cover image Colleen Dewhurst: Her Autobiography

Colleen Dewhurst: Her Autobiography

Colleen Dewhurst. Scribner Book Company, $27.5 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-684-80701-0

When Dewhurst died of cervical cancer in 1991, she had been working on her autobiography, on and off, for about 15 years. Under pressure from her publisher in 1990, she finally began making real progress on it after getting help from Viola, her friend and assistant (in her role as president of Actor's Equity). After Dewhurst's death, Viola finished the book by interspersing through the manuscript stories told by many of her longtime friends and colleagues in the theater and by her two sons. Readers are warned from the beginning that Dewhurst ""was not interested in writing a `tell-all' book,"" that some of the ""most potent memories"" she shared with Viola were about others and therefore ""theirs to tell... not mine,"" and that she was ""very discreet about private things."" But what follows is a thoroughly revealing and entertaining look into the life of a fascinating woman, from her childhood as a tomboy, her years in summer stock and the pinnacle of her success and joy in A Moon for the Misbegotten on Broadway (for which she received a Tony Award), to playing Murphy Brown's mother (for which she received an Emmy). The stories that were ""theirs to tell"" are told by Jason Robards, Zoe Caldwell, Maureen Stapleton, Edward Albee, Roscoe Lee Browne and many others. The result is a full-spectrum technicolor picture of Dewhurst the actress, the political activist and the woman. The unique resonance of her voice and her memorable laughter leap from the page in this fine autobiography. (July)