فردا گریه خواهم کرد

by Lillian Roth, ایرج پزشکزاد (Translator)

اتوبیوگرافی هنرپیشه سینما، لیلیان روت. این کتاب داستان الکلی شدن این هنرپیشه در اوج شهرت و ثروت است و فروپاشی روحی او. و سپس داستان مبارزه او با اعتیادش
چاپ ۱۳۴۵

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Film, Biography Memoir, American

315 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre: Hollywood Memoir/Alcoholism
Publisher: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc.
Pub. Date: 1954

Mini-Review

I am old enough to recall watching old black and white movies on television. There were no DVDs, cable, or streaming back then. I used to, and still do, enjoy classic black-and-white films. I remember watching the actress Susan Hayword portray Lillian Roth in the 1955 film adaptation of her autobiography, "I'll Cry Tomorrow." Roth’s memoir recounts her life in radio, vaudeville, and cinema in the 1920s and 1930s. Decades ago, much had been written about her time as a celebrity. But, the true narrative in her memoir is about her battle with alcoholism and the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous with its twelve-step recovery concepts.

Roth grew up with a typical stage mother and their grandiose demands. She recounts her sexual abuse as a child actress when she was six years old. As an adult, she, like her father, was an alcoholic. After her fiancé’s death, she rushed into marriage and drank even more to keep herself distracted. Roth married and divorced four different men in all. Sounds familiar to many films stars who struggled with addiction. She was in two physically violent relationships, one of which resulted in a broken jaw. Her wired jaw made headlines. The film suddenly looks tame after reading Roth’s memoir. What astonished me, but should not have, is regardless of the century, Hollywood rarely takes care of their child or adult stars.

According to Ben Hecht, who assisted Marilyn Monroe with her autobiography, she once said, “In Hollywood, a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hair-do…Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul.” Whether Marilyn said this or not, the statement remains true. I googled to learn that in life there may not have been a happy ending for Roth as told in the book and film. I found in some old news articles that “After 18 years of sobriety, Lillian relapsed in 1964.” Once again showing that addiction is an unfair and very cruel disease.

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[Graceann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lillian Roth's gutwrenching account of her battle with alcoholism and her eventual emergence from its grip. Difficult to read at times, but worth the effort, especially for those recovering from their own personal demons.

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lillian Roth had the most adorable smile that turned straight up into dimples. Even in her old age she had a beautiful youthful smile. That smile did not betray her difficult life.

Roth was pushed into show business by her star-struck parents. As a parent, hearing about how critical they were of their daughters and how insecure they were as a consequence is heartbreaking. This woman died before I was born but I feel a maternal draw to her, wishing I could give her confidence and make her feel loved, because she certainly didn't feel much of that in her youth.

"Neither my photographs nor the growing scrapbook my parents kept meant much to me. What was exceptional about doing what you were told?"

She met David Lyons in school, but their age difference left them in different social circles. When they met again as adults, they soon fell in love, and against their parents advice planned to marry when she turned 21. Fate stepped in, and tuberculosis took David's life. This set Roth into a downward spiral, and without a proper outlet to drain her emotions, she turned to the bottle.

Her absent childhood did little to prepare her for life on her own. Without someone there to guide her and tell her what to do, she relied more and more heavily on alcohol to numb her pain, the pain caused by losing David, from being used by the people who told her they loved her, from the boredom of moments between work. The reading becomes frustrating as she indulges in more and more self-destructive behavior because it was the easiest choice.

But after being hospitalized and detoxed in a facility for 6 months, and later joining AA, Roth was able to attain sobriety and help establish AA groups around Australia and to bring awareness to alcoholism around the United States.

This is a powerful book, one that is brimming with hope. I can't wait to read the sequel: Beyond My Worth.

#classicfilmreading

[C.S. Burrough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riveting 1954 memoir of 1920s & '30s star of stage, screen and radio, Lillian Roth.

Her horrific journey through alcoholism, making for confronting reading at times, was an unprecedented international sensation. Courageously penned, this became a global best seller of its era, in seven languages.

She was widely praised for passing on the message of recovery to millions in an era when alcoholism was seldom discussed in polite society. She was also harshly criticised by certain overly zealous self-appointed Twelve Step fellowship spokespeople wary of celebrities making themselves 'recovery' icons (some who disclosed their fellowship membership were accused of damaging 'the program's' reputation when they publicly relapsed).

Recovery controversies aside, this was, and remains, a brilliant standalone book, not at all the sort of tacky celeb tell-all that would evolve in subsequent years.

At six, as Educational Pictures' trademark, Lillian was painted as a living statue holding a lamp of knowledge, and her painter molested her, which she describes in chilling detail as the defining event that would forever haunt her.

Lillian's signature song was "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)". That's about the best-known legacy many of today's generations may have of her. And this hair-raising book.

Actresses considered to play Lillian in the 1955 film adaptation included June Allyson, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Jane Wyman, Jean Simmons, Jane Russell and Piper Laurie. It was Susan Hayward who won the role and was nominated for an Academy Award for her gritty portrayal. That movie became the fourth-highest money maker of 1956.

