This is not a conventional biography. I rely not on documents, but almost exclusively on recorded interviews and memories of Michael Foot constituting a raw record of conversations not smoothed over b...
Thomas Carlyle once complained about mealy-mouthed biographers. I’ve done my best not to be one of them.
Those hostile to biography rank professional biographers just above serial murderers.
To Rio Bravo, Brennan brought his own brand of realism. He explained his reaction to the script to reporter Steven H. Scheuer: They tell me I’m playing a crippled old man who’s got a rifle built into...
To say that Ruth Brennan was at the center of her husband’s life is no understatement. He never disparaged her supporting role, never spoke like some men do of the wife, as if referring to a possessio...
To study Brennan is also to understand what it took to remain at the very top of a precarious profession for more than thirty years. Through Brennan and his pictures, we see Hollywood in the early sta...
Tony sometimes talks as if he is the only just man. ... He’s a very persuasive speaker. You think he believes every word of it and I think he does, actually. That’s why he comes across. There’s no fak...
Tony? Michael spoke into phone in an unusually quiet manner. Michael Foot here. How are you? Can I wish you a happy new year?. I’m ringing about someone who’s writing a biography of Jill and I wondere...
Under contract to Sam Goldwyn for a decade beginning in 1935, he nevertheless saw himself as independent—in part because so many studios used him, and he was not part of the star machine If you’re not...
Ursula wanted to know about how Michael was coping with Jill’s death. Ursula knew that he had a regiment of women looking after him. I told him about Emma, the housekeeper-cook who had been married to...
Walter Brennan spent virtually his entire life making motion pictures, perfecting a persona, and embodying a range of characters that he began to observe and imitate during his earliest days on the do...
Walter Brennan was always in demand and gave the lie to the Hollywood cliché that you are only as good as your last picture. He never delivered anything less than a competent performance, but he never...
Walter Brennan was now making as much as $5,000 a week, an incredible sum for a character actor, and he was in a position to fulfill a cherished dream. He bought a twelve-thousand-acre ranch near Jose...
Walter also became a hotelier, western style. A brochure touted Walter Brennan’s Indian Lodge Motel. The Motel of Distinction. Enjoy Your Vacation In The Switzerland of America. Fishing—Hunting—Swimmi...
Walter also kept himself going by keeping an account book recording his earnings, starting from the first day he showed up on a movie set. He liked to turn the pages and see the entries for $7.50 unti...
Watching the nuances in Brennan’s performances—especially in roles that would seem to allow for little variation—is to appreciate once again his incomparable place in Hollywood history as the consumma...
We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn’s representativ...
We read Byron’s letters there [in Venice] together. Then we were going up in the world, having the bloody government pay for our holidays. . . Venice revived him [Byron]. It restored him, Michael insi...
We spent the morning discussing Michael’s role at Tribune, guiding the journal’s policy toward endorsing the creation of NATO and establishing an anti-Communist stance earlier than most other leftwing...
We spoke of other innovations—the fax machine, for example. Michael listened politely and though I offered to buy him one, emphasising how easy they were to operate, he could not be convinced. The wir...
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