Robert J. Wagner, with Scott Eyman. Viking, $28.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-670-02609-8
With great affection and a twinkle in his eye, veteran actor Wagner (A Kiss Before Dying; Hart to Hart) recalls Hollywood’s glory days of the 1940s and early 1950s, when class, manners, friendship, and a code of values ruled the city of stars....
READ FULL REVIEW
Robert J. Wagner, with Scott Eyman. Viking, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-0-525-42911-1
In his third Hollywood memoir (after Pieces of My Heart), film and TV star Wagner writes a valentine to the “female movie stars that defined my generation.” He proceeds chronologically, beginning in the 1930s with Norma Shearer, “[his] first movie...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author . Simon & Schuster $35 (596p) ISBN 978-0-7432-0481-1
Anyone who's heard one of the legions of tales about obstinate Hollywood founding father Mayer's tyranny over his stars (and the entire studio system) won't be surprised to learn Mayer grew up selling scrap machinery in the eastern...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Simon & Schuster, $35 (552p) ISBN 978-0-74328-955-2
Following biographies of Ingrid Bergman, John Ford, Louis B. Mayer, Ernst Lubitsch, Louis B. Mayer, and Mary Pickford, Eyman, book editor of the Palm Beach Post, offers an in-depth look at producer-director DeMille. Born in 1881, DeMille started as...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author Dutton Books $19.95 (342p) ISBN 978-1-55611-147-1
Far superior to many movie star biographies, Eyman's portrait absorbs us in the life and times of a woman who, in his view, was at least 70 years ahead of her time. Pickford was born Gladys Smith in 1893 in Canada; she began her acting career as a...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author Simon & Schuster $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-684-81162-8
Eyman's history of the four-year transition from silent to sound film reads at times like two books expertly cut and fitted together: a solidly researched, always interesting narrative of the decline of the silent era intercut with the crazy,...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author Simon & Schuster $27.5 (416p) ISBN 978-0-671-74936-1
Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) made elegant, warmly human comedies exuding sexual sophistication, yet in his personal life, notes Eyman, the German-born film director was vulnerable and almost naive. Son of a middle-class Berlin tailor who had escaped...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author Plume Books $11.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-55611-243-0
Although she played innocents in silent movies, Pickford was tough and decisive offscreen; her achievements and failures are recorded here along with vignettes about film folk such as Buddy Rogers, her second husband. ``Eyman's portrait absorbs us...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman, Author Simon & Schuster $40 (656p) ISBN 978-0-684-81161-1
Correction: Searching for John Ford by Joseph McBride (Forecasts, Jan. 22) was misidentified as the first full-length biography of the filmmaker. In fact, it was preceded in 1999 by Scott Eyman's Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (Sim
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman. Simon & Schuster, $32.50 (512p) ISBN 978-1-4391-9958-9
Still larger than life years after his death, John Wayne elevated the western to a new level and created a legendary screen persona defined by honesty, courage, and character. Drawing deeply on interviews with family and friends, acclaimed...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman. Simon & Schuster, $29 (416p) ISBN 978-1-5011-0217-2
Henry Fonda (The Grapes of Wrath) and James Stewart (It’s a Wonderful Life), from their days as starving stage actors to their primes as Hollywood stars and into their twilight years, maintained a steady, unwavering friendship that sustained both...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman. Simon & Schuster, $35 (576p) ISBN 978-1-5011-9211-1
Film historian Eyman (Hank and Jim) presents an enjoyable if overstuffed biography that reveals screen legend Cary Grant (1904–1986) as a man whose self-presentation as a “matchless specimen of masculine charm” masked deep insecurities. Born...
READ FULL REVIEW
Scott Eyman. Simon & Schuster, $29.99 (432p) ISBN 978-1-982176-35-8
Biographer Eyman (20th Century Fox) presents a riveting account of the events that led the U.S. government in 1952 to banish Charlie Chaplin, a Brit by birth who had lived in America for decades after first arriving as a teenager. According to Eyman,
READ FULL REVIEW
