Grace Kelly and Hollywood

High Society

This biography draws on a series of unpublished interviews and offers a startling and intitmate portrait of one of the most glamourous icons of the 20th century.

...an intimate portrait of one of the world's most famous women.  A fine tribute to a true star

Spoto was a close friend of Kelly's, so this is as definitive a biography as we will ever get

Drawing on previously unpublished conversations, Spoto explores how Kelly changed Hollywood

Kelly's life as told here reveals a gentler Donald Spoto than we're used to: his friendship with the star has ensured a generosity of judgement throughout...Some may yearn for a less sympathetic portrait, but it's hard to imagine that any subsequent biography could do such consummate justice to her life and career

Spoto turns a fresh eye on the well-known story bringing it alive for a new generation of readers

Donald Spoto was born near New York City in 1941 and received his PhD degree from Fordham University in 1970. He is the author of 27 books, including internationally bestselling biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and Ingrid Bergman. He is married to the Danish school administrator and artist Ole Flemming Larsen. They live in a quiet village an hour's drive from Copenhagen.

This biography draws on a series of unpublished interviews and offers a startling and intitmate portrait of one of the most glamourous icons of the 20th century. 
 
In just seven years (from 1950 through 1956), Grace Kelly made eleven feature films. They established her as one of the screen's iconic beauties, and as a performer of rare intelligence and wit. 
 
Donald Spoto, a personal friend of Kelly's in whom she confided, is in a unique position to tell the story of her transformation from convent girl from Philadelphia to last star of Hollywood's Golden Age to European princess. In this revelatory biography, Spoto draws on interviews with those who knew her - from James Stewart and Cary Grant to Fred Zimmerman - as well as a series of taped interviews with Kelly which have never before been published. 
 
A film of Grace Kelly's life, Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth will be released in 2014.

Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies

Spellbound by Beauty

The inspiration behind BBC2’s The Girl starring Toby Jones and Sienna Miller, Spellbound by Beauty examines Hitchcock’s relationship with his leading ladies including Tippi Hendren and Grace Kelly. Hitchcock is also the subject of an upcoming film, Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren, due for release in 2013

As Donald Spoto demonstrates, Hitchcock's art imitated his life and mentality with disquieting closeness.

A fascinating look at a flawed and troubled genius whose creative influence still lives on.

Spoto does a workmanlike job with this rich vein of creepy material

This study provides new insights into a flawed cinematic genius.

Mr. Spoto has enjoyed extraordinary access to Hitchcock's players over a long period of time, and he has assembled a cavalcade of chatty firsthand impressions

What was behind [Hitchcock's] talent for turning perverse thematic elements such as voyeurism, bondage and murder fantasies into mainstream entertainment? According to "Spellbound by Beauty,.".it was partly derived from a sexually repressed outcast's Svengali-like compulsion to manipulate and mistreat a long line of unattainable icy blondes

Focuses on Hitchcock's sometimes troubled, sometimes perverse, always manipulative relationships with his leading ladies....The chapters on his behavior during the filming of "The Birds" and "Marnie" are riveting and deeply troubling, revealing an artist at once losing his touch and losing touch with reality

The inspiration behind BBC2's The Girl starring Toby Jones and Sienna Miller, Spellbound by Beauty examines Hitchcock's relationship with his leading ladies including Tippi Hendren and Grace Kelly. Hitchcock is also the subject of an upcoming film, Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren dues for release in 2013. 
 
Spellbound by Beauty examines Alfred Hitchcock's well known collaborations with the leading ladies of his day, and, in so doing, delves into his creative life and his uniquely curious professional and personal relationships. The result is a singular kind of life story - a book about film and film stars; business and power; sex and fantasy; romance and derailed psychology. 
 
Drawing on explosive, never-before-published material and details gleaned through his friendship with Hitchcock, along with archival material and personal collections only recently made available, Donald Spoto casts a new light on this most famous of directors. He traces Hitchcock's professional and social rise and deals frankly with his strange marriage to Alma Reville, his distance from his daughter, Patricia, and his obsessive relationships with a number of his leading ladies from Grace Kelly and Kim Novak to Tippi Hedren.

The Life of Alan Bates

Otherwise Engaged

The first in-depth, authorised biography of this extraordinary actor

The actor who emerges in this biography is a compassionate man who was drawn to troubled souls, who disliked the passivity he detected in himself but was capable of communicating and understanding psychological subtleties.

Spoto's authorised biography, anchored by extensive interviews with family and friends, portrays a complicated and intriguing man.

Fascinating. Donald Spoto's book captures his essence.

Arthur Laurents, author of THE WAY WE WERE

You have captured Alan and his life... It has been very moving to read and to relive.

Spoto ... can turn a life into a page-turner.

In 1956, at the age of 22, Alan Bates was cast in John Osborne's controversial play, Look Back in Anger. The play changed the course of British theatre - and of Alan's life. 
 
With a sudden rush of fame, he became a member of a new circle of actors at the Royal Court: the English Stage Company. From then on, he also worked steadily in television and won international acclaim for his roles in a number of major films, from A Kind of Loving and Zorba the Greek to Women in Love. 
 
