Patricia Bosworth – författare

Acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth recalls her emotional coming of age in The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan.''''Deliciously vivid.'''' —New York Times Book ReviewProfound and powerful, this is Patricia Bosworth''s story of family, marriage, tragedy, Broadway, and art, featuring a rich cast of well-known literary and theatrical figures. Delivered in a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood, she reveals how she defied repressive 1950s conventions while being shaped by the notable men in her life.Born into privilege in San Francisco as the children of famous attorney Bartley Crum and novelist Gertrude, Patricia and her brother Bart Jr. lead charmed lives until their father''s career is ruined when he defends the Hollywood Ten. The family moves to New York, suffering greater tragedy when Bart Jr. kills himself. However, his loving spirit continues to influence Patricia as she fights to succeed as an actress and writer.Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she''s twenty, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes, and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre''s Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun''s Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever.The Men in My Life is about survival, achieving your goals, and learning to love. It''s also the story of America''s most culturally pivotal era, told through the lens of one insider''s extraordinary life.

Diane Arbus's unsettling photographs of dwarves and twins, transvestites and giants, both polarized and inspired, and her work had already become legendary when she committed suicide in 1971. This groundbreaking biography examines the private life behind Arbus's controversial art. The book deals with Arbus's pampered Manhattan childhood, her passionate marriage to Allan Arbus, their work together as fashion photographers, the emotional upheaval surrounding the end of their marriage, and the radical, liberating, and ultimately tragic turn Arbus's art took during the 1960s when she was so richly productive. This edition includes a new afterword by Patricia Bosworth that covers the phenomenon of Arbus since her death, the latest Arbus scholarship, and a view of the first major retrospective of Arbus's work as well as notes on the forthcoming motion picture based on her story. Bosworth's engrossing book is a portrait of a woman who drastically altered our sense of what is permissible in photography.

"A spellbinding portrait" of the tumultuous life and artistic career of one of the most creative photographers of the 1960s (New York magazine). Diane Arbus became famous for her intimate and unconventional portraits of twins, dwarfs, sideshow performers, eccentrics, and everyday "freaks." Condemned by some for voyeurism, praised by others for compassion, she was nonetheless a transformative figure in twentieth-century photography and hailed by all for her undeniable genius. Her life was cut short when she committed suicide in 1971 at the peak of her career. In the first complete biography of Arbus, author Patricia Bosworth traces the arc of Arbus''s remarkable life: her sheltered upper-class childhood and passionate, all-consuming marriage to Allan Arbus; her roles as wife and devoted mother; and her evolution from fashion photographer to critically acclaimed artist—one who forever altered the boundaries of photography.

A memoir by the daughter of famous attorney Bartley C. Crum: “A gripping account not only of Crum but of McCarthyism and its devastating effects” (SFGate).  The FBI kept a secret dossier on him. He was a confidante to stars; adviser to politicians; and lawyer to the likes of William Randolph Hearst, Rita Hayworth, and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, whom he defended during the House Un-American Activities Committee trials of 1947. Bartley C. Crum was also Patricia Bosworth’s father—a frequently absent, unrelentingly principled, and stubbornly self-destructive one. Anything Your Little Heart Desires is Bosworth’s memoir of life with him, and of the momentous events that shaped his lifetime, from the New Deal to the Cold War and the anti-Communist fervor that jolted American life. Using interviews, journals, letters, and her father’s own files, Bosworth delivers a profoundly personal portrait of the father she never fully knew, and the political forces that shaped a nation. 

“The definitive work on the gifted, haunted actor” (Los Angeles Times) and “the best film star biography in years” (Newsweek). From the moment he leapt to stardom with the films Red River and A Place in the Sun, Montgomery Clift was acclaimed by critics and loved by fans. Elegant, moody, and strikingly handsome, he became one of the most definitive actors of the 1950s, the first of Hollywood’s “loner heroes,”  a group that includes Marlon Brando and James Dean. In this affecting biography, Patricia Bosworth explores the complex inner life and desires of the renowned actor. She traces a poignant trajectory: Clift’s childhood was dominated by a controlling, class-obsessed mother who never left him alone. He developed passionate friendships with Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in spite of his closeted homosexuality. Then his face was destroyed after a traumatic car crash outside Taylor’s house. He continued to make films, but the loss of his beauty and subsequent addictions finally brought the curtain down on his career. Stunning and heartrending, Montgomery Clift is a remarkable tribute to one of Hollywood’s most gifted—and tormented—actors.