Scott Eyman

From New York Times bestselling author Scott Eyman, this is the story one of the most influential studios in film history, from its glory days under the leadership of legendary movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck up to its 2019 buyout by Disney.March 20, 2019 marked the end of an era -- Disney took ownership of the movie empire that was Fox. For almost a century before that historic date, Twentieth Century-Fox was one of the preeminent producers of films, stars, and filmmakers. Its unique identity in the industry and place in movie history is unparalleled -- and one of the greatest stories to come out of Hollywood. One man, a legendary producer named Darryl F. Zanuck, is the heart of the story. This narrative tells the complete tale of Zanuck and the films, stars, intrigue, and innovations of the iconic studio that was.

Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of films among them such American masterpieces asThe Searchers The Grapes of Wrath The Quiet Man Stagecoach and How Green Was My Valley John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film he was reticent about his personal life Basically shy and intensely private he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen Now in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America s true cinematic giants noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman working with the full participation of the Ford estate has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Ford s life the human and the legend

These interviews give us new insight into cinematographers special field of filmmaking Excellent period photos of the craftsmen at work are important additions to the comments The selection of cinematographers could hardly have been better

Highly recommended (Library Journal): The only full-length biography of legendary film director Ernst Lubitsch, the director of such Hollywood classics as Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, and The Shop Around the Corner.In this groundbreaking biography of Ernst Lubitsch, undeniably one of the most important and influential film directors and artists of all time, critic and biographer Scott Eyman, author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller John Wayne, examines not just the films Lubitsch created, but explores as well the life of the man, a life full of both great successes and overwhelming insecurities. The result is a fascinating look at a man and an eraHollywoods Golden Age.Born in Berlin and transported to Hollywood in the 1920s with the help of Mary Pickford, Lubitsch brought with him a level of sophistication and subtlety previously unknown to American movie audiences. He was quickly established as a director of unique quality and distinction. He captivated audiences with his unique touch, creating a world of fantasy in which men are tall and handsome (unlike Lubitsch himself) and humorously adept at getting women into bed, and where all the women are beautiful and charming and capable of giving as well as receiving love. He revived the flagging career of Marlene Dietrich and, in Ninotchka, created Greta Garbos most successful film. When movie buffs speak of the Lubitsch touch, they refer to a sense of style and taste, humor and humanity that defined the films of one of Hollywoods all-time great directors. In the history of the medium, no one has ever quite equaled his unique talent.Written with the cooperation of an extraordinary ensemble of eyewitnesses, and unprecedented access to the files of Paramount Pictures, this is an enthralling biography as rich and diverse as its subjectsure to please film buffs of all types, especially those who champion Lubitsch as one of the greatest filmmakers ever.

The shocking (The Wall Street Journal), must-read story of Charlie Chaplins years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film career, from bestselling biographer Scott Eyman.Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplins fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold.Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US after a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland and made his last two films in London.In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. One of the finest surveys of the man and the artist ever written (Leonard Maltin) this book is a sobering account of cancel culture in action. (The Economist).

