Description: Mann offers a comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. He details their early years, paints a vivid portrait of their courtship and twelve-year marriage, and offers a sympathetic yet clear-eyed portrait of Bacall's life after Bogie. Mann considers their relationship from surprising angles, and in doing so offers a fresh look at this famous couple, their remarkable relationship, and their legacy. -- adapted from jacket
Brief description:
William J. Mann is the New York Times bestselling author of The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando; Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn; How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood; Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand; Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines; and Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood, winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Award. He divides his time between Connecticut and Cape Cod.
Review Quotes:
" Big, sprawling, meticulously researched. . . . Tells us everything we ever wanted to know about the man and then some." - Washington Post on The Contender
"Structuring his biography like a film, Mann jumps from one key moment in Brando's life to another--the dysfunctional family life, the great movie roles, the tempestuous and often callous relationships with lovers, the tragedies that befell his children--and, while the book brings something new and often revelatory to all of these familiar aspects of the Brando saga, Mann is at his best when he digs into Brando's tortured relationship with acting itself. . . . A compelling biography, rich in complexity and irony." - Booklist (starred review) on The Contender
"Mann uses painstaking years of research, conversations with those who knew Brando best, and his own knack for delving into the lives of Hollywood luminaries to offer fans up a staggeringly comprehensive tale of Brando's life." - Entertainment Weekly on The Contender
"Engrossing.... Scrupulously attending to the distinct personalities, cultural conditions, and media environment that joined forces to create `arguably Hollywood's greatest love story, ' Mann delivers a spirited narrative that's hard to put down....Film buffs will eat this up." - Publishers Weekly
"Well-researched . . . . Mann is perceptive, careful and experienced in writing about the film business." - David Thomson, London Review of Books