Still an awesome read more than 50 years after its publication, this candid memoir gave me cold shivers, goose pimples and left me wanting to read more and more when I'd finished the last page.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2018 and 2019 I played a central role as a programmer putting together a season of film screenings: three series of theme-centric repertory-type selections interspersed with Contemporary World selections, the latter films generally appearing about one per month. One of the three primary series consisted of World Musicals, which is to say musicals from countries that were not the United States or India. Hong Kong, Japan, Egypt, Iran. The final film of the entire season, our big closing gala (as it were), was Jacques Demy’s THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT. Despite the fact that we were not showing films from the United States or India, I was going to be introducing almost all of the films and additionally giving an approximately half-hour talk on our series and the history of musicals at a free event at our public library’s remarkable central location, a still fairly new building whose architectural distinction is of some international renown. In preparing for the series—and the library talk specifically—I made a point of doing a considerable amount of research. I also took a look at some favourite musicals, notably some in my personal collection I had not revisited for some time. Many will be aware of the existence of a long-running Criterion Collection sidebar imprint called Eclipse, which was putting out, before the reign of Blu-ray, affordable DVD box sets with next to nothing in the way of special features, save the interesting essays that uniformly accompanied each disk, generally appearing on the inside of the DVD sleeves (readable through the transparent cases). In 2007 Eclipse put out a box set of Ernst Lubitsch’s musicals, four remarkable films made at Paramount between 1929 and 1932. I recalled very clearly that the first film, 1929’s THE LOVE PARADE, was the one I had loved most emphatically. I would not have been able to tell you quite exactly why I thought that was. Until I happened to watch it again. The standout sequence in the film, which you can and ought to stream on YouTube should you not have access to the film in its entirety, is a musical-comedy number called “Let’s Be Common,” featuring nearly-forty-year-old English actor Lupino Lane and an absolutely extraordinary teenager named Lillian Roth. Roth is awe-inspiring in the film, truly magnificent. I knew Roth. I had, as already stated, seen THE LOVE PARADE before. I looked up her slim filmography. Right! I also remembered her from 1930’s ANIMAL CRACKERS, the second film by and featuring the Marx Brothers, vaudeville’s greatest anarchist geniuses. Roth struck me as more than simply uncommonly gifted. She had a general affect and command of performance that would seem to indicate to me star power of the highest magnitude. While many of her contemporaries indentured to the Hollywood studios were corralled into appearing in countless films, features and shorts, every single year, Roth had only made a handful of either throughout the 1930s. Then she had more or less dropped off the map, only appearing again on television in the 1950s, as testified to by three meagre credits … then three film credits in the late 1970s. What happened? Even the most cursory of research will very quickly lead the investigator to a likely explanation. Lillian Roth was at one time a very famous alcoholic … and then a very famous recovering alcoholic. From approximately 1930 to 1946 Roth lived the devastating indignities of active alcoholism, a progressive and ultimately fatal disease concerning which I have all too intimate a working knowledge, myself a recovering alcoholic who will have six years of sobriety, God willing, this forthcoming November. Roth’s nightmare lasted about sixteen years, mine probably closer to fourteen, featuring a nearly two-year hiatus of tenuous sobriety between 2009 and 2011. Sixteen years, fourteen years. If you drink like Lillian Roth and I drank, you won’t get many more than that, you will likely get less. The, ahem, sobering stats speak for themselves. I myself suffered three kidney failures, one across-the-boards systems-crash, alarming enlargement of the liver, ulcerations of stomach and esophagus, and psychosis (bipolar comorbidity). There was also a heroin overdose in January of 2003, no doubt in part facilitated by the prior intake of ill-advised quantities of Kentucky bourbon. A great many medical professionals have marvelled at my continuing to exist. I have been in the requisite emergency rooms, hospital units, psych wards, and treatment centres. I would eventually go on to work in a treatment centre as a “residential support worker.” All of which is to say: I essentially know whereof I speak, whatever that’s worth. The reason a cursory online investigation of Lillian Roth will very quickly lead one to the discovery of the woman’s struggles is in large part due, naturally, to I’LL CRY TOMORROW, the first of her two books. Published in 1954, it became a bestseller worldwide and sold more than seven million copies in twenty languages. In 1955 it was adapted into a glitzy (and necessarily attenuated, THE LOST WEEKEND-style) Hollywood movie. Susan Hayward was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the role of Lillian Roth. The memoir itself is part of an arch it itself addresses. The book leads up to an event that made its own appearance in the form it takes intelligible and which also explains the revitalization of Roth’s career, primarily as a singer and recording artist. In 1953 Roth, who was then eking out a modest living doing club and lounge dates here and there, living with Burt, her sixth husband, in Florida, was invited to do an episode of the popular television show THIS IS YOUR LIFE. The jacket for the 1954 first edition of I’LL CRY TOMORROW, which I promptly sought out through an online seller not terribly long after revisiting THE LOVE PARADE, asserts that “Millions wept unashamedly” when Roth’s “extraordinary biography was sketched on the TV program” in question. This particular episode of THIS IS YOUR LIFE aired, as I have said, in 1953, contemporaneous with the beginning of the decadent phase of the Women’s Weepie. It’s the year Douglas Sirk’s ALL I DESIRE came out, and the year before Sirk’s outrageous and magnificent widescreen Technicolor spectacular MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, featuring Rock Hudson and the widely beloved Jane Wyman, marketed with staggering, unexpected success by Universal, who had limited faith in the product, as a film that would leave nary a single dry eye in any house it happened to play. 1950s and the commercial behemoth, the new postwar Valhalla, the consecrated suburban family unit, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER et al. One tends to forget that this was a time of simmering ennui in which large swaths of the population were evidently in need of a good cry, a sure sign that all was not well in Wonderland. THIS IS YOUR LIFE provided a frame in which a woman dragged through the mud by the tabloid press, jettisoned unfeelingly by her peers, and habitually used and abused by men inside and outside her industry, could have a redemption narrative judiciously built around her whilst simultaneously providing a safety valve for the nation—a safety valve of the waterworks variety. There may have been a Lillian Roth book without THIS IS YOUR LIFE, but that book would not have been the specific I’LL CRY