Susan Strasberg's "Bittersweet" (3 cents)

I am not sure "Bittersweet" is the right name for Susan Strasberg's 1980 memoir. A better title would be "Sad".

Strasberg, daughter of Actors Studio method acting instructor Lee Strasberg and acting coach Paula Miller Strasberg, died in 1999 at the age of 60 of breast cancer. Her mother died of the same disease at an even earlier age.

Why, sad? Because Strasberg seemed to me (and I am not sure why I read this book, or having started it why I finished it) a very attractive, intelligent woman who was completely lost. She blamed a lot on her parents (and she probably is correct in this) both for babying her and ignoring her at the same time. They also wanted her to avoid an acting career and pushed her into it.

Yet, she remained extremely close, much too close, to them, running back to them from time to time, and reverting to what appeared to be a little girl every time she did.

After starring, as a teenager, as Anne Frank, in the initial Broadway run of "The Diary of Anne Frank", she never hit the top as a stage or screen actress, although she seemed always to have enough to keep her busy. She knew everyone in the theatrical world (and perhaps not many others), and the lives of these actors and playwrights, directors and producers gave her a warped view of normal human relationships from the beginning.

She was very close to Marilyn Monroe, for whom her mother acted as a drama coach and companion, and who left the administration of her estate to her father (his estate, and his widow, apparently still control Monroe affairs).

She became sexually involved with actors, such as Richard Burton, at a very young age. This seemed just fine with her otherwise overprotective parents, but was disastrous for her. It appeared that she never (at least up until she wrote this book; I don't know what happened later) had the maturity either to pick appropriate male companionship, or to deal with the emotions that her bad choices created for her. She was married once to an actor named Christopher Jones; this was probably the lowest point in her relationship with men. He and she vacillated between periods of closeness and estrangement, but he drank and was physically abusive to her over a long period of time (slapping her, blackening her eyes and cheeks), etc., but she always came back for more. Until one day, she did decide she had enough.

I am not sure where the "sweet" comes into play. Her early Broadway success? It is not described as a happy success, just a professional one. The first few months of her love affairs? They don't show sufficient maturity on her part to be considered "sweet". Her relationship with her parents? No. Her daughter by Jones? Perhaps, although you don't get a chance in this book to get a full picture of it, since her daughter was so young when the book was written.

Not "bittersweet", just sad.