Hollywood's Original Rat Pack: The Bards of Bundy Drive

by Stephen C. Jordan

In the 1930s and '40s an untamed group of Hollywood notables, men most well-known for their talents on the silver screen, frequently met and behaved in a manner that no doubt made them infamous within their community. For a brief period, their insatiable appetites for women and strong drink made them the lives of the party. The group included the likes of actors John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, W. C. Fields, and Anthony Quinn; writers Gene Fowler, Will Fowler, and Ben Hecht; art critic Sadakichi Hartmann; and the man who stood at the center of this gang of mischief-makers, eccentric artist John Decker. Additional characters who were regulars on the scene included Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Hillyer, artist and goldsmith Philip Paval, and actors Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Burgess Meredith, Roland Young, and Lionel Barrymore. In time the group would be known as the Bundy Drive Boys-named for the location of their favorite hangout, Decker's home and art studio-and their adventures would become legendary, if not downright scandalous. In Hollywood's Original Rat Pack: The Bards of Bundy Drive, Stephen C. Jordan revisits the lives and times of this free-spirited gang and rekindles the spirit of their excesses. In this lighthearted history, Jordan introduces the members of the Bundy Drive Boys and then focuses on the unique personality traits each offered. Stardom or wealth had nothing to do with membership. Rather, entry into their informal circle of actors, artists, writers, and poets required uniqueness of character. The group was often cynical, but always poetically so, and never sentimental. They enjoyed each other's company as friends, philosophers, poets, humorists, critics, and especially heavy drinking companions. Hollywood's Original Rat Pack brings their lusty stories of carousing and debauchery to life in a manner that pays tribute to their carefree, if admittedly reckless, antics. A tribute to an all but forgotten era of Hollywood, this book will no doubt fascina

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book i've read about this group of men, the first being Hollywood's Hellfire Club. If i were to recommend just one, i'd recommend that one, because it has more photographs throughout the text, lots of unpublished or rarely seen pictures, whereas this one only has a small insertion in the middle of the book.

My beef with this book was that it made a stab at being a scholarly tome, in a sense, in that the author structured it in a very contrived sort of way--here is a chapter where we look at all of these men and their relationship to (fill in the blank: drug abuse, marriage, infidelity, painting, literature, children, criminal behavior, etc.). This made for a very predictable and plodding sort of read, and the frequent homophone errors throughout the text--"past away" instead of "passed away" for example--also undermined the prospect of it being as serious as presented.

Hollywood's Hellfire Club, by contrast, was presented in a sort of vague and reeling loose chronology peppered with narrative vernacular (as opposed to just quotes, as this book does), which in comparison works better as a reading experience of these profane, insane, brilliant and sublime douchebags. If you are researching them (as i am) then read both and then some--the bibliographies are great in both books. If you just want to read a book about the Bundy Drive Boys for fun, this is not the one to choose.