Ray by Ray: A Daughter's Take on the Legend of Nicholas Ray

by Nicca Ray

Nicholas Ray was cinema. The legendary director of such classic films as Rebel Without a Cause was an innovative force who dramatically changed the Hollywood landscape. He was also Nicca Ray’s dad, Nick.

After he disappeared from her life in 1964, Nicca began to imagine her father as a hero who would return and whisk her away from a life in LA where she never felt safe. However, the man who finally reappeared was not the legendary figure she dreamed of. Through his movies and letters along with her intimate interviews of family members and Hollywood icons, Nicca stitches together the seemingly disparate pieces of the real Nicholas Ray: A man so devoted to his craft he insisted on spending the last hours of his life surrounded by a film crew; a man who lost everything to drugs and gambling; an absentee father she longed to connect with.

Both well-researched and deeply personal, Ray by Ray: A Daughter's Take on the Legend of Nicholas Ray unravels the lives entangled in Nick’s, including those of Gloria Grahame, Dennis Hopper, Wim Wenders, and the Ray family itself. Nicca tracks her father’s whereabouts during the years he was missing from her life and works to reconcile his artistry with his persona. In discovering the truth about her father, she navigates her own path beyond the shadows cast by the Golden Age of Hollywood. 

An essential new perspective on Nicholas Ray, with more than 50 photos and letters from the author's personal archive, Ray by Ray redefines this legendary figure through the eyes of a daughter searching for the truth about her father.

"In this intimate blend of memoir and biography, [Nicholas Ray's] daughter, Nicca, a filmmaker and writer, explores her father’s complex life and artistic legacy as well as their own complicated relationship and his impact on her life. ... This contemplative, deeply personal portrait of both Rays will appeal to readers interested in mid-century Hollywood." ―Library Journal

Nicca Ray is film director Nick Ray’s daughter and as her marvelous memoir unspools, she could be a genetically engineered female protagonist of an imaginary Nick Ray picture. … [Ray by Ray] is the screamingly sad, wise, drug-fueled, hilarious tale of a daughter’s coming to light from under an immense paternal shadow. A deep dark shadow, by mortal standards, a shadow’s shadow; for Nick Ray is himself a burnt-out case, an artist swallowed whole by the bottle, the spoon and the syringe." —Amos Poe, Filmmaker, The Blank Generation

"If you diagrammed Nicca Ray's family tree, going back only two generations, it would resemble a web spun by a spider on acid. RAY BY RAY is the story of a search for home, for family, for identity, for the understanding of personal demons. Nicca's journey is one of courage and harrowing honesty. She doesn't gloss over the ugly bits, of which there are many. Despite her recreation of the trauma, the confusion of her childhood and teen years, she holds onto a grace, compassion and unconditional love for all of her family members, particularly her famous genius father, a filmmaker ultimately sabotaged by his own fears via alcohol, drugs, generational abuse and mental health issues. Nicca connects the dots, emotional links resonating in not only her parents' erratic behavior, but in her father's cinematic masterpieces." —Chris D., author, former American Cinematheque programmer and singer/songwriter of the bands, The Flesh Eaters and Divine Horsemen

"Nicholas Ray invented the meme of teenage anguish. His daughter Nicca lived it. The first miracle is that she survived. The second is that she created this beautiful, heart-breaking book, in which she maps the intersecting arcs of her life and her father's, creating a dazzling geometry of self-creation and self-destruction." —Peter Trachtenberg, author, Another Insane Devotion

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2020

About the author

Nicca Ray was raised in Los Angeles, not far from the ­Griffith Park Planetarium where scenes from her father, Nicholas Ray’s, most famous film, Rebel Without a Cause, were shot. First inspired by the New York Dolls performing on the Real Don Steele Show, she started going to clubs on the Sunset Strip when she was fifteen, and became heavily involved in the L.A. punk scene when she was seventeen. At age twenty, she began work on getting sober, and shortly after, moved to New York, where, in her early thirties, was accepted into the New School University. While a student she published short stories in various journals, made two short films—including one that screened at the New York Underground Film Festival—and starred in Cutting Moments, the first film in the underground gore classic series, Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America, directed by Douglas Buck. After graduating in 1999, at thirty-eight years old, she devoted her life to researching and interviewing people about her father’s life, for which Ray by Ray is a culmination. She currently lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicca Ray, youngest child and namesake of legendary director Nicholas Ray, has through sheer force of will reinvented herself and broken the toxic web of an inherited addictive personality. And she did so at a very young age. This generously documented and illustrated biography is as much about her as about her father whose contributions to the film industry have been largely forgotten. Through this book, she has presented not only her father's and mother's lives, but also her own, documenting her perseverance. There were times when the book I was most reminded of was Haywire by Brooke Hayward, in style as well as in the slice of Hollywood they shared.

