Nostalgia finds its time, place in Ileana Douglas’ memoir

What are we supposed to do about nostalgia? Today's media is an online turbine constantly spinning out new content, new social media, new video clips. Is there room for remembrance?

I ask, because Ileana Douglas (the actress from "To Die For," "Cape Fear," "Goodfellas," "Ghost World," "Happy, Texas" and "Action") has just released a new, nostalgic memoir titled "I Blame Dennis Hopper."

Many younger Americans presumably have never heard of Hopper, and they may not know any of those movies or Douglas.

Is it still OK to write about the past? Because Douglas writes a funny story about dropping food on James Woods' shoe; riding in cars with her grandfather Melvyn Douglas (the two-time Oscar winner); and telling Hopper on a movie set how his portrayal of a druggie hippie in "Easy Rider" influenced her dad to drop out and send her family into a spiral of poverty.

Douglas' book is a fun read, especially if you know her voice and can imagine her speaking, the way you read a David Sedaris book.

Douglas will autograph copies of the book and talk about her life with fans at 2 p.m. on Jan. 3 at Barnes & Noble, 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd. And she discusses the book on Jan. 13 at the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., the town where she first arose as a young actress.

Douglas, 50, thinks she wrote her book just as the nostalgia clock is winding down.

"I felt if I didn't write it now, within five years it would have no meaning," because society so quickly discards memories of stars in her book, she says.

Example: She writes about an incredible moment she shared with crooner Rudy Vallee, the long-ago superstar who begat Bing Crosby who begat Frank Sinatra who begat Michael Buble. She was a teen. Vallee was close to death but knocking them dead at a dinner theater she worked at. He asked her to his dressing room and played a tape recording of a whooshing sound.

Was it the sound of the sea? No. It was the sound of Vallee's applause, captured on tape for whenever Vallee wanted to hear it.

"There have been many times in my career," she says, "where I've been alone in a trailer, or backstage putting on makeup, and I have thought of that (sound) — the idea that somehow you can capture this joy you gave people, because performers have such emptiness when you're not performing."

Douglas considers herself a historian for writing her book, which eschews sex stories and dirty gossip for insights into filmmaking and her acting origin story.

And yet, can nostalgia survive the turbine of new content? Even Douglas wasn't sure at first. After she wrote the Vallee chapter, she took two days off from writing to wonder if "anyone else in the universe" would love the story as much as she does.

But she forged ahead, writing a (non-kiss-and-tell) book about her life with her family, falling in love with movies, seeing films at the drive-in, and show business insights into stars going the way of nostalgia, like Peter Sellers, Marlon Brando, Richard Dreyfuss, Mike Nichols, Roman Polanski, Hal Ashby, Robert De Niro and, of course, her ex, Martin Scorsese.

"I can only write about what I love, and maybe I do love nostalgia to a certain extent," Douglas says. "And I try to have faith in my readers. There must be other people out there that are like me."

Athletes make prostitutes sign nondisclosures

A few months ago, I wrote about the memoir, "The Las Vegas Madam," after interviewing author Jami Rodman, who quit prostitution and madam work after being exposed by TheSmokingGun.com.

The book is out now, and picking up national media here and there, including RadarOnline, which quotes her in a new interview exposing overview details (but not naming) all the athletes she remembers.

"We did see a lot of football players, basketball players, soccer players," she told Radar. "When I danced (as a stripper), there would be entire baseball teams and football teams that would rent out the private suite upstairs and see girls."

But eventually, those athletes made women who slept with them "sign nondisclosure forms."

What do you make of that?

— Doug Elfman can be reached at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. On Twitter: @VegasAnonymous.