Seeing Doozy las week led me to this very trashy book on Paul Lynde (top left), where I found out he studied at Northwestern with a class that included Cloris Leachman, Patricia Neal, Charlotte Ray, Jeffrey Hunter etc. Which led me to this new biography, also very trashy, of Leachman, forever Phyllis to me. What I found interesting about her book is how, at ninety, she still vividly remembers very specific scenes from films like Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn Leroy, USA, 1940) and how often the films that most deeply affected audiences are not what are ranked and re-ranked as ‘best’. Not a new thought but still an under-explored one. Also Lynde and Leachman, instantly recognisable nationally at the height of their TV fame but never the biggest stars, are still a very powerful evocation of childhood for anyone who grew up watching television in North America in the 70s.

José Arroyo