Lewis Yablonsky (1924–2014)

I’m a big unabashed George Raft fan. Recently having read Stone Wallace’s biography of Raft — which I highly recommend, it’s terrific — which mentioned Yablonsky’s earlier bio as being excellent as well, I wanted to pick this one up at some point. Luckily a good friend of mine gave it to me as a gift and it’s turned out to be a wonderful read. I don’t think this one is better than Wallace’s, neither do I think it’s not as informative. If you’re a fan of Raft, or even if you’re not because of all you’ve heard, and what you “think” you know about him — maybe especially then — I recommend both.

I’m not going to go into minute detail about incidents and aspect of Raft’s life, I’l leave that for the reader on this occasion. I will say, that as I already knew, Raft was a man of contradictions because he lived by his own code. He was certainly the real deal, unlike a ton of other Hollywood stars. Cagney knew, everybody knew. Raft was kind, a gentlemen, but also had a volatile temper. He was always ready to give you the shirt off his back if you were down on your luck. If you could, you could ask Lucille Ball, she’d tell you. Yes, he lived lavishly, yes, he loved the opposite sex. And yes, he had a lot of shady friends, though he himself had only skirted around the business coming up. But, like Allen Iverson, he refused to ignore the good qualities and friendships of old pals once he was a star — a much bigger star than most people today realize.

Those who whine about his well documented casual associations with Lansky and Siegel need to ask themselves if they would have preferred that the careers of James Cagney and Gary Cooper had been cut short — fatally short. Because if not for Raft, they would have been. In a way, being such a good guy and living by his own code rather than that of others cost Raft dearly. Yet Raft looked back on the 1930s and 1940s as the best time of his life. I love Raft films and I love Raft, and this warts and all examination of his life and career did nothing to dissuade me of that opinion. In real time, he was adored by fans, the man and woman on the street. They could identify with Raft because they felt he was not only genuine, but one of their own — a talented guy who’d got lucky and made the most of it. And they were right. Raft lived the good life, and he was willing to share it with others, even to his detriment.

Raft’s tale is not without tragedy, especially of the romantic kind. He had a wife who refused to divorce him so that he could make a new life with — anyone. Those anyones included Virginia Hill, Norma Shearer, and Betty Grable, who as another reviewer noted, said in all seriousness she fell in love instantly and would have married Raft after the first date. So much for modern nitwits who scoff at romantic love happening quick for some, yet embrace all manner of insta-sex. Raft got to a point where his heart was all beat up by the frustration of losing out on his chance for marital bliss, so he went in whole hog with shallow one-night-stands. There too, he was reportedly the real deal; more than one trustworthy female confirmed that Raft put Flynn and Barrymore to shame. Yet it’s also sad, because it was never what he wanted. He cared deeply for Hill, Shearer, and Grable. Raft would have loved to remarry, but he couldn’t, so he lost out on love and happiness.

Some would call certain career choices by Raft misguided and foolish, but Raft had insecurities, and he wanted to be remembered a certain way. Both Yablonsky’s bio and that of Stone Wallace, which I also recommend, paint a picture of a flawed man whose good qualities far outweighed the suspect ones. Raft is underrated, an intuitive actor who relied on the character becoming George Raft, rather than the other way around. It worked, because the public loved and adored him in real time, despite how he’s viewed today. How beloved he was is evident from the list of people who came to his aid — he never would have asked, he was too proud — when a lot of things began to go south.

If you don’t like Raft and have a better understanding of him as an individual, and as a star personality after reading this bio, especially if you combine it with that of Stone Wallace’s, well, that’s on you. Bios are more often than not salacious nonsense, gossip and half-truths. None more so than bios of Hollywood stars from the 1930s and 1940s. The bigger the star, the worse the bio, generally. Yet here is a huge star who has not one, but two very excellent bios. That alone should tell you about the kind of guy Raft was…… (mer)

review of
Lewis Yablonsky's Robopaths
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 14, 2008

This isn't, necessarily, a GREAT bk. Yet, I give it a 5 star rating & recommend it to everyone. Published in 1972 when I was 18 & 19, this describes the world I grew up in as perfectly as anything I've ever read. The filmic companion to it cd be Peter Watkins' "Punishment Park". I'll be making a short movie called "Robopaths" wch excerpts text from the bk. [May 1, 2014 interpolation: I actually made a feature-length movie (1:48:20) that I finished in May, 2012. More info can be found about that by looking at entry 369 here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/tENTMoviesIndex.html . Despite at least 5 tries to screen it somewhere I've been unsuccessful as of 2 yrs later.] Below are a few of those quotes from early in the bk:

Paradoxically, although it is increasingly a distinct possibility, the final outcome of people versus their technological robots may not be the total physical annihilation of people. People may in a subtle fashion become robot-like in their interaction and become human robots or robopaths. This more insidious conclusion to the present course of action would be the silent disappearance of human interaction. In another kind of death, social death, people would be oppressively locked into robot-like interaction in human groups that had become social machines. In this context, the apocalypse would come in the form of people mouthing ahuman, regimented platitudes on a meaningless dead stage.
The relationship between potential social death and imminent megamachine wars that cause physical death is complex. A fact that can not be ignored is that it is after all the masses of people who ultimately permit their energies and financial resources to be heavily spent on ecologically suicidal technology and doomsday machines. If a majority of people in a society permit, or desire, this condition to exist they must be relatively devoid of compassion and humanistic values; or, to take a more charitable view, they have become so out of touch with reality, and have become so powerless, that they no longer exert any control over their elected acompassionate robopathic leaders.
Whatever the reasons, the people in power are actually developing the technological machinery for "a world wired for death," and a majority of people in contemporary societies are socially dead, living a day-to-day robopathic existence.

- page xiii, Robopaths - People As Machines: Preface, Lewis Yablonsky, 1972


Robopaths enact ritualistic behavior patterns in the context of precisely defined and accepted norms and rules. Robopaths have a limited ability to be spontaneous, to be creative, to change direction, or to modify their behavior in terms of new conditions. They are comfortable with the all-encompassing social machine definitions for behavior. Even the robopath's most emotional behavior is ritualistic and programmed. Sex, violence, hostility, recreation are all preplanned, pre-packaged activities, and robopaths respond on cue. The frequency, quality, and duration of most robopaths' behavior is predetermined by societal definition.

- page 7, Robopaths - People As Machines: Robopaths, Lewis Yablonsky, 1972


In a robopathic-producing social machine, conformity is a virtue. New or different behavior is viewed as strange and bizarre. "Freaks" are feared. Originality is suspect.

- page 8, Robopaths - People As Machines: Robopaths, Lewis Yablonsky, 1972


As a child a strong attempt was made to impose a completely robopathic regimen onto me: I was expected to mow the lawn regardless of whether the grass had grown to the height of the cutting blades, I wasn't allowed to sit on the furniture in the living room, there was a certain routine for putting butter on bread that was to be strictly followed, it went on & on. Naturally, I was in trouble a fair amt.

Yablonsky differentiates between sociopaths & robopaths by explaining that sociopaths commit their victimizations outside of the rules of society & that robopaths commit them w/in. B/c of this latter, no matter how heinous the effects of a robopath's behavior, it's all well & good & sanctioned by society. The robopaths can even be self-righteous about it. War? Genocide? No problem. All approved by the robopathic society, the social machine.… (mer)