Lion of Hollywood is the definitive biography of Louis B. Mayer, the chief of Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMGMthe biggest and most successful film studio of Hollywoods Golden Age.An immigrant from tsarist Russia, Mayer began in the film business as an exhibitor but soon migrated to where the action and the power wereHollywood. Through sheer force of energy and foresight, he turned his own modest studio into MGM, where he became the most powerful man in Hollywood, bending the film business to his will. He made great films, including the fabulous MGM musicals, and he made great stars: Garbo, Gable, Garland, and dozens of others. Through the enormously successful Andy Hardy series, Mayer purveyed family values to America. At the same time, he used his influence to place a federal judge on the bench, pay off local officials, cover up his stars indiscretions and, on occasion, arrange marriages for gay stars. Mayer rose from his impoverished childhood to become at one time the highest-paid executive in America.Despite his power and money, Mayer suffered some significant losses. He had two daughters: Irene, who married David O. Selznick, and Edie, who married producer William Goetz. He would eventually fall out with Edie and divorce his wife, Margaret, ending his life alienated from most of his family. His chief assistant, Irving Thalberg, was his closest business partner, but they quarreled frequently, and Thalbergs early death left Mayer without his most trusted associate. As Mayer grew older, his politics became increasingly reactionary, and he found himself politically isolated within Hollywoods small conservative community.Lion of Hollywood is a three-dimensional biography of a figure often caricatured and vilified as the paragon of the studio system. Mayer could be arrogant and tyrannical, but under his leadership MGM made such unforgettable films as The Big Parade, Ninotchka, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and An American in Paris.Film historian Scott Eyman interviewed more than 150 people and researched some previously unavailable archives to write this major new biography of a man who defined an industry and an era.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." This line comes from director John Fords film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but it also serves as an epigram for the life of the legendary filmmaker.Through a career that spanned decades and included work on dozens of films -- among them such American masterpieces as The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My Valley -- John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film, there was at the same time a marked reticence when it came to revealing anything personal. Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him, and the message was always masculine, determined, romantic, yes, but never soft -- and always, always totally "American." If there were other aspects to his personality, moods and subtleties that werent reflected on the screen, then no one really needed to know.Indeed, what mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen. And if it varied from reality, what did it matter? When you are creating legend, fact becomes a secondary matter.Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of Americas true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Fords life -- the human being and the legend.Going well beyond the legend, Eyman has explored the many influences that were brought to play on this remarkable and complex man, and the result is a rich and involving story of a great film director and of the world in which he lived, as well as the world of Hollywood legend that he helped to shape. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews and research on three continents, Scott Eyman explains how a saloon-keepers son from Maine helped to shape Americas vision of itself, and how a man with only a high school education came to create a monumental body of work, including films that earned him six Academy Awards -- more than any filmmaker before or since. He also reveals the truth of Fords turbulent relationship with actress Katharine Hepburn, recounts his stand for freedom of speech during the McCarthy witch-hunt -- including a confrontation with archconservative Cecil B. DeMille -- and discusses his disfiguring alcoholism as well as the heroism he displayed during World War II.Brilliant, stubborn, witty, rebellious, irascible, and contradictory, John Ford remains one of the enduring giants in what is arguably Americas greatest contribution to art -- the Hollywood movie. In Print the Legend, Scott Eyman has managed at last to separate fact from legend in writing about this remarkable man, producing what will remain the definitive biography of this film giant.

BEST KNOWN AS THE DIRECTOR of such spectacular films as The Ten Commandments and King of Kings, Cecil B. DeMille lived a life as epic as any of his cinematic masterpieces. As a child DeMille learned the Bible from his father, a theology student and playwright who introduced Cecil and his older brother, William, to the theater. Tutored by impresario David Belasco, DeMille discovered how audiences responded to showmanship: sets, lights, costumes, etc. He took this knowledge with him to Los Angeles in 1913, where he became one of the movie pioneers, in partnership with Jesse Lasky and Laskys brother-in-law Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn). Working out of a barn on streets fragrant with orange blossom and pepper trees, the Lasky company turned out a string of successful silents, most of them directed by DeMille, who became one of the biggest names of the silent era. With films such as The Squaw Man, Brewsters Millions, Joan the Woman, and Dont Change Your Husband, he was the creative backbone of what would become Paramount Studios. In 1923 he filmed his first version of The Ten Commandments and later a second biblical epic, King of Kings, both enormous box-office successes. Although his reputation rests largely on the biblical epics he made, DeMilles personal life was no morality tale. He remained married to his wife, Constance, for more than fifty years, but for most of the marriage he had three mistresses simultaneously, all of whom worked for him. He showed great loyalty to a small group of actors who knew his style, but he also discovered some major stars, among them Gloria Swanson, Claudette Colbert, and later, Charlton Heston. DeMille was one of the few silent-era directors who made a completely successful transition to sound. In 1952 he won the Academy Award for Best Picture with The Greatest Show on Earth. When he remade The Ten Commandments in 1956, it was an even bigger hit than the silent version. He could act, too: in Billy Wilders classic film Sunset Boulevard, DeMille memorably played himself. In the 1930s and 1940s DeMille became a household name thanks to the Lux Radio Theater, which he hosted. But after falling out with a union, he gave up the program, and his politics shifted to the right as he championed loyalty oaths and Sen. Joseph McCarthys anticommunist witch hunts. As Scott Eyman brilliantly demonstrates in this superbly researched biography, which draws on a massive cache of DeMille family papers not available to previous biographers, DeMille was much more than his cliched image. A gifted director who worked in many genres; a devoted family man and loyal friend with a highly unconventional personal life; a pioneering filmmaker: DeMille comes alive in these pages, a legend whose spectacular career defined an era.

