Makeup Man

January 23, 2017
Readers will want to take a giant step back in time with Academy Award–winner Westmore’s amiable and intimate look at his family, a Hollywood makeup dynasty for four generations, and the stars they’ve been making look good since 1917. His own career began in 1961 with a Universal Studios apprenticeship, all the time being “watched like a hawk” by family elders. Readers of a certain age will lap up stories about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee’s budding romance, Desi Arnaz’s (emergency) horsehair mustache, and Ernest Borgnine’s doomed marriage to Ethel Merman. As the book progresses, younger readers will recognize more names and productions, including Harrison Ford in Blade Runner and Sylvester Stallone (whose fight scene injuries Westmore created) in Rocky. Westmore dishes occasionally but usually has a nice word to say about his clients. He even shares Elizabeth Taylor’s chili recipe. Later sections concentrate on Westmore’s decades-long association with the Star Trek series. Tighter editing might have eliminated the book’s “Snippets,” a miscellaneous closing collection of reminiscences, but most of them are just as entertaining as the book proper.

February 15, 2017
Chronicling Westmore's life and career as one of Hollywood's most renowned makeup artists, this book will have cinephiles and film historians on the edge of their seats. From the foreword by Patrick Stewart to the book's final pages, which include photographs of Indian actor Kamal Haasan, this volume is burgeoning with one anecdote, juicy tidbit, and entertaining story after another of behind-the-scenes Hollywood through the ages. Hailing from a makeup and special-effects dynasty dating back to the 1900s, Westmore tells, with coauthor Page, of his family's impact on the motion-picture industry in the preface and explains how it has earned them the name the Royal Family of Makeup Artists. In the pages that follow, it becomes clear why the moniker is well deserved. Westmore's grandfather George is credited with no less than establishing the makeup industry in Hollywood, while Westmore's career includes iconic projects like Blade Runner, Raging Bull, and TV's The Munsters. For anyone who loves an insider's peek into the golden age of Hollywood and beyond, this book will deliver.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)