TOMORROW that we possess. The first thing that one ought note is that the book has two co-authors, Mike Connolly and Gerold Frank. Their names appear is smallish print at the bottom of the first edition’s jacket. Gerold Frank was, as it should happen, something of a guru among ghostwriters. Well, heck, all well and good, right? Sure. Editors themselves habitually come close to serving as genuine co-authors, perhaps especially should the author have no track record in the field. In the case of I’LL CRY TOMORROW: well, considerations related to packaging have already proven themselves central in terms of Roth’s nominal public redemption. Let me say: it's a very good book. One notes almost immediately that it is written with professionalism, a fine sense of pacing, and general efficiency. That being said, I am not inclined necessarily to buy all of it. Considerations related to packaging strike me as having likely engendered falsehoods of various kinds. I would be less likely to take exception were the authorial voice not so intent on promising us that though the truth is unpleasant it must be told unblinkingly in all its gory details. This is the book’s major misstep. In an opening “Note to the Reader” our nominal authoress reflects on the question of why the book must be written (some obvious reasons of a ‘bottom line’ nature are not addressed). She concludes by stating that “In some instances in these pages I have given fictional names to people, but the persons were and are real. All that is in this book is true.” I am fairly certain that this is only strictly accurate should we be inclined to allow for a fairly elastic definition of the word “true.” Even then: dicey. The book itself begins with a not uncommon memoir gambit. How to begin? Hollywood success story, being escorted to premiers by Gary Cooper and Maurice Chevalier, earning $3,500 for an afternoon’s work? Or the melodramatic option, standing eleven stories up and trying to summon the courage to leap? Perhaps as a woman of thirty-four, emerging from a psychiatric institution and attempting to learn how to live as if from scratch? Husband Burt suggests that “the way to tell it is the way it happened, allowing it to unfold in the order dictated by whatever mysterious forces mold us into the persons we become. ‘That’s the only way it will make sense,’ he cautioned me.” Well, again, sure, but we are obviously in the hands of more active structuring intelligences than merely those of Lillian and Burt. It’s all a little disingenuous, though this too is par for the course when it come to the celebrity memoir racket. Fine, okay. The story. Roth’s parent are “stagestruck,” mother names her after Lillian Russell. Father, born Arthur Rutstein, brought to Boston from Russia when he was four. Mother Katie Silverman, Boston born and bred. Both Jewish, though not really practicing. Baby sister Ann, two and a half years younger. Later the sisters will comprise a vaudeville act. They will meet Woodrow Wilson and the first lady, be given a ride around the block in the presidential automobile. Ann will sit on Woody’s lap. Before all that: the family moves from Boston to New York. A cold-water New York walk-up. 43rd Street. It’s 1916. “I know that what I felt most during my childhood was fear—and loneliness.” I’ve heard this said countless times, in one form or another, by a great many folks, men and women, in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. First job in show business: “to pose as Educational Pictures’ screen trademark, a living stature holding a lamp of knowledge.” Lillian is promptly molested by the man appointed with applying her body makeup. She is five. Scouted, in a manner of speaking, by a man sharing her surname who is looking for “a sad, pensive little girl,” her big break, she has just turned six. She is put in the Professional Children’s School. “Just turned eight, I was billed ‘Broadway’s Youngest Star.’” Et cetera. She wants to be a good girl. She wants to please her parents. At the heart of it all, and in spite of her meteoric rise, she is beset by a constant sense of deep personal inadequacy. This is the crux of alcoholic grandiosity: I am worthless, defective, but I need top billing, my name in lights. My ego worked the same way, but the reinforcement it received was comparatively negligible. Young Lillian wants to be good, she doesn’t drink, the rambunctious amoral chorus boys and girls in Chicago terrify her. But, alas, a catalyst: her true love, David, a consumptive, dies. She is in the middle of a major New York stage production. The show must go on. It is not only David who has abandoned her, some kind of God has too, she is rootless in an abandoned cosmos where love is eternally unavailing. Drink slinks into the picture. Then takes it over. “I had to have liquor to stop my screaming nerves, my exploding brain, to dull the knifelike certainty that I was going nowhere, doing nothing, living as a shadow in an empty world.” Sixteen years of total hell, described by one who knows hell, there can be no doubt. It is a nightmare, active addiction. You know it if you have lived it. It is awfulness at the level of the seemingly impossible. You probably know it too if you have watched somebody you love writhe there in that specific agony. There are the five marriages preceding the marriage to Burt, the sweet Catholic man she meets in AA. These are men who have their own internal voids in need of filling. Pathological need cannot be satiated, especially not by a broken child who never had a fighting chance. They are another species of user, these men resentful and routinely petulant. The worst is Mark, the confidence man, who Lillian calls a drunken sadist. His abuse is hideous. Lillian gets her comeuppance, has her revenge. I find the passage in which she does so incredible. As in: impossible to credit. It seems like horseshit. Even if it happened (or kind of happened). Alas, matters proceed grimly apace. Bloomingdale Insane Asylum (colloquially known as Bloomingdale's). Inadequacy, shame. A burgeoning passion for oranges. The beginning of ‘the work.’ Back to New York, a harrowing relapse, more delirium tremens, then Alcoholics Anonymous, in the company of many who would have been among the movement’s founders (including Bill Wilson himself). A design for living, spiritual principles, a way. This avenue to a workable psychospiritual overhaul is still open to us. It was more or less my own. I got sober and stay sober through the principles of twelve-step recovery. A big part of this methodology involves service. Lillian took to service. When she says that the book itself stems from it that certainly cannot be a lie. What of the core principle of anonymity? “I made clear that we spoke not as AA representatives, but only as alcoholics whose cases had been arrested.” Fair enough. Absolutely. THIS IS YOUR LIFE? Why me? Why would they chose me? “Spiritually the ending was lovely, for I had found a way of life. But—” The audience at home. The millions in tears. What are they in need of if not a way? Speaking of tears. Tears and packaging. The final three pages of I’LL CRY TOMORROW definitely brought some tears to my eyes. Precisely as intended. Then I went and watched 1933’s LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT over on the Criterion Channel. Part of the Pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck bundle they have up right now. Young Lillian Roth is in it. She has the sole musical number. My God. What an absolutely extraordinary young woman. A celestial being who sounds like New York and has inherited the earth. She steals the show. Again.

