Scott Eyman – författare

The authoritative biography of the famed director of such legendary films as The Ten Commandments and King of Kings, Cecil B. DeMille, who lived a life as epic as his cinematic masterpieces.The authoritative biography of the legendary director Cecil B. DeMille: “if this were a movie, it would get four stars, two thumbs up, and an A” ( The Dallas Morning News ). • Hollywood history: Cecil B. DeMille was among the earliest filmmakers who discovered some of the biggest stars in film, including Gloria Swanson, Claudette Colbert, and later, Charlton Heston. DeMille’s greatest successes came with biblical spectacles, notably The Ten Commandments and King of Kings . When he finally won an Academy Award for best picture with The Greatest Show on Earth, he had been making films for forty years. • A fully realized portrait : DeMille has often been reduced to a caricature: a hack who made empty epic spectacles, a right-winger and McCarthy supporter during the blacklist, and a tyrannical director who abused his actors. Eyman instead presents a balanced account of a remarkably rich life. • An authoritative biography : Scott Eyman is the first biographer to have access to DeMille’s letters and other personal papers for publication. Eyman settles for nothing less than the real man, as he did in his biographies of John Ford and Louis B. Mayer. The result is a unique history of Hollywood’s earliest years and the rediscovery of a major filmmaker.

March 20, 2019 marked the end of an era -- Disney took ownership of the movie empire that was Fox. For almost a century before that historic date, Twentieth Century-Fox was one of the preeminent producers of films, stars, and filmmakers. Its unique identity in the industry and place in movie history is unparalleled -- and one of the greatest stories to come out of Hollywood. One man, a legendary producer named Darryl F. Zanuck, is the heart of the story. This narrative tells the complete tale of Zanuck and the films, stars, intrigue, and innovations of the iconic studio that was.

John Wayne died more than thirty years ago, but he remains one of today's five favorite movie stars. The celebrated Hollywood icon comes fully to life in this complex portrait by noted film historian and master biographer Scott Eyman. Exploring Wayne's early life with a difficult mother and a feckless father, "Eyman gets at the details that the bean-counters and myth-spinners miss…Wayne's intimates have told things here that they've never told anyone else" (Los Angeles Times). Eyman makes startling connections to Wayne's later days as an anti-Communist conservative, his stormy marriages to Latina women, and his notorious-and surprisingly long-lived-passionate affair with Marlene Dietrich. He also draws on the actor's own business records and, of course, his storied film career. "We all think we know John Wayne, in part because he seemed to be playing himself in movie after movie. Yet as Eyman carefully lays out, 'John Wayne' was an invention, a persona created layer by layer by an ambitious young actor" (The Washington Post). This is the most nuanced and sympathetic portrait available of the man who became a symbol of his country at mid-century, a cultural icon and quintessential American male against whom other screen heroes are still compared.

Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of films-among them such American masterpieces asThe Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My Valley-John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film, he was reticent about his personal life. Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him. What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen. Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America's true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Ford's life-the human and the legend.

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive, “captivating” (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished—and beloved—actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today.Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience, Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. This “estimable and empathetic biography” (The Washington Post) draws on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends making it a definitive and “complex portrait of Hollywood’s original leading man” (Entertainment Weekly).

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, drawing on never-before-seen documents and photos from the Crawford estate.Joan Crawford burst out of her poverty-stricken youth to become a bright young movie star in the 1920’s, drawing the admiration of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the attention of audiences worldwide. She flourished for decades, working for multiple studios in every genre from romance to westerns (Mildred Pierce, Johnny Guitar), musicals to noir (Torch Song, A Woman’s Face), and being directed by a young Steven Spielberg in one of her last appearances. Along the way she accumulated four husbands, an Academy Award for Best Actress, and the undeniable status of a legend. Joan Crawford: A Woman’s Face looks at the reality of this remarkable woman through the prism of groundbreaking primary research, interviews with friends and relatives, and with the same insightful analysis of character and motive that author Scott Eyman brought to John Wayne and Cary Grant, among others. Joan Crawford was a woman like no other, and Joan Crawford: A Woman’s Face is the first full telling of her dazzling, turbulent life.

The definitive biography of Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, from acclaimed film historian and New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman, is “the story of Hollywood stardom itself” (The New Yorker).Joan Crawford burst out of her poverty-stricken youth to become a bright young movie star in the 1920s, drawing the admiration of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the attention of audiences worldwide. She flourished for decades, working across genres, from romance to westerns (Mildred Pierce, Johnny Guitar) to musicals and noir (Torch Song, A Woman’s Face). Along the way she accumulated four husbands, an Academy Award for Best Actress, and the undeniable status of a legend. One of the greatest Hollywood biographers of all time, Scott Eyman draws on never before seen documents from the Crawford estate delivering the first full telling of the movie star’s dazzling, turbulent life which is “a cinematic experience in itself” (Salon).

The remarkable, must-read story of Charlie Chaplin’s years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film career, from bestselling biographer Scott Eyman.Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War Two, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US from a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland, and made his last two films in London In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, bestselling author Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. This is a perceptive, insightful portrait of Chaplin and of an America consumed by political turmoil.

The “shocking” (The Wall Street Journal), must-read story of Charlie Chaplin’s years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film career, from bestselling biographer Scott Eyman.Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US after a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland and made his last two films in London. In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. “One of the finest surveys of the man and the artist ever written” (Leonard Maltin) this book is “a sobering account of cancel culture in action.” (The Economist).