Anything Your Little Heart Desires : An American Family Story

A memoir by the daughter of famous attorney Bartley C. Crum: "A gripping account not only of Crum but of McCarthyism and its devastating effects" (SFGate). The FBI kept a secret dossier on him. He was a confidante to stars; adviser to politicians; and lawyer to the likes of William Randolph Hearst, Rita Hayworth, and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, whom he defended during the House Un-American Activities Committee trials of 1947. Bartley C. Crum was also Patricia Bosworth's father—a frequently absent, unrelentingly principled, and stubbornly self-destructive one. Anything Your Little Heart Desires is Bosworth's memoir of life with him, and of the momentous events that shaped his lifetime, from the New Deal to the Cold War and the anti-Communist fervor that jolted American life. Using interviews, journals, letters, and her father's own files, Bosworth delivers a profoundly personal portrait of the father she never fully knew, and the political forces that shaped a nation. "In this book - at once a biography, the intimate portrait of an extraordinary family, and a peculiarly American tragedy - Patricia Bosworth has re-created an entire era: Roosevelt's New Deal, the triumphant Left, the victory of World War II, and then the fall of liberalism and the dawn of the Cold War. Political turmoil followed; anti-Communist hysteria ruined many lives full of promise.". "Among them was that of Patricia Bosworth's father, Bartley Cavanaugh Crum, a heroic California lawyer of the thirties and forties, a Truman adviser, and a crusader against the Hollywood blacklist until he himself became its victim. Handsome, gifted with dazzling energy and spirit, he charmed everyone around him, until his own demons finally overwhelmed him, a real-life Gatsby.". "Crum's remarkable career took him from defending Harry Bridges, the controversial head of San Francisco's longshoremen's union, to representing movie star Rita Hayworth in her million-dollar divorce from Prince Aly Khan. His friends, clients, and acquaintances included Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie (whose close adviser Crum was), Paul Robeson, Henry Luce, John Garfield, Lillian Hellman, Orson Welles, J. Edgar Hoover, James Hoffa, William Randolph Hearst, Herb Caen, Earl Warren, and John F. Kennedy, among others, all of whom play a part in this book as they did in his life. The high point came with his stint as a diplomat, deeply involved in the creation of Israel. A low point followed soon after when he became briefly the publisher of the left-wing New York tabloid PM and tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a liberal newspaper at the height of the Red Scare.". "At the heart of this narrative is the searing emotional journey Patricia Bosworth made after her father's death. Questions kept haunting her: What went wrong? Why did this magnetic, celebrated, gallant man destroy himself and hurt those who loved him most in sometimes fatal ways? And who was he really deep down, this enigmatic Irish Catholic boy from Sacramento whose forebears had been gold miners and ranchers?"--BOOK JACKET. Patricia Bosworth{u2019}s striking and compelling memoir of power, politics, and family through one of the most defining eras in American history The FBI kept a secret dossier on him. He was a confidante to stars; adviser to politicians; and lawyer to the likes of William Randolph Hearst, Rita Hayworth, and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, whom he defended during the House Un-American Activities Committee trials of 1947. Bartley C. Crum was also Patricia Bosworth{u2019}s father{u2014}a frequently absent, unrelentingly principled, and stubbornly self-destructive one. Anything Your Little Heart Desires is Bosworth{u2019}s memoir of life with him, and of the momentous events that shaped his lifetime, from the New Deal to the Cold War and the anti-Communist fervor that jolted American life. Using interviews, journals, letters, and her father{u2019}s own files, Bosworth delivers a profoundly personal portrait of the father she never fully knew, and the political forces that shaped a nation The author tells the story of her family and her father, Bartley Cavanaugh Cru, "a heroic California lawyer of the thirties and forties, a Truman adviser, and a crusader against the Hollywood blacklist until he himself became its victim."--Jacket I REMEMBER watching my father's pale naked form disappear up into the crackling flames that had suddenly destroyed the nursery on the third floor of our house in Berkeley.