[Hanny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely perfect. Gut wrenching and perspective changing. A book that has changed my life. I was first introduced to Lillian Roth while watching the film Ladies They Talk About and was drawn to her presence and had to learn more. What an incredible life and it’s really special to learn that she commenced AA in NZ and Australia. A must read in your lifetime book!

[Ruba Sabban · Rating 5 out of 5]

when I was a little girl my sister gave me a bunch of books to read, one of these books was I'll cry tomorrow and it was the only one i read, although my sister couldn't understand why I fell in love with it, untill today i still keep it next to my bed and reread it when ever i'm sad, down or about to make a big descion that i'm not sure about.
this book taught me a lot in life, more than anything else i read or will read.
it is the best ever

[Christie Stratos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, raw true account of Lillian Roth's life. She's willing to share the slippery slope that led her to alcoholism and into such an extreme addiction. There are occasional details she doesn't share, so here and there it feels like there's a small gap, but overall she tells her story as if it's happening right now, with excellent clarity and honesty. It's a hard story to share, but she does it to hopefully help others who are already in the situation she was in or to keep them from going too far down her own path. She earned the peace she eventually got, and she fought for it tooth and nail.

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lillian Roth, spurred on by her mother from the time of her childhood, makes it as a star by the time she is 18. With her first money, what does she do? She and her sister and mother drape themselves in the hair and skin of tortured Animals. 😠
P.87:
"we arrived in New York to find three of my pictures running simultaneously on Broadway. (first nighters had paid$11 a seat to see 'The vagabond King.') happily I bought Katie a mink coat, Anne a kid skin outfit, and myself a leopard coat trimmed in seal. Dad came in from Boston to greet us. "

P.108:
"I bought More furs for Katie and myself: minks, ermines, Persian lamb, silver Fox capes. I did a Lubitsch, all in Gray -- grey suede suit, gray kidskin boots trimmed with grey fur cuffs, grey stockings, gunmetal gray Russian hat."

I was not impressed. She seemed to have no judgement, and would marry these dudes, without even loving them, on the spur of the moment. She marries this judge who disapproves of the amount of alcohol she consumes. (She consumes a ton of hard liquor, all kinds mixed together.) She somehow convinces him she just drinks one beer in the evening. He remarks to one of their acquaintances:
P.128:
" 'She takes one drink and it lasts her all night. Look at her, bouncing around full of energy.' he could not know that as I made the drinks in the kitchen, I sampled them; or that long after the last guest had left, the maid and I began our own drinking party as we emptied ashtrays and cleaned up... While ben slept the sleep of the innocent."

When you drink a lot, your sleep is horribly affected:
Ben could not know how I dreaded going to sleep. ....
Was I awake? I couldn't move. invisible chains bound me. I tried to scream, but no sound came. My throat was locked. Now I'm screaming but he doesn't hear me. Easy, easy... This will pass. You'll have it again, but it will pass... Then, unexpectedly, I could move.I would get out of bed, my heart thumping madly, my body soaked in perspiration, and with a shaking hand pour myself a drink, and then another, and then another, from the bottle I now had hidden in the clothes hamper in the bathroom. Then I could go to sleep and the paralyzed dream, the screaming trapped helplessness would not come again.

Another husband who she married on the spur of the moment turns out to be a vicious wife beater:
P.177:
"a few days later the doorbell rang while I was talking with Johnny Ford, Amy's 22-year old brother. I opened the door.
Mark walked in. He hadn't gone to Chicago after all! 'get out, Johnny,' he said. 'I want to talk to Lillian. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes.'
'don't go, Johnny,' I cried.
'get out of this room or you will be killed,' Mark said quietly.
'Johnny - ' I pleaded.
Mark turned to me. 'what's the matter, you sleeping with him?' I thought desperately, was he going to involve this boy in our divorce suit? 'you better go,' I said, and Johnny, white-faced, left.
Mark sat down on the lounge, crossed his legs comfortably, and smiled. 'you think you're going to have everything your way, don't you?'
'no, I didn't think I was going to have everything my way.'
'come here, I want to talk to you.'
'what for?'
'just come here, I want to talk to you.'
perhaps I can humor him, I thought fleetingly, as I approached him. As I came near him, he suddenly drew his right knee back, and viciously plunged his shoe into my stomach, driving me backwards across the room into another chair.I lay there, retching, gasping for breath. For a timeless moment we stared at each other.The telephone on the stand next to me rang. Slowly, like a sleepwalker, I answered it. 'yes,' I managed to say.
'Lillian, it's Amy. Everything all right?'
'Amy, would you please - ' I began. I wanted to complete the sentence with 'come over right away.' but Mark grabbed the phone and before I realized what happened, he was using it to club me savagely on my arm, on my elbow, beating me again and again, from wrist up to shoulder, from shoulder down to wrist, methodically, steadily. In a daze of agony I heard Amy's voice, thin and anxious, emanating weirdly from the rising and falling instrument. 'Lillian! Lillian!' "