From acclaimed author Scott Eyman comes the fascinating story of how the transition from silent films to talkies transformed Hollywood.It was the end of an era. It was a turbulent, colorful, and altogether remarkable period, four short years in which Americas most popular industry reinvented itself.Here is the epic story of the transition from silent films to talkies, that moment when movies were totally transformed and the American public cemented its love affair with Hollywood. As Scott Eyman demonstrates in his fascinating account of this exciting era, it was a time when fortunes, careers, and lives were made and lost, when the American film industry came fully into its own.In this mixture of cultural and social history that is both scholarly and vastly entertaining, Eyman dispels the myths and gives us the missing chapter in the history of Hollywood, the ribbon of dreams by which America conquered the world.

The New York Times bestselling biography of John Wayne: authoritative and enormously engagingEyman takes you through Waynes life, his death, and his legend in a detailed, remarkably knowledgeable yet extremely readable way (Peter Bogdanovich, The New York Times Book Review).John Wayne died more than thirty years ago, but he remains one of todays five favorite movie stars. The celebrated Hollywood icon comes fully to life in this complex portrait by noted film historian and master biographer Scott Eyman.Exploring Waynes early life with a difficult mother and a feckless father, Eyman gets at the details that the bean-counters and myth-spinners missWaynes intimates have told things here that theyve never told anyone else (Los Angeles Times). Eyman makes startling connections to Waynes later days as an anti-Communist conservative, his stormy marriages to Latina women, and his notoriousand surprisingly long-livedpassionate affair with Marlene Dietrich. He also draws on the actors own business records and, of course, his storied film career.We all think we know John Wayne, in part because he seemed to be playing himself in movie after movie. Yet as Eyman carefully lays out, John Wayne was an invention, a persona created layer by layer by an ambitious young actor (The Washington Post). This is the most nuanced and sympathetic portrait available of the man who became a symbol of his country at mid-century, a cultural icon and quintessential American male against whom other screen heroes are still compared.

From film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman, the definitive, captivating (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplishedand belovedactors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today.Born Archibald Leach in 1904, Cary Grant came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience, Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs.Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest.This estimable and empathetic biography (The Washington Post) draws on Grants own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends making it a definitive and complex portrait of Hollywoods original leading man (Entertainment Weekly).

