Wanderer - Softcover

Hayden, Sterling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039333628X ISBN 13: 9780393336283

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1977

Synopsis

Sterling Hayden was at the peak of his earning power as a star when he suddenly quit. He walked out on Hollywood, walked out of a shattered marriage, defied the courts, and, broke and an outlaw, set sail with his four children in the schooner Wanderer--bound for the South Seas.

Long before he was an actor, Hayden was a seaman. He had sailed before the mast and as mate and captain in sailing ships. He had been a Grand Banks fisherman. Then Hollywood offered him a screen test. Pushed to stardom, he became the leading man to one of the screen's most beautiful women, and the money began to flow. With money and fame, however, came a gnawing dissatisfaction with his life.

His attempt to escape launches this autobiography. It is the candid, sometimes painfully revealing confession of a man who scrutinizes his every self-defeat and self-betrayal in the unblinking light of conscience. It is also the triumph of a complex and contradictory man, still a rebel and a seeker, undefeated by his failure to find himself in love, adventure, drink, or escape to the South Seas.

It is, as Eugene Burdick said of it, "utterly fascinating, written by a man who has been able to achieve an honesty about himself which is almost unique."

About this title

Review:

...one unforgettable voyage...under a captain whose words may echo in your mind and whose attitude may inform your spirit for the rest of your life. * The Times (UK) * An impressive writer. Like Fitzgerald, Hayden is a romantic. His writing about the sea evokes echoes of Conrad and McFee, of London and Galsworthy...Beautifully done. * Los Angeles Times * A superb piece of writing...Echoes from Poe and Melville to Steinbeck and Mailer. A work of fascination on every level. * New York Post * Hayden's wonderful autobiography Wanderer ...should be in every main salon aboard every boat. Hayden's life can't be emulated, but it is instructive * Ocean Navigator *

About the Author:

Sterling Hayden (1916-1986) is most widely known for his acting (Asphalt Jungle, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and The Godfather). However, throughout his life he punctuated his acting stints with bouts of adventuring, or wandering. He started out as a humble dory fisherman in the Grand Banks, captained a two-masted brig from Boston to Tahiti, and sailed around the world twice, all before he appeared on film. After his first Hollywood period, he enlisted in the marines under a pseudonym, eventually working as an undercover agent for the OSS. He split his later years between a canal boat in Paris and an apartment in Sausalito where he wrote much of his novel, Voyage.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1977
• ISBN 10: 039333628X
• ISBN 13: 9780393336283
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480