Recommended Reading: The Citadel Film Series

In the days before the internet, The Citadel Press Film Series (aka: "The Films of...") was a Godsend to classic movie lovers, with each volume providing the details of a particular star’s credits along with a brief, but thorough biography in a time when career retrospectives were limited (though there was always plenty of gossip available). When the series took off in the early 1970s, it was no doubt due to the revival in interest in Golden Age movies. Film schools such as the program at USC helped lead to a scholarly publishing boom during the mid-1970s. The Citadel series' quality was uniformly excellent, as a knowledgeable film historian or entertainment writer covered an individual performer’s career, but the best books were often the ones written by fans with an encyclopedic knowledge of a star’s life and career. The typical Citadel Press book would include detailed film credits, numerous high-quality black & white photographs, and review excerpts during the time a specific movie was in release. Author Tony Thomas, whose The Films of Kirk Douglas (published 1972) was the first of the series I found. It even included an introduction from The Intense One himself! There were also tributes from Vincente Minnelli, William Wyler, and Stanley Kramer. This led me to believe that an actor receiving The Films of… treatment may have been a big deal. Anyway, it turned out that all of the movie stars I like have been given the Citadel treatment. The books were in print for years and as recently as the late 1990s updated editions could be found at major bookstores, though I haven't seen them lately.

My interest in the series just got a boost because I now have *Drum Roll* The Films of Susan Hayward, and it’s hands down the most exhaustive book ever written about her. It’s not merely a complete filmography, but more like a bio-filmography. It contains dozens of black & white photographs throughout its 280 pages, including several culled from author Eduardo Moreno’s collection, many of which are unavailable anywhere else (take that, internet!). There are print ads Susan did during the 1930s, publicity stills, full-page glamour shots, and photos of her Academy Awards appearances, including her last-ever public appearance in early 1974. The Citadel Film Series (over 100 titles) has always been a good read, but this volume is infinitely superior to any other I've seen, and that's not just because I’m on a Susan Hayward bender!

No Scanner Blues: Photo courtesy ebay

Wanted: Movie Star Biographies

Recently, I acquired two movie star biographies published in the mid-1970s, when there was a renewed fascination with the Golden Age of Hollywood: Vivien Leigh: a Biography by Anne Edwards and Long Live the King by Lynn Tornabene, a Clark Gable bio. The Gable book lacks a filmography and nothing is mentioned of Gable's affair and illegitimate child with Loretta Young, which is understandable given that the child's existence wasn't known at the time of the book’s publication. I’ll admit I bought the book more for its sections on Carole Lombard, and those are in fact interesting, but I get the sense that the author didn’t like Lombard. The Leigh book disappoints because of the strict emphasis on Leigh herself, and I like to get a feeling for the era in which the star lived. It would have been nice to know of Leigh’s working relationship with Warren Beatty in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, but Beatty is only mentioned once in the entire book!

I'll Cry Today: Susan Hayward has yet to receive a first-rate biography

Those two disappointing bios made me realize how many Golden Age movie stars don’t have decent biographies in print. In searching for books on my favorite performers, I realized that the majority of the stars I love aren’t represented with a recent, decent, in-print biography. Some notable examples:

Susan Hayward- I’m currently obsessed with her, and my M.O. is to absorb everything I can on my current fascination, but there’s very little on her life and career out there. Even the all-knowing, error-free Wikipedia only has a brief entry on her. I’ve gotten a few good Hayward anecdotes from other stars’ biographies, and that’s all.

William Powell- No wonder one of MGM's leading lights is largely unknown by the general public today: no biography! It would be fascinating to read behind-the-scenes stories of the Thin Man movies, and the tough time Powell had during 1937-38, when fiancé Jean Harlow died and Powell himself battled cancer, keeping him out of movies (watch the Another Thin Man trailer; MGM emblazons the bottom of the screen with “Welcome Back, Bill!” a reference to Powell’s extended absence).

Carole Lombard- The “Hoosier Tornado” needs a full-scale biography. Lombard was not just married to Clark Gable, but a dedicated American patriot, swore like a sailor, and died young in a plane crash. A new bio on her should address whether or not she was rushing back home because she believed Gable was carrying on an affair with Lana Turner. Turner denied this, I’m not sure if it is true, but the myth persists.

Dana Andrews- Andrews was another popular leading man with personal struggles, and for my money, the personification (for better or worse) of the WWII-era American male. A career overview would be great, and the good movie star biographies excel at this.

That's just for starters. The list goes on and on. But since we’ve bemoaned the lack of prominent movie star biographies, a future entry will praise the better movie star books available. In the meantime, Raquelle at the always-interesting Out of the Past blog has posted an exhaustive list of currently available biographies.