LitPick Review
Former child star turned scriptwriter/bar owner, Steve Wilkerson is having his script read by producer/director Marco Zeffirelli, and it seems to be a go project. The only problem is that Zeffirelli’s ex-wife is Judy Bentley, Steve’s former co-star on the sitcom The Three Little Amigos and someone whom Steve was caught in a compromising position with. Judy is eager for an acting comeback after several personal and professional problems, and she is chosen to star in a Western which will also feature Steve and Doug Sanchez, the Third Amigo from Steve and Judy’s old sitcom who also has problems of his own. The more time that Steve spends with Doug and Judy, the more he becomes involved in their lives and realizes that old loyalties, friendships, and romances never really died.
Opinion:
Masters of the Star Machine is an intriguing look at fame and how desperate some are to get away from or hold onto it long after their heyday is over.There are a lot of great inside references and shout outs to many films and shows. Sitcoms, teen soaps, award-bait movies, reality television, social media, Hollywood gossips, child star scandals, and the Me Too Movement are called out, skewered, and played with throughout the text. We also get various real life names like Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, Danny Trejo, Jeannette McCurdy, Nicole Kidman, Harvey Weinstein, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Drake Bell, and Josh Peck playing alongside the fictional shenanigans giving a sense of reality to the Hollywood make believe.
The three protagonists react differently to their old days and subsequent years, and it reflects many of the choices that they made. Doug has a history of addiction in which he has been in and out of rehab and relationships that ended badly. A TV show in which he played a detective has ended, and now he hopes that playing the villain in this Western will give him a reason to stay clean and sober.
Judy is cerebral in her plans. She married Zeffirelli for opportunity and publicity after she gained a notorious reputation because of her struggles with bipolar disorder and some behind the scenes drama. She wants to get her career back, and she doesn’t care whom she has to step on or use to do so. She constantly strings Steve along to help her expose Zeffirelli’s off-stage antics though there is a strong possibility that she is not interested in seeing justice done or being free from his influence so much as she is interested in gaining fame and long term credibility for exposing him.
Steve is more ambivalent about his child star days than his co-stars. He appreciates the opportunities that it gave him and is very nostalgic about his friendships with Doug and Judy. He wouldn’t mind a new acting career, but it doesn’t consume him the way that it does his colleagues. What he is more interested in is recapturing the lost friendships and romances of his youth. He sees only the good sides of Doug and especially Judy and does all he can to pull them out of their troubles. He does not see the troubled mess that Doug is or the manipulative user that Judy has become. Steve wants them to remain the way that they were in his childhood memories and can’t accept that they have grown up and are not the people that he remembered and maybe never were.
This is a book that reminds us that Hollywood and nostalgia can be very similar. They trick us into seeing an illusion, air brushes out the flaws, make us only remember the good times, and make us accept a fantasy over a reality.
