You Must Remember This is not an autobiography. However, it is a personal remembrance of how things were in the more glamorous days of Hollywood as remembered by Robert Wagner, a star who happen to have grown up amongst the people and places associated with what most of us consider to be the Golden Age of the film industry. It is a delightfully light and easy read that feels more like a personal conversation over coffee with a friend than chapters in a book. Which I believe was the point. In which case, Mr. Wagner has succeeded masterfully.
If you’re like me, you’re going to love all the little bits of inside information Wagner offers as an observer and one who lived the life of which he speaks. Because of his unique position of not only that of a movie star, but one who was an eyewitness to the growing identity of a place and industry that has become known collectively as Hollywood, Wagner provides informed observations as well as casual analysis on a time period that has too often been remarked upon by those who can only guess about the feel of a noted restaurant, the camaraderie of industry icons, and the trends of an idolized bygone era.
There are no salacious bombshells or new insights into any rumored histories. There is no out and out gossiping going on here. This is not that kind of book. On the contrary, You Must Remember This offers just the right amount of reverence balanced with factuality resulting in a peak into a world of which many of us long to have been a part. And for the time that you spend dwelling within the pages of this enchanting reminiscence you will feel that you have lived the memories yourself. They may be sparse and to the point, flowered with the sentimental eye of the passage of time, but you will have lived it in your minds eye. At the very least, you will have spent a lovely amount of quality time with Robert Wagner, and that’s something worth remembering.