Pretty Poison: The Tuesday Weld Story

by Floyd Conner

Throughout a prolific forty year Hollywood career, she never stopped turning heads. Directors and leading men took notice of her as a highly skilled and versatile actress; gossip columnists and celebrity watchers feasted on her often wild, sometimes beatnik and always non-conformist personality. And then there were the boys.
Pretty Poison is the unauthorized biography of Tuesday Weld, a most unconventional actress. Detailing her professional life on screen and the many loves of her personal life, Pretty Poison covers all facets of an actress who throughout her career has been compared to Elizabeth Taylor and Jayne Mansfield, and was once touted as the next Marilyn Monroe.
Although she had modeled and worked as an actress in a few rock and roll teen exploitation films, it was in the role of Thalia Menninger on the short lived but popular television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis that the public was formally introduced to Tuesday Weld. She was 16 years old. Almost overnight, she became a teen sensation, the heartthrob of millions of teenage boys across America.

Genres: Biography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's great that a Tuesday Weld book even exists, but this is strictly "pot luck". "Pretty Poison" isn't by any means an in-depth biography. It's basically a bunch of magazine article quotes, press releases, and passages from other books strung together.
The photographs in the book are stills from Weld's movies, no baby pictures, no photos of her daughter Natasha or son Patrick, her stage-struck mom, her first husband (Roddy McDowell's secretary!) or anything too personal. Term papers have shown more warmth than this book.
Still, it's Tuesday Weld so you gotta get it. Until the good book comes along.

[Jody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't know why I picked this up, just happened to be standing in the biography section and saw this. Took it home over the holiday weekend. Really interesting read about a child star who worked consistently from the time she was 3 1/2 until the 1980s. In light of the current news about "the casting couch," I was surprised that there seemed to be no indication that this went on with this actress who was touted as the "new Marilyn Monroe." Interesting read.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to believe this book was published. It's basically a chronology of Tuesday's life, what movies she made, what men she dated and married. Plots of movies are detailed as if the author needed more words to create a whole book. Plenty of typos, too. In general, forgettable. Tuesday deserves much better.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this book because it was affordable and being a Tuesday Weld fan, I was hoping to find out a bit more about her life and career. I didn't expect too much after reading the other reviews here, and it's good that my expectations were low. It's a fairly quick read and mildly entertaining, but no real depth, probably because the author didn't have access to actual documentation and it appears that no one was interviewed. Floyd Conner relied too heavily on secondary sources, such as fan magazines, and the memoirs of other individuals in the entertainment industry including a few of Tuesday Weld's co-stars, such as Dwayne Hickman and the late Bob Denver. As Ms. Weld herself has been declining both film offers and interviews for the last 12 years or so, it's not surprising that she didn't contribute to this minor effort, but surely there were other people who were willing to talk, but maybe the author just couldn't be bothered. Some of the descriptions of the films and television episodes (the latter of which is not covered nearly enough) are erroneous, perhaps because some of them are hard to find or heavily edited when in syndication, and this was before DVDs began hitting the market so I cut him a bit of slack in that regard.

The photos featured in the book are all publicity stills from Tuesday's films, no candid or family pictures, and certainly nothing rare or special, or that you could not find online yourself. If you are a fan, you may want to buy this book, but don't expect anything deep or insightful regarding the life and career of Tuesday Weld. It's passable as a basic outline and will probably hold your attention, but not much other than that.