[Alexi W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book (thanks Turner Classic Movies and Three Rooms Press!) a few months ago, and finally got around to reading it. This book was really interesting, and I liked how Nicca talked about both her life and her father's life. There are so many family members and characters, so it was confusing at times, but the included pictures helped me keep track. I would recommend looking at the pictures every few chapters to remind yourself of who's who. This book was also so incredibly researched, and I'm impressed at the lengths Nicca went to to ensure she was telling the story correctly. Overall, a great read about a father and daughter's crazy Hollywood lives, and how that affected the person they became.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful memoir made my mind race and my emotions bounce around like I was bobbing and weaving through time. It is a very personal and honest account of the author’s quest to get to know her famous father, and to understand herself in the process. It’s clear that a lot of research went into the book. It was interesting and thought-provoking to read about the films of Nicholas Ray and about his relationships and reputation with other filmmakers of that era. More than that, we are shown what is behind the curtain, and it is not camera-ready back there. People, especially creative people, are messy. Life is messy. This book is a heart-felt (and often heart-wrenching) accounting of how you make something out of the mess.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray By Ray: A Daughter's Take on the Legend of Nicholas Ray by Nicca Ray is an interesting hybrid of memoir, biography, and to a smaller extent a critical look at Nicholas Ray's career. If you are coming to this book expecting one and only one of these books, you may be disappointed or, like me, you may find yourself completely engrossed.

I came to this expecting something much more like a biography of Nicholas Ray, albeit one written by his daughter. As I was reading, I became as interested in Nicca's life as I was her father's. Unlike many biographies by family members, which are largely memories and personal recollections, this one required, and benefited from, extensive research. Nicholas and Nicca weren't particularly close so this book serves as the result of her long search to get to know her own father.

While I think a few readers who are wanting a very specific narrowly defined book may be disappointed, I think most readers will appreciate the vast amount of information here as well as the journey Nicca takes to understand, as well as possible, her father.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[Julie White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book. This book! This was a read I COULD NOT put down. Tragedy, fame, addiction, abuse, redemption. This book had me in tears and weeping with laughter. The author bares her soul with the perspective of woman who has gone through hell and come out the other side wiser, softer, and oh so loveable. An amazing true story about a young girl in the 70’s, revealing a Hollywood family at its worst. The strength and courage it took to write this book is commendable, but the most inspiring part is her light shining through.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iconoclastic auteur film director Nicholas Ray ("Rebel Without a Cause"; "In a Lonely Place"; "Johnny Guitar") led a troubled life, plagued with schizophrenia and decades-long addictions to alcohol and drugs. By the early 1960s, his addictions and public breakdowns made him uninsurable within the film industry. His daughter Nicca writes he was "a man riddled with torment who lashed out at those he loved with crushing results." Nicca's blisteringly candid memoir, RAY BY RAY, chronicles her search for the father who abandoned her at the age of three when he divorced her mother (third of his four wives) and who died when she was 17. Her memoir also details her sexual molestation by a stepbrother that led to numbing herself with alcohol and drugs, selling herself sexually to strangers and her eventual recovery.

"I come from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts," writes Nicca. She also notes that her family life "should have been something out of Greek mythology, not everyday life." Ray's second marriage to actress Gloria Grahame broke up after he discovered she was having sex with his then-13-year-old son, Tony (from his first marriage). A decade later, Grahame married Tony--making him Nicca's half-brother and stepfather. Muddying the waters even further, Nicca's mother later had an affair with Tony that led to a pregnancy and abortion. "That child would have been my brother and my nephew," writes Nicca.

Nicca Ray's original search to understand her troubled father expands into a shocking, intimate and gripping tale of family secrets and addictions.

Nicca Ray's shockingly candid memoir of her filmmaker father and deeply dysfunctional family is harrowing, honestly written and near-impossible to put down.