She becomes more and more enmeshed in the chains of alcohol, until she reaches the very bottom. You will not believe how far she sinks unless you read this yourself. Her mother has to travel from New York to California to bring her back home, something Lillian is literally incapable of doing on her own.
P.209:
"Edna told me later:... 'I remembered you as a child star, and I had always admired you tremendously. We were the same age, but when I was a 20 year old college student, you are already a Hollywood star.
" 'Katie walked in with you. I was horrified. I had never seen a human being in such a state of helpless drunkenness. You seemed less than human, like a whipped animal, completely submissive, scared to death. And your appearance! Your hair was wispy and straggly: your face and body were bloated, but your arms and legs were as thin as pipe stems. I cried when I saw you.' "

With the help of her mother, and money borrowed from her mother's friends, she checks into a swanky mental hospital. Her mind and her body have been dangerously affected by her alcoholism.
P.224:
"Now I had been dry for more than 50 hours.
But that night my alcoholic dreams, which I had warded off for so many years, returned. Sometime after midnight it seems that I was awake. I had escaped from the hospital. I had hidden a bottle in my room, and become drunk on it. I ran out the doors and through the bolted gate, and the doctors, their white coats floating after them in the wind, pursued me down a Dark, lonely Street, now hiding behind trees and bushes to pounce on me, now looming wild and gigantic before me. They caught me, they forced me into scalding hot and freezing cold baths, and tied me in a straight jacket. Or it seemed to me that just as I stealthily put out my hand for the bottle I'd hidden far back on the closet shelf, behind the school books with the questions I had to answer - just then the bottle rolled toward me of its own accord, slipped out of my paralyzed hands, and crashed thunderously to the floor. The nurses Rushed in, their outstretched hands pawing at me, their eyes accusing, converging upon me from all directions -- or was it was it the judge's wrathful face which slowly came into Focus? -- and I stood transfixed, utterly abject, shamed, humiliated...
I awoke with a start. The dream had been so vivid I could have sworn I smelled the fumes from the broken bottle. My nurse entered, I choked down an ounce of paraldehyde, and the long night went on."

After one relapse, she shakily, dizzily, staggeringly makes her way to AA, where she meets her future husband. This is another reason why I didn't have much respect for her. She had to rely on a MAN to bring her back from the brink. 🙄
P.297:
"no one could ever know how Burt rebuilt my deflated ego, and what confidence he instilled in me. When a woman is down as far as she thinks she can descend, and a man meets her and sees potentialities and a beauty which she thought long since gone... When a man has such dreams about a what a woman can be again, and places her on a pedestal, she must try to attain that goal. She can do no less. I had thought everything in me had disintegrated, deteriorated, vanished. But not in Burt's eyes."

Seven years after she and Burt married, they sit reminiscing about their struggle to win sobriety:
P.346:
"difficult? Would anyone -- could anyone but Burt -- know how difficult it had been? Into my mind came a line from the writings of Francois mauriac: 'we are molded and remolded by those who have loved us; and though the love may pass, we are, nevertheless, their work, for good or bad.'

This book did the good that the author meant it for: maybe you are like me and had some kind of struggle with an addiction, and this book can make you think: "damn, I'm glad I never sunk that far into my addiction, and I got out of it on my own, not hanging across some man." It is painful to read in many places. You just want to kick her in the *ss and say: "what's wrong with you? Why did you wait around for someone to always be saving you from yourself?"

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autobiography of Lillian Roth. Susan Hayward played her in the movie and did her own singing. Great Book. Great Movie.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, even though there were some tough parts to read. Gripping story of her battle with alcoholism.

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning true-life story. Very well written. My first exposure to alcoholism. Developed a deep compassion for people who struggle with addiction. Remembered the story from my teenage years to today.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Old Hollywood, so imagine my surprise when I discovered I had only seen two movies with Lillian Roth--Animal Crackers, a Marx Brothers film I remember nothing about, and the cult horror Alice, Sweet Alice, which came out just four years before Roth passed away. She's credited in the role of "Pathologist"; it must have been a small part, which explains why I have no memory of it.

It is part of Marx Brothers lore that Roth was cast in their film as punishment for misbehaving on the set of DeMille's "Madame Satan". I guess Paramount's thinking was that their chaotic approach to filmmaking would scare her straight. This anecdote, taken at face value, is pretty funny--I suppose people imagine Roth as a diva, a self-important snob who needed to be taken down a few pegs, just like the snooty women in the films who become the butt of Groucho's snide remarks, Chico's aggressive flirtation, and Harpo's harassment. If you take Roth at her word, however, her "difficult behavior" (that included walking off-set and complaining about her director) stemmed from antisemitic insults lobbed by her co-stars and DeMille's insistence that Roth perform dangerous stunts with absolutely no preparation and inadequate safety protocols. I'm inclined to believe her, since--well, it wasn't that long ago that Ashley Judd was blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein for spurning his sexual advances. The stigma of being labeled "difficult" has proven an effective tool to control actresses over the last century.

