Description: John Lahr's stunning and complex biography of his father, the legendary actor and comedian Bert Lahr
Notes on a Cowardly Lion is John Lahr's masterwork: an all-encompassing biography of his father, the comedian and performer Bert Lahr. Best known as the Cowardly Lion in MGM's classic The Wizard of Oz, Lahr was a consummate artist whose career spanned burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. While he could be equally raucous and polished in public, Lahr was painfully insecure and self-absorbed in private, keeping his family at arm's length as he quietly battled his inner demons. Told with an impressive objectivity and keen understanding of the construction--and destruction--of the performer, Notes on a Cowardly Lion is more than one man's quest to understand his father; it is an extraordinary examination of a life in American show business.Brief description: John Lahr (b. 1941) is an acclaimed author. He was the senior drama critic at the New Yorker for twenty years. He has twice received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and was the first critic to win a Tony Award, for co-authoring Elaine Stritch at Liberty. The author of eighteen books, ranging from fiction to biography, Lahr is best known for Notes on a Cowardly Lion: The Biography of Bert Lahr (1969) and Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton (1978), which was made into a film. He lives in London.
Review Quotes: "John Lahr is frank and objective about his father. . . . The past becomes present in this biography, so that we come to know and understand the actor as clearly as the man." --The New York Times Book Review
"Endlessly fascinating, excellent . . . A work of literature, a work of history, a subtle psychological study." --Harper's Magazine