But his personal life was not always as seemingly straightforward as his career - his relationships, including that with his wife, Victoria Ward, were often turbulent. Drawing on dozens of interviews with his family, lovers, colleagues and friends - and mining a rich store of primary research - Donald Spoto chronicles Alan's achievements as a performer against the backdrop of a complicated personal life.

The Life of Audrey Hepburn

Enchantment

A new, in-depth biography of the iconic actress by critically-acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto

Spoto has a Hollywood knack of spinning a good yarn ... What he delivers, with great vim and verbal rhythm, is a portrait of a cherished actress who led a seemingly blameless life

Immensely readable ... Donald Spoto captures the spirit of this enigmatic woman through her life and loves

Spoto's elegant prose is a perfect match for a subject who has always been a byword for elegance

Spoto's sympathetic but frank biography leaves her less of an enigma but her magic remains untarnished

An engrossing read, capturing a life that was dramatic, hilarious, tragic and profound

Born in Brussels in 1929, Audrey Hepburn was the daughter of a British father and a Dutch Baroness. But when she was five, her father deserted the family. With the outbreak of war in 1939, her mother thought they would be safer in Holland than Holland Park, but although they survived the German Occupation, the experience left its physical and emotional scars. 
 
Back in England again, Audrey studied ballet with Marie Rambert. After a few West End musicals and minor film parts, she was spotted by the author, Colette, to star in a stage version of her novel, Gigi. And then Audrey's career took off. Her debut screen role was the Princess in the enchanting Roman Holiday. It won her an Oscar. 
 
She went on to bring her unique grace and high spirits to a number of highly acclaimed films - from Funny Face and The Nun's Story to My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Robin and Marian. 
 
For a while it looked as though her personal life would follow the Hollywood dream. But her marriage to Mel Ferrer was not to last. She married and divorced a second time, and there were other passionate but short-lived affairs, some revealed for the first time in this book, but her relationships were never entirely successful. 
 
With all the insight, background knowledge and innate sympathy for his subject, qualities that have made his biographies of Hitchcock, Dietrich, Monroe and Bergman such international successes, Donald Spoto truly captures the spirit of an elusive, beautiful, talented and vulnerable woman.

The Biography

Marilyn Monroe

MARILYN MONROE is the most celebrated and controversial female icon of the 20th century. At last, Donald Spoto has produced an acclaimed biography worthy of this extraordinary and unforgettable star. 
 
With access to more than 35,000 pages of formerly sealed documents and interviews with 150 people who have never spoken on record before, Spoto's definitive biography reveals the truth behind the myths and speculations surrounding Marilyn's life and death. He exposes the falsehoods and casts new light on every aspect of Marilyn Monroe's 36 years: her dramatic childhood; her marriages; her relationships with movie moguls; politicians, poets, artists and statesmen. But most astonishing of all, he presents the reality of her death - more horrifying than anything a Hollywood screenwriter could have devised. 
 
Moving, often shocking, always absorbing, Marilyn Monroe will stand as the ultimate and compulsively readable biography of the woman who continues to enthrall millions. 
 
'Not just sensational, but sensationally good' - Sunday Telegraph 
 
'At long last Marilyn Monroe has found her knight in shining armour...[her] true story has been revealed' - Daily Mirror 
 
'An impressive reminder of the tough, triumphalist Norma Jean...for once she has a biographer worthy of her' - JULIE BURCHILL, Sunday Times

Donald Spoto

The Life of Joan Crawford

'I've been protected by studio publicity men most of my life, so in some ways I'm a goddam image, not a person. I was a commodity, a piece of property... I felt an overwhelming obligation to my career, and so I was an actress first, a wife second. I worked almost constantly, and even when I wasn't working, there was that image thing of looking like a star, conducting myself like a star. I just went ahead like a bulldozer. I was a very selfish woman.' 
 
Joan Crawford was a complex, contradictory, driven human being, but not the alcoholic, sadistic monster depicted in the notorious book, Mommie Dearest, which appeared a year after her death. 
 
In some ways, Donald Spoto's Possessed is the ultimate Hollywood book - about a young woman, poor, abandoned by her father, but determined at all costs to succeed . Born in Texas, Lucille Fay LeSueur escaped destitution by becoming a popular dancer and then managed to make the decisive leap that transformed her into a luminous, unique star of the screen. She became Joan Crawford. 
 
There were many important men in her life, not least Clark Gable, with whom she appeared in eight pictures and with whom she conducted a thirty-year affair. She was married four times, once to the debonair Douglas Fairbanks Jr, unaware that he had failed to discontinue his relationship with Marlene Dietrich. 
 
Dancer, dramatic actress, businesswoman, corporate executive with Pepsi-Cola, Joan Crawford during her lifetime (1906 - 1977) was rarely out of the news. With the use of only recently opened archives and personal papers, Donald Spoto probes behind the lurid headlines to bring us Joan Crawford, the private person as well as the movie legend.

Donald Spoto

Books by Donald Spoto

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