- Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Thomas Allen; Reprint edition (April 1 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0547386567
- ISBN-13: 978-0547386560
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 14.2 x 3.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #319,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"...the sorts of details a reader craves...all are rendered with a verve and fluidity that keep the book moving along in a fleet fashion. [Mann] has clearly done his research and just as clearly adores his subject. [...] Taylor was at the furious center of it all, and provides as handy and captivating a guide through [the era] as any star of the 20th century could." (New York Times Book Review )
"Mann's eminently yummy entry is pretty much everything you'd want in a Hollwood biography... What does make How to Be a Movie Star distinctive is its focus on the changing nature of personal fame as embodied by a woman whose life has consisted of one superlative after another." (Salon.com )
"William Mann deftly describes how, with great self-assurance, Taylor shrewdly and methodically orchestrated that reaction on a global scale. This is a smart book about a surprisingly savvy superstar. It's one of the best Hollywood biographies I've ever read." (Ed Sikov )
"Mann's eminently yummy entry is pretty much everything you'd want in a Hollwood biography... What does make How to Be a Movie Star distinctive is its focus on the changing nature of personal fame as embodied by a woman whose life has consisted of one superlative after another." (Salon.com )
"William Mann deftly describes how, with great self-assurance, Taylor shrewdly and methodically orchestrated that reaction on a global scale. This is a smart book about a surprisingly savvy superstar. It's one of the best Hollywood biographies I've ever read." (Ed Sikov )
Product Description
William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to Elizabeth Taylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography to reveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era of Hollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star is a totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It is also a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from her mother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and early paparazzi--and, not least of all, herself.
Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbands nearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylor dominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewriting rules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by which celebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the most glamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside her privileged childhood in England to her schooling on the MGM lot (alongside Judy Garland), through her work in National Velvet, Giant, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, among other films. Whether it is her studio-arranged first marriage to Nicky Hilton (timed to create publicity for her film father of the Bride), the Eddie-Debbie-Liz scandal, or scandalous Italian romance with Richard Burton during the filming of Cleopatra, Mann offers the full, intimate account of how the actress turned into an icon. More unexpectedly is the emergence of Taylor not as the passionate, impulsive creature of circumstance depicted by previous bios, but instead a smart, shrewd player of the celebrity game who took the lessons taught by the incomparable MGM publicity masters and used them to craft her own public image in the post-studio world--a world she herself helped create, as the first female star to get a million dollars a picture and to work for a percentage of the gross.
With the help of major new interviews and never-before-tapped sources, How to Be a Movie Star tells us everything we need to know about fame and public life in the twentieth century dress in the irresistible guise of the last unrivalled star.
Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbands nearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylor dominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewriting rules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by which celebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the most glamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside her privileged childhood in England to her schooling on the MGM lot (alongside Judy Garland), through her work in National Velvet, Giant, The Last Time I Saw Paris, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, among other films. Whether it is her studio-arranged first marriage to Nicky Hilton (timed to create publicity for her film father of the Bride), the Eddie-Debbie-Liz scandal, or scandalous Italian romance with Richard Burton during the filming of Cleopatra, Mann offers the full, intimate account of how the actress turned into an icon. More unexpectedly is the emergence of Taylor not as the passionate, impulsive creature of circumstance depicted by previous bios, but instead a smart, shrewd player of the celebrity game who took the lessons taught by the incomparable MGM publicity masters and used them to craft her own public image in the post-studio world--a world she herself helped create, as the first female star to get a million dollars a picture and to work for a percentage of the gross.