Apparently Susan Hayward played Roth in the 1955 adaptation of this memoir. Hayward seemed to get typecast as "desperate hag" types in films like "I Want to Live!" and "Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman" (in which she also played an alcoholic). I have a hard time imagining her in the role of the flapper ingenue. Then again, Roth also occasionally had trouble fitting into the beauty standards of the time--the costume designer on "Madame Satan" throws a fit because the bra he designed for a "boyish figure" is not adequate for Roth's, erm, curves.

It's amazing that Roth survived her years of alcoholism. She is told repeatedly by medical professionals that her liver is in such a poor state that any further drinking could kill her. Roth usually deals with this depressing assessment by going on multi-day benders, drinking until she blacks out and only leaving her apartment to acquire more alcohol. She falls into relationships with men that are never healthy, with one of them being so abusive that he breaks her jaw and beats her almost into a coma several times. This section is worth reading for anyone who's ever uttered the phrase, "If he was so abusive, why did she stay with him so long?" Roth feels such guilt over the harm she's done to others through her alcoholism that she has more or less resigned herself to being murdered by Marty (I think that's his name)--sort of a suicide-by-romantic-partner. Whenever she does get a clear enough head to try to escape, she discovers that Marty has a vast network of supporters who will trick and betray her to get her back into the man's clutches. More than once, men Roth thinks she can trust (including legal professionals) lure her into a meeting with Marty on the pretense that they will be supervising the encounter, only to abandon her, leaving her alone and entirely at the mercy of the man who may very well kill her this time. At one point she slips away and hails a taxi, but Marty catches up and convinces the cab driver that Roth is mentally ill and needs to be released into his care, for her own good. The cab driver takes one look at the disheveled, nervous Roth and concludes that the smooth-talking man must be telling the truth. Hey, good thing that kind of attitude has waned over the intervening years.... (Why is Amber Heard so visibly upset when she gives her testimony? Look how calm and composed--one might say smirkingly smug--Johnny Depp is. Clearly she's lying [and isn't even very good at it, the hysterical female], while he's the reliable and trustworthy one...because the abuser is the one who ISN'T good at manipulating people....)

I did tend to glaze over at the end of the book, where Roth details her journey toward recovery with the help of AA. Maybe that makes me a bad person--maybe I only want the sensational, trashy, reality-TV part of the story, where the addict hits rock bottom. But spirituality is a big part of twelve-step programs, and while I'm happy a significant number of people have been helped by this system (Roth claims that half of all the alcoholics who get into treatment with AA recover, a quarter leave but will later come back, and the remaining quarter is lost), I don't necessarily care to read a bunch of proselytizing and Bible quotes.

"Yesterday? Yesterday you said you'd cry tomorrow."
"I'll cry today."
"You'll cry now."
"...I'll cry now."

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lillian Roth (13. Dezember 1910 - 12. Mai 1980) war eine US-amerikanische Schauspielerin und Sängerin. Ihre Karriere begann schon im Kindesalter. Gemeinsam mit ihrer jüngeren Schwester Ann war sie diejenige, die das Geld für ihre Familie verdiente. Ihr Vater hatte immer nur große Pläne, die er aber nie verwirklichen konnte. Dagegen versuchte die Mutter schon früh, die Kinder im Showgeschäft unterzubringen. Sie bereitete sie auf die jeweiligen Vorsprechen minutiös vor, bis sich die harte Arbeit auszahlte. Mit sieben Jahren hatte Lillian ihr Debüt am Broadway, ein Jahr später folgte der erste Film. Das war der Beginn einer fast sechzig Jahre andauernden Karriere mit vielen Höhen, aber auch vielen Tiefen.

Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts war Lillian Roth einer der Kinderstars in den USA. Sie hat den Weg zur Bühne nicht aus eigenem Willen eingeschlagen, sondern wurde von ihrer Mutter auf jedem Schritt geführt, manchmal regelrecht gedrängt. Das hat sie nicht mit körperlicher Gewalt getan, sondern sie hat ihre Kinder psychisch unter Druck gesetzt: mit Schuldgefühlen ihr gegenüber und dem Gefühl, dass sie nicht gut genug ist.

Mir ist schon früh aufgefallen, wie reif Lillian gewirkt hat. Mit unter zehn Jahren redet sie bei Castings mit Produzenten wie eine Erwachsene. Auf der anderen Seite kann sie sich nicht wehren, wenn sie auf diesen Castings belästigt wird. Sie erzählt auch ihrer Mutter nichts davon. Ob aus Scham oder weil sie glaubt, von ihr keine Unterstützung zu bekommen, wird mir dabei nicht klar.

Als sie mit den Shows unterwegs ist, gibt es einen gnadenlosen Konkurrenzkampf. Lillian ist die Jüngste, sie ist noch ein Kind währen die anderen schon fast erwachsen sind. Wieder ist sie zwiegespalten. Auf der einen Seite will sie dazu gehören, auf der anderen Seite sieht sie auch dass die älteren Mädchen viele Dinge tun, die nicht richtig sind.

