"Big Lou" review, recently published in BAR

Recently published in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter, a gay and lesbian newsweekly, posted with permission of the author:


Big Lou: The Life and Career of Louis Edmonds by Craig Hamrick, iUniverse Press, March 2003, softcover, $14.95

     To fans of the daytime soaps Dark Shadows and All My Children, Louis Edmonds was a superstar. But few others have heard of this journeyman actor, even though he worked steadily for 45 years.

     Louis Edmonds (1923-2001) lived for the theatre and had hundreds of roles on the stage and in early live TV. A tall, imposing, aristocratic man, he was a grand, old school actor. Had he been born twenty years earlier, he could have been one of Hollywood's great character people. But when Edmonds entered the theatre in the early 1950s, method acting was all the rage. Many classically trained actors were relegated to appearing with small theatre companies around the country, working steadily but getting little recognition. Though occasional small roles on television raised his profile slightly, Louis Edmonds never achieved stardom on any level. That changed in 1966, when he was cast in a new daytime drama called Dark Shadows.

     Dark Shadows began as fairly traditional soap opera fare. About six months into it's network run, the struggling show took a sharp turn and began presenting ghost stories. This seemed to attract some attention, so, in April 1967, Dark Shadows presented viewers with Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), daytime television's first bona fide, blood sucking vampire! Almost instantly Dark Shadows shot from the bottom to the top of the daytime ratings. The show became a pop culture phenomenon, and for the first time in his career, Louis Edmonds found himself thrust into the spotlight.

     The show's bizarre combination of horror movie cliches and soap opera melodrama was perfect or his grand, slightly over the top style of acting. Louis stayed with the show for it's entire five year run, and appeared with the rest of the cast in MGM's spin-off feature film House of Dark Shadows in 1970.

     Louis had a second brush with fame. In 1979 he began a 16 year run on All My Children. He made his role, carnival barker turned dapper aristocrat Langley Wallingford his own. It was a larger than life role that suited him perfectly, and he played it with gusto, earning himself three Emmy nominations along the way and millions of fans.

     His All My Children fans included TV legend Carol Burnett, who, in 1983, asked the producers to write her into the show. For one week, Burnett appeared as Verla Grubbs, Langley's long lost daughter. They made a wonderful comedy team, and the show's ratings soared. All My Children was his moment in the sun.

     Louis Edmonds died in March 2001 after an extended illness. He might have been forgotten, as so many daytime actors are. But now, Edmonds is the subject of the first full length biography of a soap star.

     Craig Hamrick's Big Lou is a superbly written study of Edmonds' life and career. Hamrick, a New York based writer and freelance journalist, was a close friend of Edmonds during the last eight years of the actor's life. Because of this, Big Lou could have been nothing more than a shallow, worshipful valentine to Edmonds. But the courageous Hamrick, though clearly in awe of his subject, is not afraid to expose a few warts.

     The book serves as both a biography and a career study. After some background information on Edmonds' childhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the book follows his years as a drama student at Carnegie Technical Institute in Pittsburgh (Jack Klugman and Nancy Marchand were classmates) where he discovered his attraction to men. In the 1940s, there was no gay rights movement, no community to speak of and no positive role models for young gays to look up to. Though he did not officially come out, the enormously self confident Edmonds quietly accepted his sexuality and pursued relationships with men

     He could be quite arrogant, Hamrick explains. Though he worked steadily in regional theatre and had roles in live TV, he was far from a well known actor. He had some bitterness over this. In the company of his theatre friends, he often put on airs and played "star".  He was a superb actor with a strong stage presence, but his arrogance may have done him in. He was aware of his talent and let numerous opportunities pass him by as he waited for "them" to call "him". He was too proud to pound the pavement, and he resented agents.  He felt they took more than their fair share of his pay while he actually showed up and did the work. He often refused to deal with them. Had he "played the game", his career might well have expanded beyond the limited range of daytime TV.

     He was also touchy about money. Hamrick documents his two long term relationships, both of which ended over disagreements about money.

     Louis Edmonds was an enormously talented man who was often his own worst enemy. This led to severe battles with alcohol and depression. Hamrick relates all of this, never losing sight of his own love and affection for the man.

     In the 1980s, Louis Edmonds watched sadly as his second lover, actor Bryce Holman, and his young nephew both succumbed to AIDS. He had seen he struggle for gay rights grow into a major movement. Perhaps inspired by this, he finally, in his 70s, publicly came out at a Dark Shadows fan gathering in the mid-1990s. He also appeared in Next Year in Jerusalem, a gay independent film in 1997, his final role.

