cover image Me and Bogie

Me and Bogie

Armand Deutsch. Putnam Publishing Group, $22.95 (254pp) ISBN 978-0-399-13595-8

In this anecdotal memoir, Deutsch recounts the many sports, film and media figures and even a few criminals he has known during his charmed life. The grandson of one-time Sears, Roebuck chairman Julius Rosenwald, Deutsch was raised in great wealth in Chicago. (In an eerie chapter, he tells of the plan by neighborhood acquaintances ``Dickie'' Loeb and ``Babe'' Leopold to murder him for thrills; he had a dental appointment that day and they killed Robert Franks instead.) After a stint in investment banking, Deutsch became a movie producer. Here he etches appealing portraits of, among others, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Bennett Cerf, Walter O'Malley, Jimmy Stewart, Walter Annenberg and Orvil Dryfoos. One tires, however, of the Hollywoodish tone, in which everyone is ``my good friend''--despite the title, Deutsch barely knew Humphrey Bogart--and of his lavish praise of pals Frank Sinatra and the Reagans, with barely a mention of the traits that have made them less praiseworthy to others. (May)