Zu dieser Zeit kommt sie das erste Mal mit Alkohol in Berührung. Der ist das Allheilmittel: Beruhigungsmittel, Helfer um ein paar Kilos zu verlieren und natürlich geht man nach einer erfolgreichen Show feiern. Wer nicht trinkt, gehört nicht dazu und Lillian will dazu gehören.

Wenn etwas so allgegenwärtig ist, wird es nicht als schlimm angesehen. Besonders, wenn man noch funktioniert, wie Lillian das getan hat. Sie kommt oft betrunken zu ihrer Arbeit, aber so lange sie abliefert wird ihr Zustand ignoriert. Eine Therapie würde schließlich bedeuten, dass sie für das Studio kein Geld verdienen kann.

Was mich erschreckt hat war, wie selbstverständlich Lillian Roth alles hingenommen hat. Manchmal kam es mir so vor, als ob sie sich nur als einen Teil einer Maschinerie und nicht als eine Person, die ein eigenes Leben verdient hat, gesehen hat. Krankheiten, Ehemänner und Freunde: wenn etwas nicht in das vorgeschriebene Bild gepasst hat, dann durfte es nicht sein. Jahrelang war sie nur von Menschen umgeben, die etwas von ihr wollten. Da wundert es nicht, dass sich Lillian jedem zuwandte, der ihr nur ein wenig Aufmerksamkeit schenkte und die meisten ihrer Ehen genauso schnell endeten, wie sie geschlossen wurden.

Schlimm fand ich den Umgang mit ihrer Krankheit. Lillian kam aus ihrer ersten Therapie zur Arbeit zurück, aber ihre Umgebung nahm keine Rücksicht darauf dass sie gerade erst trocken war. Im Gegenteil, die vergangenen Wochen wurden totgeschwiegen, Lillian bekam keine Unterstützung und griff schnell wieder zum Alkohol. Das hat sich unzählige Male wiederholt, bis sich die Folgen auf ihrem Gesicht gezeigt haben. Dann griff das Studio ein: Lillian wurde nicht mehr besetzt und weil sie nicht mehr von Nutzen war, bekam sie auch keine Hilfe. Bei männlichen Kollegen war das anders: da gehörte es fast schon zum Image, wenn man getrunken hat.

Das Bild, das Lillian Roth Hollywood zeichnet, ist hässlich. Es ist eine Welt des schönen Scheins, in der nur wichtig ist was vor den Kulissen passiert. Was mit den Menschen dahinter passiert, interessiert niemanden. Aber auch wenn Lillians Geschichte tragisch ist, konnte sie mich nicht wirklich berühren. Vielleicht, weil sie aus einer lang vergangenen Zeit erzählt (was nicht heißen soll, dass diese Dinge nicht immer noch passieren, denn das tun sie durchaus). Vielleicht aber auch, weil sie ihre Geschichte selbst so erzählt, als ob sie sie nicht berührt. Sie benutzt die richtigen Worte, aber sie wirkt auf mich oft so, als ob sie nur die Rolle der Frau spielen würde, deren Geschichte sie erzählt.

[Dominique · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was truly a harrowing read.

We've all come to know and expect the path these types of celebrity memoirs bring to the table. We start with the success the individual had in show business. Once the individual has reached the dizzying heights of success, then comes the decline, spurred on by substance abuse and mental illness. And finally, there is recovery, the celebrity writing about their past from a place of inner peace and experience forged in suffering.

The difference between a book like I'm Glad My Mom Died and I'll Cry Tomorrow is that Lillian Roth released her book in 1954, far before our modern understanding and treatment of addiction, mental health issues, and domestic violence. Lillian Roth is so candid in the way she discusses the sexual assault she experienced as a young girl, the domestic violence she experienced in one of her marriages, and how her addiction to alcohol utterly wrecked her life.

There are moments in this book that made me drop my jaw. Doctors would prescribe/recommend a shot of alcohol (usually brandy or cognac) to help calm Lillian Roth's jangled nerves. Roth would overindulge, which is one of the reasons why she developed a dependence on alcohol. I suppose the modern-day equivalent would be how doctors overprescribe antibiotics or opioids, but wow were things different back then. And the contempt the general public had for Roth when she was being physically and emotionally abused by her third husband was truly shocking and sad to see. Newspapers made fun of of the fact that her jaw was broken by her husband! To pull a quote from the book, "Some nightclub reviews described me as "Lillian Roth, formerly of "The Vagabond King,' now of the drama, 'She Who Got Socked.'"

Ultimatly, I grew frusterated with Lillian Roth. What she really needs is theropy to help process her past and her emotions, but unfortunetly, this is something that wasn't really avaliable to her so she has to make do with what was avaliable for her at the time. It felt like she waited around for someone to save her (it would be her last husband who helps her stay sober). It also felt like she kept making the same mistake over and over again. A doctor quite litterally spells out to Roth that she has a massive inferiority complex and the reason she runs into these hasty and failed marriages is because she wants a husband to protect her but does not allow herself time to truly get to know her partner before marriage, which is why she ends up choosing the wrong man for her. And guess what she does? When she joins Alchololics Anonomous, she meets and marries the man who would be her 6th and final husband. This marriage would ultimatly end in divorce (although this book is published long before the marriage ends). So yes, I would say that there is a strong case that Lillian Roth continued to make the same mistakes.