     His final years were spent battling a variety of illnesses, including throat cancer, which robbed him of his career and ultimately of his life. He bore his illnesses with a quiet dignity. His final days were spent at his beloved country home, The Rookery, tending his garden and being visited by old friends and fans.

     Craig Hamrick's Big Lou is a lovely and loving tribute to a very complicated but talented man. At no time does Hamrick's friendship with Edmonds impair his ability tell the truth about his dear friend.  His love for his subject comes through on every page. Hamrick, himself a wide eyed semi-closeted gay man fom Kansas when he first  arrived in New York City, is introduced by Edmonds to art, theatre and culture. These memories are lovely to read. It is clear that Louis Edmonds had a profound influence on Craig Hamrick's life.

       Illustrated with many fascinating photographs, some from Edmonds' personal collection, some from the theatre archives of the New York City Public Library, the book is a fluidly written easy read. Big Lou gives a fine, neglected artist his due. Without it, Louis Edmonds may have been nothing more than a vague footnote in theatre and television history.

     Thanks to Craig Hamrick, he will not be forgotten.

     Big Lou is available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. Dark Shadows, featuring Louis Edmonds, can be seen weekday mornings on the Sci-Fi Channel, and is available on DVD through  MPI Home Video.
           
                             by David Nahmod

Wow!  Thanks, Midnite!!  A really interesting one.  It sounds like the book must be very good.

It's a really nice book and a very fitting tribute - well worth checking out. For anyone who's interested, I also did a review of the book on my site:

http://www.collinwood.net/features/review/biglou.htm

That's a great review.  I have a copy of the original printing, in which the photos were ruined by the printer.

It sounds as if Craig may have added more material since then, and, hopefully, made some corrections.

I've made a note to get hold of this new edition soon!

Gothick

 :Hi Midnight: thanks for posting my review.

Everyone should know that Craig Hamrick, the author of Big Lou, is having serious health issues and is not well enough to promote the book. Posting the review on your board really helps him out.

So folks, help Craig out further and spread the word about this fine tribute to Louis. 

David Nahmod

:Hi Midnight: thanks for posting my review.

Welcome, David - glad to see all your connection issues have been resolved and you're finally able to join us.

So folks, help Craig out further and spread the word about this fine tribute to Louis.

I'm sure we will. Craig is a great guy. (I'm personally indebted to him in several ways.) And it will give me great pleasure to spread the word...

It sounds as if Craig may have added more material since then, and, hopefully, made some corrections.

Very little of the original text remains unchanged - it's a pretty extensive rewrite, and the structure and tone is also very different.

Welcome, David!

BTW, when ready to order the book, I heartily recommend using the link in Stuart's review because his website is a member of Amazon.com Associates.  The way the program works is that as long as you place your order during the same visit in which you came through the fan's website (this goes for Darren Gross' and MsCriseyde's sites as well, with apologies to anyone else I may have missed) the site owner gets a small referral fee for any purchase made at that time.

Thanks, Stuart, for explaining about the revision of the book.  That's good to know.

I'm very sorry to hear about Craig's health problems.  I had heard something about him being hospitalized last year, but don't recall any details.  I will keep him in my healing thoughts and prayers.

Steve

Thanks for posting this. To make certain that I've got the correct edition in mind at Amazon, could someone kindly post the ISBN for the revised edition?

This is the record I pulled up from Amazon--is this the right one?

http://tinyurl.com/cv2l

Luciaphil,

Got this info off the publisher's site after following the link from Craig's website for "a new edition of Big Lou":

Pages: 208
ISBN: 0-595-27281-9
Published: Mar-2003

The ISBN is identical to the one on the page you found, also the page linked to Stuart's site and in David's review.

Thanks, Stuart, for explaining about the revision of the book.  That's good to know.

I'm very sorry to hear about Craig's health problems.  I had heard something about him being hospitalized last year, but don't recall any details.  I will keep him in my healing thoughts and prayers.

Steve

Craig is battling colon cancer.  He has written about his illness on http://www.darkshadowsonline.com.  He certainly has made the most of his recovery time!

Nancy

BTW, when ready to order the book, I heartily recommend using the link in Stuart's review because his website is a member of Amazon.com Associates.  The way the program works is that as long as you place your order during the same visit in which you came through the fan's website (this goes for Darren Gross' and MsCriseyde's sites as well, with apologies to anyone else I may have missed) the site owner gets a small referral fee for any purchase made at that time.

Thanks for mentioning this, Midnite. Those referral fees really do help with the web site bills. 

Indeed...  Amazon Associates is a minor godsend in that respect