[Nelson De Córdoba · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first impression or expectation that someone might have about this book before reading it is going to be very possibly wrong. You might buy this book because you love Nick Ray's movies (as I do) and his legendary bigger than life figure, but once you start reading the book, your perception and expectations are going to change drastically. First of all, this is an amazingly well written book. Her author, Nicca Ray, has spent years and years interviewing everyone that knew her father, documenting his life, career and her own one too. But despite of all this documentation and research, one does not feel like we are thrown dates, information and facts to our faces, on the contrary, this feels like a wonderfully structured book. You will notice that she has a natural talent for storytelling and the way she jumps into different characters, timelines and little meaningful details is remarkable. I've read few books as honest, entertaining and truthful as this one. There's some magic poetry in the heart of the sometimes painful stories and experiences that she describes. When you find beauty in truth and life, embrace it and recognize it as a very special piece of work. With this book, you will find it. Maybe you will start to read this book because of Nick, but once you pass the first pages and you will find yourself finishing it because of Nicca.

[Bambi · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don't have to be a fan of Nicolas Ray's Films. (I am) or an ex punk rocker chick (I was) to be taken in by this humorous, harrowing and brutally honest account of growing up and surviving your parents. Anyone who has known the confusion of an absent parent, or has sought out attention in destructive ways, will appreciate Nicca's skillful and vivid account of her years coming to terms with herself and the man who everyone says is a genius that she knew differently. I was brought to tears more than once. I could not put it down yet I didn't want it to end. The personal photos added so much to story. Nicca's pain and search for the truth to her legacy is not limited to those with a famous parent. It is sadly true for many of us. Nicca paints a picture of a young girl you once knew, were, or wanted to comfort and take care of. An incredible assembling of research and memory.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

The copy I read was an ARC so it’s possible some of the issues I had were fixed but I found the writing somewhat clunky and had a hard time with the book going back and forth in time so much. I appreciated what Nicca Ray was trying to do and I enjoyed the book but I feel it could have used a good editing.

[Valerie Tremaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicca Ray tells an extremely powerful true story that will hit you between the eyes. It's a journey about discovery, self-discovery and recovery. You will anguish over the parallel she and her famous genius father, director Nicholas Ray, share. The only difference between the two, she survived. Nicca honored her father to never forget.

[JoAnne McMaster (Any Good Book) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because I love everything about the Golden Age of Hollywood and classic movies. I own thousands of them. I don't watch the films of today, but if you ask me about anything doing with the classics, I'll know. Saying that, I was really hoping this wasn't just another book about a Hollywood child who was telling everyone that their life was ruined by their absent parent, and even though they were brought up in luxury, they felt sorry for themselves and trashed their parent.

This book is less about Nicholas Ray and more about Nicca Ray. I don't know how that affects anyone who reads it; it's more of a cathartic lesson by Nicca to bare herself evenly and cleanse her own ghosts to the world. That's not a bad thing; but to be honest, does anyone really care about Nicca Ray? Has anyone even heard of her before now?

I am glad she was able to get clean and sober; I am glad she's not another person lost to the drugs that would have killed her. But unfortunately, this book was less about Nicca's relationship with Nick than about Nicca herself. It started out fine, but then went all over the place until we finally come to the ending. It's like it's trying to be told from different directions and then come together at last.

I wish I could have enjoyed this book more, but I found much of it to be boring, and it just couldn't hold my attention all at once -- I had to read this in several settings.

I was given a free copy of this book by Amazon but it in no way influenced my decision.

[Burt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray By Ray is one of the growing number of “dysfunction memoirs.” It is similar to The Glass Castle or The Liar’s Club. But Nicca Ray’s family lived among “the beautiful people.” Nicca’s father was Nick Ray, who directed Rebel Without a Cause before destroying his career through his substance abuse.

The book focuses much more on Nicca than it does on Nick. She states that she saw her father just a handful of times during her life and much of what she knows about Nick came to her secondhand. But Nicca’s story is fascinating. Raised by neglectful adults, she spiraled into drug abuse, prostitution, and poverty before pulling herself out of the abyss.

As with all autobiographies, there are limitations in Nicca’s perspective. She is particularly rough on a stepsister, who was living in the same dysfunctional mess as Nicca. Also, Nicca chooses to update her story only through the early-80s. It would have been interesting to know a bit more about her adult life.

But I really liked this one. After reading Nicca’s story, most readers will want to thank the people who raised them.

[Elana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there had been much better editing (mainly because my copy was riddled with typos and grammatical errors, especially in the first half, and partly because the narrative is a little all over the place, and takes getting used to). Luckily Nicca Ray has a compelling story to tell. Her account cleaved through the muck, and permitted me to sigh but ignore the interruptions, and remain hooked all the way to the ending.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many thanks to Three room Press for sending me this good reads give away. Quite an inspiring drink and drug rehabilitation story from the author. Must have been very difficult to write and remember.

[Johnny Zito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific

Very insightful into the life of Nicholas Ray from his daughter. A captivating read. A peek into the life of this cinema genius