Little Richard: I Am Everything, on CNN

He truly was the “architect of rock & roll.” Richard Wayne Penniman was rocking before Elvis and at one point he had Jimi Hendrix in his band. His shows had more energy than Springsteen’s and more flamboyance than Elton John’s. Actually, his flamboyance is a major focus of Lisa Cortes’ documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything, which airs Monday on CNN.

Penniman was the third son out of twelve children for his father, a Pentecostal deacon and bootlegger, who often took issue with the future rocker, because he was small, sensitive, and gay. That last part is maybe a little more complicated, but not to his dad. Of course, Penniman could sing, starting in the Church and then on the chitlin circuit (which sometimes included drag performances).

While giving a rough chronology of Little Richard’s life and career, Cortes’ central theme is the tension between his sexuality and his Evangelical Christianity. She also interviews his longtime off-and-on girlfriend Lee Angel at length, which is where some of those complications come in. Yet, there is no mention of his classic supporting turn in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which contributed considerably to his 1980s comeback (the soundtrack also featured one of his final hits, “Great Gosh A’Mighty”). On the plus side, the coverage of Little Richard’s gospel period is pretty solid.

Maybe his identity issues will mean a lot to some people, but his fans would probably rather hear more about his music. Little Richard is a legend, so it is nice to get some sense of his personality. Even today, his wicked sense of humor still often plays like knowingly outrageous performance art. Yet, he is still entitled to some privacy, even posthumously, which is why Cortes’ obsessive interest in his romantic life and sexual pursuits sometime feels excessive and intrusive, especially when there is so little song-by-song discussion of his recorded output.

Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, on CNN

Dionne Warwick almost sang a Bond theme, but “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” was replaced by Tom Jones’ “Thunderball” at the last minute, because the producers were so literal-minded. Nobody mentions it in her documentary, probably because she had 56 other singles that hit the charts, making her one of the top-selling recording artists of all time. Warwick looks back on her life and career in David Heilbroner & Dave Wooley’s Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, which airs Sunday night on CNN.

Warwick is widely considered the first vocalist to fully crossover from R&B to pop. Her long association with the song-writing duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David is the major reason why. They have been dismissed as loungey, but tunes like “Alfie,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “Always Something There to Remind Me” are quite interesting musically. If nothing else, Heilbroner and Wooley will convince viewers the time has come for an in-depth documentary profile of Bacharach.

Jazz fans will also be interested to know Warwick was twice married to jazz musician William Elliott, who was a sideman with Willis “Gator” Jackson and co-led a session with Joe Thomas. Their first marriage was sort of a false start, but the second take lasted twelve years—and Warwick’s memories of it sound mostly positive. It was with Elliott that Warwick had her two sons, Damon and Elliott, who are far and away the doc’s funniest interview subjects.

Julia (Child) on CNN

You have to appreciate a celebrity chef who acknowledges the five-second rule. Julia Child wasn’t above brushing off a little dirt from kitchen mishaps, which was one of the reasons she was so fun to watch. For years, she was also the original and only really notable TV chef. If she were alive today, she would probably have her own streaming channel, but the magnitude of her success in her time was still no can of corn. Julie Cohen & Betsy West chronicle Child’s life and career in the documentary Julia, which airs tomorrow on CNN.

Before she served dinner, Child served her country as a staffer for the OSS, Wild Bill Donovan’s forerunner agency to the CIA. Her family insists she never did any spycraft, but that still seems like a good idea for a fictional thriller. Regardless, she met her future husband, Paul Cushing Child, when they were both posted to Ceylon. Eventually, his career in the Foreign Service brought them to France, where she met Simone Beck and started collaborating on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, an unusually detailed cookbook, intended for American readers.

Public television was pretty grim in the early 1960s, but WGBH viewers appreciated how she livened up a book review program, by demonstrating the proper technique for making an omelet. As a result, they took a chance on a show of her own, The French Chef. The best part of the doc gives a behind-the-scenes view of its early, by-the-seat-of-its pants years. The production process might have been an adventure, but the show was an immediate hit.

Everyone gives Child credit for making PBS watchable, yet Public Broadcasting thought it was time to put her out to pasture in the early 1980s, so she signed with Good Morning America instead. It is clear throughout Julia that Child was a shrewd capitalist. However, Cohen & West (whose RBG celebrated Justice Ginsburg for having a kneejerk political record on the bench, rather than a coherent judicial philosophy) do their best to transform Child into a divisive figure, by celebrating her liberal activism.

