THE STAR SHINER: Memoir of a Celebrity Make-up Artist (Preface. 1st Chapter)

From THE STAR SHINER: Memoir of a Celebrity Make-up Artistby Evan Richardson

Published May, 2013, McFarland & Co.

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-7096-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-0137-3

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-7096-9

http://www.amazon.com/author/evanrichardson

(Link to Liz Smith Article:

http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/1911545 )

 4.17.14: LIZ SMITH: Beneath The Paint ... New York Social Diary

Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post

Liz Smith: “Evan really capturs the feel of the era!”

Beneath the Paint: 'Star Shiner' Reveals It -- Warts and All

Posted: 04/22/2014 10:33 am EDT Updated: 04/22/2014 10:59 am EDT

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"STARS CAN ask the strangest things of artists and then make the job impossible to do. It is a great relief when an artist has a few like that in their career. Unfortunately, mine was littered with neurotics."

So writes make-up man Evan Richardson, who flourished in the good-old, bad-old days of the 1970/80s when anything went.

•EVAN has written a memoir, The Star-Shiner which concerns his career and his personal life -- mother, lover, the AIDS years, finding God. The career aspects of his life are fascinating. His personal tale less so -- at least, the average reader looking for gossip, might think so.

The problem with this often funny and fascinating work is crystallized in the quote above. Evan, talented, handsome and smart, was also quite "entitled." He was prickly, easily offended and apparently unaware that he was operating in a business in which not only were the stars "neurotics," but so were (and are) their "service people" -- hairdressers, make-up artists, stylists, gofers, assistants, etc. It doesn't seem to occur to him that he might have brought some "attitude" along with his paints and powders.

•THE AUTHOR starts his life of celebrity-dom with a bang, getting to know the likes of Tallulah Bankhead and Lucille Ball. (The Bankhead tales are classic -- but then everybody who crossed Tallu, even for a minute, came away with a great story; she was inexhaustibly delightful or offensive, but never boring!) 

He moves on, working at Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. His life and career zoom into high gear during the licentious, cocaine-laced disco era of the 70s and 80s. His vignettes about the likes of Bette Midler, David Bowie, Shirley MacLaine, Madonna, Gloria Vanderbilt, Barbara Walters, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, supermodels galore and Elizabeth Taylor are colorfully written and seem pretty much on the money. (Certainly from his point of view.) But there's the rub. Evans' point of view seems both naïve and challenging.

Did he really expect every one of these stars to "behave" according to his standard of politeness? Yes he did. And when they didn't, which seems quite often in his life, he never forgot or forgave. Nor did he seem to understand that asking, say, of David Bowie, "Do you have a mother?" might result in Bowie bolting from the make-up chair.