John Wayne: The Life and Legend (eBook)

Scott Eyman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014 | 1. Auflage
672 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-1-4391-9960-2 (ISBN)

Infos

John Wayne was one of Hollywood's most famous and most successful actors, but he was more than that. He became a symbol of America itself. He epitomized the Western film, which for many people epitomized America. He identified with conservative political causes from the early 1930s to his death in 1979, making him a hero to one generation of Americans and a villain to another. But unlike fellow actor Ronald Reagan, Wayne had no interest in politics as a career. Like many stars, he altered his life story, claiming to have become an actor almost by accident when in fact he had studied drama and aspired to act for most of his youth. He married three times, all to Latina women, and conducted a lengthy affair with Marlene Dietrich, as unlikely a romantic partner as one could imagine for the Duke. Wayne projected dignity, integrity, and strength in all his films, even when his characters were flawed, and whatever character he played was always prepared to confront injustice in his own way. More than thirty years after his death, he remains the standard by which male stars are judged and an actor whose morally unambiguous films continue to attract sizeable audiences.

Scott Eyman interviewed Wayne, as well as many family members, and he has drawn on previously unpublished reminiscences from friends and associates of the Duke in this biography, as well as documents from his production company that shed light on Wayne's business affairs. He traces Wayne from his childhood to his stardom in Stagecoach and dozens of films after that. Eyman perceptively analyzes Wayne's relationship with John Ford, the director with whom he's most associated and who made some of Wayne's greatest films, among them She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, and The Searchers. His evaluation of Wayne himself is shrewd: a skilled actor who was reluctant to step outside his comfort zone. Wayne was self-aware, he once said, 'I've played the kind of man I'd like to have been.' It's that man and the real John Wayne who are brilliantly profiled in Scott Eyman's insightful biography of a true American legend.

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The New York Times bestselling biography of John Wayne: ';authoritative and enormously engagingEyman takes you through Wayne's 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.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.4.2014
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• ISBN-10: 1-4391-9960-4 / 1439199604
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-9960-2 / 9781439199602