Reframed: Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe is a lot like John Wayne—stay with me here—in that they are still just about as popular now as they were at the height of their fame and they still mean exactly the same things to their fans. In Monroe’s case, that would be sex appeal first and foremost, but also music and comedy. Unfortunately, that led to a career of typecasting and underestimation for the iconic movie star. A nearly entirely female battery of commentators offers more sympathetic (and “feminist”) spins on Monroe’s life and career in the four-part Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, narrated by Jessica Chastain, which premieres Sunday on CNN.

Monroe is still a huge star, but she had to fight for everything she had, before tragically dying far too young. She grew up as an orphan, so she learned to make the best of things. While working in an airplane factory during WWII, Monroe caught the eye and lens of a photographer, who convinced her to start modeling professionally. Subsequently, she signed as a contract player at 20^th Century Fox, but she was initially only cast in inconsequential parts, because studio mogul Darryl Zanuck just didn’t get her.

Obviously, she eventually caught on, with the aid of some unprecedented publicity. However, the conflict between her and Zanuck was a constant refrain throughout her career. Frankly, the best parts of Reframed explore that studio intrigue. Yet, there are probably bigger villains in Reframed than Zanuck, such as Hugh Hefner, who built his empire on her nude pictorial, but never paid her a dime for the photo shoot she had signed away all rights to.

Given her enduring stature, it is pretty amazing how short Monroe’s career was, only truly “starring” in about a dozen films. Reframed nicely covers Some Like It Hot, The Misfits, Bus Stop, and The Prince and the Showgirl (which was the subject of My Week with Marilyn), but it gives rather short shrift to Niagara and almost entirely ignores Otto Preminger’s River of No Return. There are not a lot her star-vehicles, so it is a shame to gloss over an interesting one.

On the other hand, jazz fans will be happy Reframed discusses her friendship with Ella Fitzgerald. She also gets credit for her USO tour, which cemented her appeal to her military fans. Of course, her unfortunate marriages are discussed in detail, but the treatment of Joe DiMaggio is totally unfair (recycling abuse rumors, but not crediting the Yankee Clipper for his help getting her out of the Payne Whitney psych ward). Yet, the biggest oversight in Reframed is it ignores her conversion and continuing identification with Judaism. Seriously, how did Adam Sandler overlook her for “The Hanukkah Song?” Wisely, interview subjects do their best to defuse Kennedy conspiracy rumors, especially her close friend Amy Greene.

CNN/Tribeca ’21: Lady Boss

She must have led an eventful life, since this new documentary profile does not even mention she was bestowed an OBE by the Queen. Frankly, it is more concerned with the aspects of Jackie Collins’ life that were more like her bestselling novels, as her fans will appreciate. Her friends and famous sister recall how she built her brand and lived the glamorous life in Laura Fairrie’s Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story, which screens as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, before airing on CNN.

In her teen years, Collins lived in the shadow of her sister Joan, the Dynasty actress (or maybe you think of her first in the “City on the Edge of Forever” Star Trek episode). The younger Collins also tried to make it in show business, but it just didn’t happen for her. Instead, she opted for her first marriage, which would end tragically for her emotionally troubled husband. Her second husband, Oscar Lerman, was the love of her life, who encouraged her to finish her first novel. And the rest was history.

Her early novels were big hits in the UK, but she became a global bestseller when she moved to Los Angeles and focused on cracking the American market. Hollywood Wives became the breakout hit she was hoping for. However, Collins was shrewd enough to build on it. No matter what you think of her writing, many subsequent marquee authors have tried to emulate her approach to marketing, publicity, and branding—as best they can.

In fact, Lady Boss inspires nostalgia for Collins’ salad days of the 1980s. Several of her colleagues in the film liken her to a female Harold Robbins, which is indeed apt. Both wrote Horatio Alger-esque stories, in which their protagonists (men in Robbins’ case, women for Collins) manage to claw their way to wealth and power through their sheer drive and sexual confidence. Unfortunately, there is no place for a successor to either in the current cultural climate, because of puritanical attitudes towards sex and a socialistic contempt for bootstrap-success stories.

Lady Boss does a nice job of capturing the tenor of Collins’ personal relationships, especially the complicated love and sibling rivalry she shared with sister Joan. Clearly, Fairrie was blessed with access to a treasure trove of Collins’ home movies, as well as the candid participation of her three daughters and famous sister. We also hear a number of professional insights from her agent, publicist, and business manager, all of which Fairrie and editor Joe Carey cut together in a lively and sometimes ironically amusing manner.