[Elisabeth Brookshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

Here is a book, written by a woman who was already 42 before my dad was even born and here I sit, at 42 but the age of Ms.Roth's story is inconsequential. I've read a ton of memoirs about alcohol and addiction and I've got to say I got more out of this book than I ever anticipated. I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to spoil anything but this is the story of a child actor who grows into a beautiful and successful star and slowly begins that insidious slide into severe alcoholism. She is truly an overcomer who managed to not only reclaim her life but goes on to help countless other addicts in perfect twelve step fashion. What a victory story! I can't imagine anyone not being touched by her book in some way.

[Torey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autobiography of Lillian Roth. Honestly never heard her name before, but stumbled across this book at a used book sale and it grabbed my attention. Lillian retells her heartwrenching story of childhood stardom, abuse, and how her addiction to alcohol destroyed her career and nearly ended her life. Sad, so sad. But such a beautiful strong woman came out on the other side of addiction. Written by a female author in the 50's, her story is remarkable.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this book was written in the 1950’s, it’s relevant today. Her battle with alcoholism is told in a way that had to be shocking back then. I enjoyed her true story and admire her strength. Highly recommend!

[Michael Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Autobiography of Lillian Roth. The interesting and tragic life of the Golden Age of Hollywood star. Conclusion: Hollywood has always been corrupted by pedophile influencers. Few make it through unscathed.

[Richie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sad, but ultimately redeeming.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrowing autobiography of bad choices and the decent into alcoholism and ultimate recovery.

[Eris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All by myself - I the star, I the victim, I the audience, I the critic."

[Christian Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the Christopher Award for “affirming the highest values of the human spirit” as well as being the basis for the biopic film of the same name which starred Susan Hayward in her Oscar-nominated turn as Lillian Roth, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, tells the unbelievable true survivor story of Roth’s early fame as a child star turned Broadway and nightclub singer and then film actress and then on to her gradual descent into alcoholic despondency, battered wife syndrome, insanity and attempted suicide. She writes movingly about her sixteen year battle and her 43 year absence from films, her myriad hospitalizations, failed marriages (five in all), alcoholic shakes, her near brushes with death due to alcoholic dependency and just the overall horrific ruin that addiction brought to her and those who cared for her. She became more famous for her drinking than anything else that she ever achieved in her early life.

At the height of her popularity, her name was in lights on three different marquees. She was a millionaire draped in furs and jewels. And she was a motion picture contract player. All that while in the early prime of life. Yet, behind all that razzle-dazzle and celebrity bravado was an insecure broken girl whose parents divorced and who was also privately coping with having been molested by an industry insider. Coupled with that was the nonstop pressure of endlessly being the bread winner, being pushed and pushed to the brink of an internal breakdown. Trying to escape the engulfment, she found true love in her fiancée David Lyons, only to have him die later of tuberculosis, a tragedy that sent her on a downward drinking spiral. In that journey to the pit, she always found comfort in a shot glass. Then it became shot glasses. Then it became a bottle. Then bottles. And then it was a 24/7 drink feast to uninhibited oblivion. She could not stop, and those who loved her were powerless to help her.

Rapidly losing jobs, gigs and her fame, Lillian Roth auditioned more for doctors and inpatient facilities than she did for acting parts, but it was all to no avail, for no matter how hard she tried, she always would end up more wasted than before. And as misery loves company, she hooked up with fellow alcoholics on skid row and other places who treated her worse than the disease. One ex-husband used to beat her to such a brutal pulp, many believed he would bring her to the slab in the morgue before the liquor got her there. It was an endless vicious cycle. It was only when warned that death was imminent due to Cirrhosis that she made a true valiant effort (once again), checking herself into the Westchester Division of New York Hospital, infamously known as Bloomingdale Hospital. After many months of detoxing, she found herself alone, unknown and penniless and still struggling with the addiction. It was only when contemplating suicide that she found Alcoholic’s Anonymous. Still in the very early stages of its inception, she met Bill (one of the founders) and found comfort in the people who suffered the way she did. And they were amazing in their care and support of her. It was not until the help of the AA members and The One Day At A Time approach of AA and her eventual conversion to Catholicism that Lillian Roth very slowly began to shake loose the shackles of alcohol addition. And inch by inch, she began to make a comeback. Her journey to Australia and the gradual founding of AA in that country was due in large part to Lillian Roth’s story and that of her last husband (also a fellow recovering alcoholic). It wasn’t until Ralph Edwards profiled her on This Is Your Life that her amazing story became more widespread. This was an unbelievable story of addiction and survival, and what I wrote was only a tip of the iceberg of what she experienced. Her life story really brought alcoholism out of the dark shadows.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir of a star's rise and then subsequent fall due to alcohol abuse could have been tighter as it seemed to drag in the beginning. However once the author/star found her pace the story definitely grabbed my attention. It is sad and horrifying to learn what alcohol can do to a person's body and mind, as well as reputation. Her finally finding the answers in Alcoholics Anonymous gives testimony to the organization's success for those who stick with the program. Ultimately an uplifting read.

[KEVIN J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable woman

I read this book so many years ago.I was so glad to find it’s an ebook . As an Australian it was good to read about the work she did to promote AA in Australia and her journey to find peace in religion, and it show that if one tries and tries the may be able to pick themselves up from their problems

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent account of what a person goes through when they become addicted to alcohol - it is a terrible disease and it will kill you unless you stop drinking and get help with your addiction! Highly recommended!

[Della Scott]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11422981

[پریسا · Rating 5 out of 5]

فوق العاده. صد در صد توصیه می کنم.