Bogart - Softcover

Sperber, A. M.; Lax, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0688161057 ISBN 13: 9780688161057

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1998

Synopsis

He was a top box-office draw in his day, an Oscar-winning actor, a principled man of rare conviction, and--long after his death--a cult figure revered by moviegoers who weren't even born while he was making his movies. But over the years, Humphrey Bogart has remained an enigma, despite what we have learned of him from wife Lauren Bacall's own fond memories and from the various biographies that have appeared over the years since his death in 1957.

With Bogart, this wonderful enigma is brought under the light as never before. Although authors Ann M. Sperber and Eric Lax never met, Bogart is a unique collaboration, combining the strengths of two prize-winning biographers. Sperber, the author of the New York Times best-selling Pulitzer-Prize finalist Murrow: His Life and Times (1986), spent seven years before her death in 1994 amassing a vast archive of original research on the life and times of Humphrey Bogart, including more than 200 interviews she conducted with people who had known and worked with him, including Katharine Hepburn and John Huston. Eric Lax, whose Woody Allen was a national bestseller in 1991, took over the project after Sperber's death and spent two years completing it. The result is the definitive portrait of the actor who merged his screen anti-heroism with his own staunch personal integrity in a manner new to Hollywood, fashioning a persona as timely today, forty years after his death, as it was during his own life.

About this title

Review:

"Dramatic, historically informative, and elegiac, [Bogart] exemplifies an honorable standard in the uneven world of film biographies."--Kirkus Reviews

"The last word on a legend."--Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography

"An immediate triumph...so rich in its research, so compelling in its writing, it is an absorbing human story of the motion picture business in the age of Humphrey Bogart."--Los Angeles Times

"A very well done volume."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"This model biography should become the standard study of Bogart."--Library Journal

Dramatic, historically informative, and elegiac, [Bogart] exemplifies an honorable standard in the uneven world of film biographies. --Kirkus Reviews"

The last word on a legend. --Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography"

An immediate triumph...so rich in its research, so compelling in its writing, it is an absorbing human story of the motion picture business in the age of Humphrey Bogart. --Los Angeles Times"

A very well done volume. --Michiko Kakutani, New York Times"

This model biography should become the standard study of Bogart. --Library Journal"

From the Back Cover:

Bogart paints an indelible portrait of a complex man, from the privilege and abuse he experienced in childhood to his triumphant 1935 acting breakthrough in The Petrified Forest to his classic roles as the cynical idealist Rick of Casablanca and the drunken yet lovable Charlie Allnut in The African Queen.

Based on more than two hundred interviews, years of research, and documents ranging from Warner Brothers script reports to an extensive FBI file, this is the definitive account of the immortal actor, painted against a backdrop of studio politics during Hollywood's Golden Age and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy era.

Bogart is engrossing and unforgettable--a biography as towering as the legend at its heart.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0688161057
• ISBN 13: 9780688161057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 676