volume is the kind of book I intended to browse but wound up reading from cover to cover. It stands as a tribute to the authors’ enthusiasm and perseverance…but we who love stories of vintage Hollywood are the real beneficiaries.(Good Knight Books/Paladin Communications)
‘Errol and Olivia: Ego and Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood’
By Robert Matzen (GoodKnight Books, $39.95)
REVIEWED BY LARRY COX Special to Florida Weekly
In 1935, Olivia de Havilland was just 19 years old when she stepped onto a soundstage in Hollywood to make a screen test with Errol Flynn. Mr. Flynn was immediately smitten, despite the fact that he was already married to French actress Lili Damita. Mr. Flynn and Ms. de Havilland would go on to become one of the top Hollywood box-office love teams of the 1930s and ’40s, co-starring in eight films that earned millions of dollars for Warner Brothers, including such classics as “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and “They Died With Their Boots On.”
Robert Matzen’s extensive research reveals the true story of these two beautiful, complex people who, despite their international fame, were incredibly unhappy.
Olivia de Havilland was usually portrayed as a great lady and America’s sweetheart in her films, but Mr. Matzen maintains she also had a wild side. Her love interests included actor James Stewart, Howard Hughes and the very-married writer-director John Huston. She also was the one who sued Jack L. Warner for her right to work independently, thereby bringing an end to the socalled studio system.
Erroll Flynn’s private life was, needless to say, not so private. He built a reputation for onenight stands with women from all walks of life.
His drunken
brawls often were splashed across the front pages of newspapers. His short temper triggered fights, especially with men who were also attracted to de Havilland. One of those men was Ronald Reagan.
“Errol and Olivia” is especially appealing because of the dozens of illustrations scattered throughout the text, some of which are being published for the first time. As Ms. de Havilland approaches her 95th birthday in Paris, this book is both a fitting tribute to the contributions she made to her craft and an exploration of the incendiary relationship she had with Mr. Flynn, an association that reverberates even after the passage of 75 years.
Gordon S. Miller
Nov. 5, 2010
Book Review: Errol & Olivia: Ego & Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood by Robert Matzen
Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania in 1909 followed seven years later by Olivia de Havilland in Tokyo. They took different paths to Hollywood but would eventually meet while shooting screen tests for Warner Brothers’ Captain Blood (1935). The film is notable for being Flynn’s first lead role and their first of eight pictures together. Their final on-screen pairing occurred in They Died with Their Boots On (1941).
The two became infatuated with each other at first sight, but de Havilland thought more of Flynn’s marriage to Lili Damita, a union demanded by the studio because they didn’t want one of their actors living in sin, than he did and kept things professional. At least for a while. Michael Caine reveals that during a walk on a location de Havilland pointed out and where she and Flynn finally consummated their attraction. Meanwhile, during those years de Havilland was romantically involved with Jimmy Stewart and John Huston while Flynn was psychically involved with many young ladies, two of which resulted in statutory rape charges.
Together and separately, Flynn and de Havilland experienced highs and lows in and out of the business. At the box office, The Adventures of Robin Hood was a great success, yet the romantic comedy Four’s a Crowd performed weakly in comparison. They both got into spats with Jack L. Warner for different reasons. She was very interested in furthering her career, most notably wanting to be loaned out to appear in Gone With the Wind. All the wheeling and dealing required to join that cast reads like a spy novel. He essentially wanted to end his as evidenced by his lack of professionalism and a greater interest in carousing and travel.
Aficionados of Hollywood’s Golden Age will surely be delighted by this book even if not a fan of either Flynn or de Havilland because author Robert Matzen takes the reader onto the Warner Brothers lot and reveals the inner workings of the studio. The reader will get to see how movies are made, from casting through production and even promotion, and get to ponder the ones almost made. Quite a number of Hollywood luminaries pass through the pages, including those in front of the camera like Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan as well as those behind it like producer David O. Selznick and directors Michael Curtiz, George Cukor, and Victor Fleming.
Matzen delivers such a thorough accounting with this in-depth look at the lives of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland it’s almost a shame his talents are spent covering entertainment rather than more substantial topics like investigating crimes or politics. It is very well researched and seems to put the reader in the moment as events occur. The book is filled with a great many photos, color and B/W, from both studio and personal archives. Errol and Olivia is a must-own for anyone with an interest in Hollywood’s history.