Robert Dance – författare

From the late 1920s through the thirties, Greta Garbo (1905–1990) was the biggest star in Hollywood. She stopped making films in 1941, at only thirty-six, and thereafter sought a discreet private life. Still, her fame only increased as the public and press clamored for news of the former actress. At the time of her death, forty-nine years later, photographers continued to stalk her, and her death was reported on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.In The Savvy Sphinx: How Garbo Conquered Hollywood, Robert Dance traces the strategy a working-class Swedish teenager employed to enter motion pictures, find her way to America, and ultimately become Hollywood’s most glorious product. Brilliant tactics allowed her to reach Hollywood’s upper-most echelon and made her one of the last century’s most famous people. Garbo was discovered by director Mauritz Stiller, who saw promise in her nascent talent and insisted that she accompany him when he was lured to America by an MGM contract. By twenty she was a movie star and the epitome of glamour. Soon Garbo was among the highest-paid performers, and in many years she occupied the number one position. Unique among studio players, she quickly insisted on and was granted final authority over her scripts, co-stars, and directors. But Garbo never played the Hollywood game, and by the late twenties her unwillingness to grant interviews, attend premieres, or meet visiting dignitaries won her the sobriquet the Swedish Sphinx.The Savvy Sphinx, which includes over a hundred beautiful images, charts her rise and her long self-imposed exile as the queen who abdicated her Hollywood throne. Garbo was the paramount star produced by the Hollywood studio system, and by the time of her death her legendary status was assured.

Robert Dance’s new evaluation of Joan Crawford looks at her entire career and—while not ignoring her early years and tempestuous personal life—focuses squarely on her achievements as an actress, and as a woman who mastered the studio system with a rare combination of grit, determination, beauty, and talent.Crawford’s remarkable forty-five-year motion picture career is one of the industry’s longest. Signing her first contract in 1925, she was crowned an MGM star four years later and by the mid-1930s was the most popular actress in America. In the early 1940s, Crawford’s risky decision to move to Warner Bros. was rewarded with an Oscar for Mildred Pierce. This triumph launched a series of film noir classics. In her fourth decade she teamed with rival Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, proving that Crawford, whose career had begun by defining big-screen glamour, had matured into a superb dramatic actress. Her last film was released in 1970, and two years later she made a final television appearance, forty-seven years after walking through the MGM gate for the first time. Crawford made a successful transition into business during her later years, notably in her long association with Pepsi-Cola as a board member and the brand’s leading ambassador. Overlooked in previous biographies has been Crawford’s fierce resolve in creating and then maintaining her star persona. She let neither her age nor the passing of time block her unrivaled ambition, and she continually reimagined herself, noting once that, for the right part, she would play Wally Beery’s grandmother. But she was always the consummate star, and at the time of her death in 1977, she was a motion picture legend and a twentieth-century icon.

In Illustrated by Lynd Ward, Robert Dance makes a persuasive case for Lynd Ward’s position as one of America’s foremost illustrators. Between 1929 and 1937, Ward published six “novels without words” that tell their stories exclusively through woodcuts.  Dance’s opening essay provides readers with a detailed introduction to Ward, considered by some to be a forebearer to modern-day graphic novelists. All six novels are featured, as well as Ward’s work in book arts and illustration, which encompasses wood engravings, dust jackets, and other illustrations; fine press books; and classic children’s books. Copublished with Impermanent Press to coincide with a 2015 exhibition at the Grolier Club, Illustrated by Lynd Ward contains annotated descriptions of 246 items, arranged chronologically and according to format.

"This book is here to remind long-time movie fans why these important 20th-century icons will forever remain the Fabulous Faces of our time."— The Eye of Photography"Enigmatic, dazzling and fabulous: the faces of Hollywood’s golden age." — The Times"A new book pulls together glamorous portraits of film stars from the 1920s to the 60s who could draw an audience with their name alone."— The Guardian"Intense close-ups, staged embraces and smouldering, emotive glances exude star power in this fitting tribute to a bygone age.” “Star quality emanates from every page.”  — The Lady MagazineFabulous Faces of Classic Hollywood brings together some of the greatest portraits taken by leading Hollywood portrait photographers during the motion picture industry's golden years of 1920 to 1960. Little-seen negatives, long buried in the remarkable and internationally renowned archives of the John Kobal Foundation, have been unearthed and printed to reveal some of Hollywood's favourite stars at the height of their careers. Full-page images of Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, as well as lesser lights including Anna May Wong, Lon Chaney, Lupe Velez and Ramon Novarro, will remind long-time movie fans why these important 20th-century icons will forever remain the fabulous faces of the movie world.Selected by best-selling author Robert Dance and writer and award-winning film producer Simon Crocker, over 200 photographs are presented alongside an essay by Dance, describing what it takes to become a fabulous face and an international icon.