En "Print the Legend", la mirada definitiva a la vida y la carrera de uno de los auténticos gigantes del cine norteamericano, Scott, que ha trabajado en entera colaboración con la familia Ford, ha conseguido documentar y trazar ambos aspectos de la vida de Ford: el ser humano y la leyenda. El autor ha examinado yendo mucho mas alla de la leyenda, el gran numero de influencias que jugaron un papel en la personalidad de este hombre admirable y complejo, y el resultado es la apasionante historia de un gran director de cine y del mundo en que vivio, asi como la leyenda de Hollywood que el contribuyo a crear. Tras hacer mas de cien entrevistas e investigar en tres continentes, Eyman explica como el hijo de un tabernero de Maine ayudo a forjar la vision que los Estados Unidos tienen de si mismos y como un hombre que solo recibio una educacion secundaria llego -mas que ningun otro cineasta anterior o posterior- a crear un monumental conjunto de obras, entre ellas peliculas que recibieron seis Oscar. Revela tambien la verdad de la turbulenta relacion de Ford con la actriz Katharine Hepburn, relata su apuesta por la libertad de expresion durante la "Caza de Brujas" de McCarthy (incluyendo un enfrentamiento con el ultraconservador Cecil B. DeMille) y aborda su devastadora alcoholemia, al igual que el heroismo que mostro durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Brillante, tozudo, ingenioso, rebelde, irascible y contradictorio, John Ford sigue siendo uno de los gigantes mas duraderos de lo que es probablemente la contribucion americana mas importante al arte: las peliculas de Hollywood. En "Print the Legend", Scott Eyman ha conseguido por fin separar los hechos de la leyenda al escribir acerca de este hombre notable, elaborando la que llegara a ser la biografia definitiva de este gigante del cine.

[A] remarkably absorbing, supremely entertaining joint biography (The New York Times) from bestselling author Scott Eyman about the remarkable friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart, two legends of Hollywoods Golden Age who maintained a close relationship that endured all of lifes twists and turns.Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for forty years, but they became friends when they were unknown stage actors. They roomed together in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they were roommates again. Between them they made such classic films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, Its a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window.They got along famously, with a shared interest in elaborate practical jokes and model airplanes, among other things. But their friendship also endured despite their differences: Fonda was a liberal Democrat, Stewart a conservative Republican. Fonda was a ladies man who was married five times; Stewart remained married to the same woman for forty-five years. Both men volunteered during World War II and were decorated for their service. When Stewart returned home, still unmarried, he once again moved in with Fonda, his wife, and his two children, Jane and Peter, who knew him as Uncle Jimmy.For his breezy, entertaining (Publishers Weekly) Hank and Jim, biographer and film historian Scott Eyman spoke with Fondas widow and children as well as three of Stewarts children, plus actors and directors who had worked with the menin addition to doing extensive archival research to get the full details of their time together. This is not just another Hollywood story, but a fascinatingrichly documented biography (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of an extraordinary friendship that lasted through war, marriages, children, careers, and everything else.

Film and television actor and New York Times bestselling author Robert Wagners memoir of the great women movie stars he has known. In a career that has spanned more than sixty years Robert Wagner has witnessed the twilight of the Golden Age of Hollywood and the rise of television, becoming a beloved star in both media. During that time he became acquainted, both professionally and socially, with the remarkable women who were the greatest screen personalities of their day. I Loved Her in the Movies is his intimate and revealing account of the charisma of these women on film, why they became stars, and how their specific emotional and dramatic chemistries affected the choices they made as actresses as well as the choices they made as women. Among Wagners subjects are Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Gloria Swanson, Norma Shearer, Loretta Young, Joan Blondell, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Dorothy Lamour, Debra Paget, Jean Peters, Linda Darnell, Betty Hutton, Raquel Welch, Glenn Close, and the two actresses whom he ultimately married, Natalie Wood and Jill St. John. In addition to offering perceptive commentary on these women, Wagner also examines topics such as the strange alchemy of the camerahow it can transform the attractive into the stunning, and vice versaand how the introduction of color brought a new erotic charge to movies, one that enabled these actresses to become aggressively sexual beings in a way that that black and white films had only hinted at. Like Wagners two previous bestsellers, I Loved Her in the Movies is a privileged look behind the scenes at some of the most well-known women in show business as well as an insightful look at the sexual and romantic attraction that created their magic.

