Showman the Life of David O Selznick - Softcover

Thomson, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349105235 ISBN 13: 9780349105239

Publisher: Abacus, 1993

Synopsis

David O. Selnick, the legendary producer of "Gone With the Wind", is portrayed in this full-scale biography by the first writer to be given complete access to Selnick's voluminous and revealing correspondence. No other Hollywood giant ever had so much to say; no other was reckless enough to leave so much on record. The most charming, talented, insanely workaholic, insecure, amorous and self-destructive of all the geniuses of American moviemaking, Selnick's story is the history of the picture business; his private life was the stuff that films are made of. Played out with increasing melodrama, the Selznick dynasty is celebrated here in detail, from immigrant beginnings to the pinnacle of success with the making of such greats as "King Kong", "Anna Karenina" and "The Third Man", only to suffer in the depths of anti-climax with alcoholism, mental illness and suicide.

About this title

About the Author:

David Thomson is London-born but has lived and worked in California for over twenty years. He writes and reviews films regularly for major press publications.

From Publishers Weekly:

David Selznick (1902-1965) was 20 when his father, a high-rolling silent film producer/distributor, went bankrupt. Bent on fame, wealth and publicity, the precocious son who had served his domineering father as a sorcerer's apprentice would actually surpass his father. In his entertaining, prodigiously researched biography, Thomson characterizes Selznick as an arrogant manipulator, a megalomaniac hooked on Benzedrine, a brash charmer who believed he was pursuing perfection as a noble aim neglected by Hollywood. A walking contradiction, the highly sexed mogul made a pass at nearly every woman he employed but shied away from the erotic on screen. The self-educated high-school dropout produced Anna Karenina, David Copperfield, Dinner at Eight, Gone with the Wind and King Kong. Thomson, a novelist and author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film, has written a scintillating bio that includes glimpses of Garbo, Hepburn, Gable, Olivier, Dietrich, Graham Greene, Alfred Hitchcock and dozens of others. The book follows Selznick's trajectory from expansive creator to suspicious negotiator preoccupied with a fear of failure. Photos. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0349105235
• ISBN 13: 9780349105239
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 820