We’ve had two go-rounds with Dan Cushman, and he’s an enjoyable author, but we decided we didn’t need three engagements with him, so we didn’t buy this copy of his 1952 thriller Savage Interlude. Like many others who worked this premise, Cushman’s central theme was often: great men in the tropics laid low by heat, women, liquor, illness, and inscrutable natives. His work has the usual flaws of colonial centered fiction from the era, however in his favor, he knew the far flung realms of which he wrote better than most, and he was sometimes quite funny. But we’ve read enough to last us for a while. Want to know more about Cushman? Check here, then here.
1960—Gary Cooper Dies
American film actor Gary Cooper, who harnessed an understated, often stoic style in numerous adventure films and westerns, including Sergeant York, For Whom the Bell Tolls, High Noon, and Alias Jesse James, dies of prostate, intestinal, lung and bone cancer. For his contributions to American cinema Cooper received a plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is considered one of top movie stars of all time.