The definitive biography of Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, from acclaimed film historian and New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman, is the story of Hollywood stardom itself (The New Yorker).Joan Crawford burst out of her poverty-stricken youth to become a bright young movie star in the 1920s, drawing the admiration of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the attention of audiences worldwide. She flourished for decades, working across genres, from romance to westerns (Mildred Pierce, Johnny Guitar) to musicals and noir (Torch Song, A Womans Face). Along the way she accumulated four husbands, an Academy Award for Best Actress, and the undeniable status of a legend. One of the greatest Hollywood biographers of all time, Scott Eyman draws on never before seen documents from the Crawford estate delivering the first full telling of the movie stars dazzling, turbulent life which is a cinematic experience in itself (Salon).

A New York Times bestseller and a charming tribute (Kirkus) to Hollywoods most beloved era Film and television star Robert Wagner has been delighting audiences for more than sixty years, and his many fans flocked to bookstores when he began to record his memories on the page. In his second New York Times bestseller, Wagner shares stories of Hollywood life behind the scenes from the 1930s through the 1950s. As poignant as it is revealingand filled with magical moments like Judy Garland singing Gershwin at a dinner party thrown by Clifton Webb and golf games with Fred AstaireYou Must Remember This is Wagners tender farewell to a legendary era.

En esta exhaustiva biografía de Lubitsch, la más completa y documentada hasta la fecha, repasamos la vida y obra de uno de los cineastas más influyentes de estos cien años de la historia del cine. Que cineastas de la talla de Billy Wilder y Joseph L. Mankiewicz le hayan reconocido publicamente como su maestro es algo practicamente irrepetible. Nadie que haya hecho comedia en los ultimos tres cuartos de siglo XX podra declararse ajeno a la personalidad y la obra del genial judio aleman. Lubitsch escribio junto a guionistas que a su lado brillaron como nunca, entre ellos Hans Kraly, Ernest Vajda, Samson Raphaelson, Walter Reisch, Henry y Phoebe Ephron, Ben Hecht, Billy Wilder y Charles Brackett, y todos ellos reconocen que escribieron con el y no para el, lo cual ya es mucho decir. A ellos podriamos añadir una lista enorme de personalidades del cine que reconocen sus influencias y su admiracion por el gran maestro de la comedia. Sus coetaneos sin excepcion expresaron su respeto y admiracion por su trabajo, los Griffith, De Mille, Sternberg, Chaplin, Lang, etc. Peliculas como "Ser o no ser", "Ninotchka", "El bazar de las sorpresas" o "El pecado de Cluny Brown" hablan por si solas de su genio mil veces imitado, pero en este libro tendras testimonios del propio Lubitsch y de quien

Biografía definitiva del director John Ford, que explora su vida, obra y contribución al lenguaje cinematográfico.

El león de Hollywood es el retrato tridimensional de un personaje apasionante. A comienzos del siglo XX, unos visionarios llegaron a un pueblo cerca de Los Çngeles y crearon al tiempo una gigantesca industria y el arte que definiria ese siglo. De entre esos pioneros del cine hay una figura que destaca por encima de las demas, por la fuerza de su personalidad y por los estudios cinematograficos que creo, paradigma del studio system del Hollywoodde la edad de oro: Louis B. Mayer. Nacido en Rusia y llegado muy joven a Estados Unidos, Mayer fue un autentico self-made man, y gracias a su incombustible energia y a su intuicion creo la Metro Goldwyn Mayer y se convirtio en el hombre mas poderoso de Hollywood, capaz de modelar la industria a su antojo.Produjo peliculas inolvidables como Ninotchka, Ben-Hur, El mago de Oz o Un americano en Paris y lanzo a grandes estrellas: Garbo, Gable, Garland y decenas mas. Asimismo, uso su influencia para elegir jueces, sobornar a la policia local, tapar los escandalos de sus estrellas y controlar a la prensa. El leon de Hollywood es el retrato tridimensional de un personaje apasionante, un titan de la historia del cine que a menudo hasido caricaturizado y