Big Time. La Gran Vida De Perico Vidal: 139 (Libros del Asteroide)

A biography of Perico Vidal, one of the most important Spanish figures in film who is largely unknown outside of Hollywood circles, Big Time tells the story of a man about town who never wanted to appear in photographs—or the limelight. Vidal made his debut as Orson Welles’s assistant on Mr. Arkadin; he worked with Mankiewicz on Suddenly, Last Summer; he met David Lean on the Lawrence of Arabia set and became an indispensable asset to him on Doctor Zhivago; and Frank Sinatra himself introduced him as his friend, the man who saved his life in Spain. Everybody knew Vidal. At his penthouse in Madrid—christened the Vidal Inn by Christian Marquand—parties full of celebrities went on endlessly. He lived life on top in jazzy 1950s Barcelona and Americano 1960s Madrid, soaking up Harlem, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Cuernavaca along the way. Big Time—both the book’s title and Vidal’s life motto—is told by Perico Vidal and his daughter Alana, chronicling the life of a vivacious character and an incomparable era.

Marcos Ordóñez is a writer, a columnist, and a film and theater critic. He writes a weekly column and a weekly theater review for El País and is the author of the nonfiction books Beberse la vida: Ava Gardner en España and Telón de fondo. His fiction includes Comedia con fantasmas, Detrás del hielo, Un jardín abandonado por los pájaros, Rancho aparte, and Una vuelta por el Rialto, among other books.