O.K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors

With few exceptions, the 26 essays in this intermittently engaging collection shed less light on the lives of the actors who are its ostensible subject than on the imaginations of the writers who have penned them--an eclectic group that includes John Updike, Geoffrey O'Brien, Dave Hickey and David Hajdu. But Sante (The Factory of Facts) and Pierson (The Perfect Vehicle) have performed a useful service for film buffs by amassing a dossier of mostly original writing on the brilliant but often neglected careers of such character actors as Warren Oates, Robert Carlyle and Margaret Dumont, and some of the writing sparkles. Among the highlights are ""Suzie Creamcheese Speaks,"" John Updike's classic 1983 appreciation of Doris Day (although her inclusion as a character actress is questionable); Linda Yablonsky on Thelma Ritter, best known for roles in such films as All About Eve and Pickup on South Street (""She remained the quintessential trouper, proof that character parts are essentially temp jobs, written out of a movie early on""); and Robert Polito's haunting, noirish memoir of ghostwriting a sex-filled autobiography with actress-turned-prostitute Barbara Payton for Holloway House. But more than a few essays are marred by show-offy prose that attempts to steal the spotlight from the actors themselves: Siri Hustvedt writes of Franklin Pangborn, ""I like his name. It combines the elevated connotations of Franklin, as in Ben and Roosevelt, with the pathos of `pang,' and the fact that this `pang' is married to `born' delights me with its Dickensian aptness."" Few readers will find such comments apt in any way. (Oct.)