World War II Records

World War II Records I Wilt David Wilt University of Maryland dw45@umail.umd.edu World War II Records James E. Wise Jr. and Anne Collier. Stars in Blue: Movie Actors in America's Sea Services. United States Naval Institution, 1997. (317 pages, $29.95) The reader is likely to have rather ambivalent feelings about this book, which covers the service careers of thirtyseven actors who served in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. The most extensive coverage is reserved for six men whose World War II records were exemplary: Eddie Albert, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Henry Fonda, John Howard, Robert Montgomery, and Wayne Morris. The other sections, which range from four to ten pages in length, briefly describe the lives of actors whose military sojourns were—like those of the vast majority ofAmericans called to arms—honorable but not especially noteworthy. Paul Newman, for example, has every right to be proud of his Naval service, but it is only his later fame as an actor that qualifies him for inclusion in this book. And this is where the book's purpose is called into question. 5tars in Blue is competently written, well-researched, and contains some rare photographs of actors during their military service days. But the book's format—mini-biographies arranged more or less chronologically—ultimately dooms it to the trivia shelf. Yes, one can spend an idle moment or two reading about Bill Cosby's stint as a hospital corpsman in the peacetime Navy (1956-61), or Ernest Borgnine's ten years as a sailor (1935-45), but devoted Cosby (and Borgnine) fans presumably already know this. For the rest of us, the feeling is: that's mildly interesting, but now what? The longer chapters on the six actors whose military service is singled out as particularly noteworthy are a step up, but even here, Henry Fonda and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in particular, have been written about at length elsewhere. Wayne Morris' status as a Navy ace is less well-known, probably because he was not a major star, and the same applies to Eddie Albert and John Howard. Furthermore, the readerwhile admiring what these men did—is left to speculate: are their deeds more worthy of coverage because these men were celebrities when they did them, or are we supposed to be surprised that a celebrity could be a war hero? What this book could have been may be gleaned by reading the chapters on these six men and those on actors like Cesar Romero and Victor Mature. All were reasonably famous before going into the Navy or Coast Guard: they were forced to deal with the usual difficulties faced by all citizen-soldiers (and sailors) who had to adjust to wartime military service; but they also had to combat "anti-star prejudice " from their shipmates, and try to avoid being singled out for special treatment (good or bad) because of their celebrity status. Unfortunately, the format of Stars in Blue tends to fracture whatever continuity could have been developed in this area. Stars in Blue also contains brief appendices on actresses (a complete waste of space, it consists ofpublicity photos of actresses in which there is some tenuous Navy connection), celebrity bandleaders and musicians, boxer Jack Dempsey, and Hedy Lamarr (whose inclusion in this book is so specious that I will not even dignify it with a written description ). And so, Stars in Blue cannot be faulted for the quality of its writing or research. It is unfortunately the book's basic concept which hardly seems to justify the work that went into producing it. Vol. 28.3-4 (1998) | 107 ...