A huge fan of the late actor, Laurence Harvey, I spent years trying to find a good, reasonably priced copy of this book by his wife, Paulene Stone so I was very pleased to finally locate a first edition on Amazon and couldn't wait to start reading it.
Modern 'kiss and tell' biographies are the sort of things I go out of my way to avoid. 'One Tear is Enough' is very different; it's not so much a biography of Harvey, rather as the title suggests it's a biography of a relationship, of two conjoined lives. And very glamorous lives they are too - Harvey by the point they meet in 1966 the older, well established actor with a playboy reputation and a penchant for older women and Paulene Stone a beautiful model and one of the 'faces' of the decade.
This is no cloddish, showbiz tale poorly told. Peter Evans, who introduced them to each other and who had by this point written biographies of Brigitte Bardot and Peter Sellers, collaborated with Stone in the writing and this effectively appears to have shifted the telling of the tale from the dull, linear narrative it might have been to a story that deftly changes pace, that moves easily between different points in time - yet with clarity, never confusing the reader. This is a very easy book to read and rather a page-turner because of the quality of the narrative.
What emerges beyond all else is that this is very definitely more a love story than a showbiz story. Given Harvey's tragically early death from stomach cancer, the book could have descended into mawkish sentimentality yet it never does - and so proves a rather fitting paean to the man of courage Paulene Stone sheds light upon.
Being a Laurence Harvey fan has never been a particularly easy ride. References to his alleged courting of older women in order to further his own career abound and certainly some actors and actresses appear to have disliked the man or not to have rated his performances too highly. As a fan too of old British cinema, it has sometimes struck me that more bile has been spilled in relation to Harvey than to any other actor of his generation. I'm not sure why - not only is he in my view a very good actor, he also featured in some of the most celebrated films from the fifties and sixties. 'One Tear' puts forward some possible reasons for his mixed reputation which are convincing enough and for a fan, it's good to have some balance.
Certainly Laurence Harvey was no saint - this book seeks to present not exactly a 'warts and all' account but there are times when one can only sympathise with Paulene Stone as he is apt on occasion to treat her in a very cavalier fashion. Certain elements of the story can appear rather dated - and at times perhaps Stone is too much the doormat given her own successful career - but the story never lacks credibility and if the reader tries to see it through the lens of a tale being told in 1975, this is more or less bearable. One less bearable example is when two references are made to Harvey hitting Stone which now appear rightly shocking - and even more so in light of her sanguine response to it.
As Harvey moved into his final years, the relationship between himself and Paulene Stone seems to have matured until they ultimately came to fully understand each other. Though there are some very sad moments, 'One Tear' is in the end optimistic as the power of the relationship it details has its own momentum which goes beyond Harvey's untimely demise and achieves a kind of immortality in his surviving partner and children.
I'd highly recommend 'One Tear is Enough' to any Laurence Harvey fan - but equally, this is worth a read for cinema buffs and those with a passing interest in 'Swinging London'. It also says a lot about the perennial subject of love and its endurance especially when ill health threatens. Though I'd longed to own this book, my expectations were low in terms of how good it would actually be - actually it was great! Paulene Stone's voice rang out very much from the pages, I felt - and this increased the feeling of intimacy between reader and author/s. A good read.
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