With the help of major new interviews and never-before-tapped sources, How to Be a Movie Star tells us everything we need to know about fame and public life in the twentieth century dress in the irresistible guise of the last unrivalled star.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.8 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A most fascinating "back story"!!, Oct 2 2009
By A. J. Trivette - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (Hardcover)
Geez - the previous "review" must have been written by someone who is most comfortably bound inside the walls of the proverbial "box"! Derivative? Nothing interesting? The "husband" should spend less time doctoring and more time editing? Hum. "Jaded" comes immediately to mind. As a life-long admirer of the legendary Elizabeth, I "thought" I knew all the why's and wherefore's. "Thought"!! Each page of this compelling book painted a more complete picture of the events in Taylor's life than I thought I knew. The unique vantage point of this book notwithstanding, Mr. Mann has captured the unequaled glamor, and never since equaled level, of Taylor's star power more accurately than any other bio on this lady. For those who have yet to read this book, I will not go into particular situations, and the reality of them, for fear of spoiling the revelations. But, I will say the way certain events played out through the "spin" of the lead characters' publicists, as opposed to what was actually happening, rewrites much of the "history" Taylor fans have come to know - particularly the "Liz - Eddie - Debbie" situation, and the Hedda Hopper involvement throughout Taylor's life, too. Now, back to the "unique vantage point" - this book is about HOW Taylor constructed a level of stardom that had never, and will never, be seen again. It's all about the business behind the "life", and how cunning strategy, and plain old good luck, formed the public personality we've come to know as "Elizabeth Taylor". And, along the way, it gives us a more personal insight into the "private" Elizabeth Taylor than we've ever read before. "Derivative"? Uh..........I BEG to differ!!!Allan Trivette
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Overpraised junk, Oct 31 2009
By Richard A. Jenkins "Richard A. Jenkins" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (Hardcover)
Mann says he chose to emphasize Taylor's star years, although he includes a fairly lengthy treatment of her childhood. By the end of the book, it's apparent that he did so because he had so little access to people close to her and beyond a Hedda Hopper archive, he had no access to novel documentary material. The book has a breathless, often over-analyzing tone. Mann is quick to make generalizations but rarely puts Taylor or her career in a bigger context. He describes her as the last big star, but it's clear that she was really more of a transitional figure than a defining one. As an adult she was part of the studios last big cohort of truly outstanding major stars, although some people such as Paul Newman emerged later and had much longer working lives. Ironically, one of the few working contemporaries from this era is Taylor's old nemesis, Debbie Reynolds, which Mann notes in passing. In many ways, Taylor actually belongs to an earlier cohort of performers, having grown up at MGM during the latter part of its peak years. Unlike most children who grew-up on the set in those days, she came to be a rebel and seemed to lack happy memories of that time. Significantly, though, the basic skills that the studio taught, like hitting her marks, helped carry her through her later boozier years. The book ends abruptly in 1980 with the simple statement that Taylor had achieved the lasting career as "star". Yet, even then she had become a figure of derision, mostly because of her weight and Mann has to concede that some of her later choices (defending Michael Jackson, appearing in "The Flintstones") were not particularly smart. Taylor was hardly the first star to use her name for merchandising (Polly Bergen's cosmetics and Esther Williams' swimming pools predate her, among others) and she was hardly the first to trade more on celebrity than output. Perhaps she survived longer as a celeb than others, but none of this really lives up to Mann's premise for the book. There's little that will be new to film buffs. This is not as well constructed or as carefully executed as Donald Spoto's bio, and there is only minimal new "dish". If anything the book contains odd omissions. In considering all things gay and Hedda Hopper, Mann never mentions her gay son, who was best known as the detective on "Perry Mason", supporting the closeted Raymond Burr.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a life!, Oct 2 2009
By Sam Spade - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (Hardcover)
I thought this book was a fantastic read. I grew up with Liz Taylor movies, and knew most of the media-generated stories about her; but I had no clue as to what she was really like and had no idea she is/was as gutsy and loyal a woman as you'll ever meet. These stories of her years in Hollywood really paint her in an admirable light, and it is easy to see how the stars of today really learned from her. The "birth of the papparazzi" chapter of Liz and Richard Burton in Rome is terrific, as are the many stories of her really heroic deeds while protecting her friends. I loved the author's biography of Kate, and this stands right alongside it as a sophisticated, literary star biography. Can't wait to give this to friends for the holidays!
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