Carl Rollyson

A biography of the great film noir actor

Due out in September from University Press of Mississippi: Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews

Dana Andrews (1909–1992) worked with distinguished directors such as John Ford, Lewis Milestone, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, William Wyler, William A. Wellman, Mervyn Le Roy, Jean Renoir, and Elia Kazan. He played romantic leads alongside the great beauties of the modern screen, including Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Greer Garson, Merle Oberon, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Maureen O’Hara, and most important of all, Gene Tierney, with whom he shared five films. Retrospectives of his work often elicit high praise for an underrated actor, a master of the minimalist style. His image personified the “male mask” of the 1940s in classic films such as Laura, Fallen Angel, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, in which he played the “masculine ideal of steely impassivity.” No comprehensive discussion of film noir can neglect his performances. He was an “actor’s actor.”
            Here at last is the complete story of a great actor, his difficult struggle to overcome alcoholism while enjoying the accolades of his contemporaries, a successful term as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and the love of family and friends that never deserted him. Based on diaries, letters, home movies, and other documents, this biography explores the mystery of a poor boy from Texas who made his Hollywood dream come true even as he sought a life apart from the limelight and the backbiting of contemporaries jockeying for prizes and prestige. Called “one of nature’s noblemen” by his fellow actor Norman Lloyd, Dana Andrews emerges from Hollywood Enigma as an admirable American success story, fighting his inner demons and ultimately winning.

Columns on Dana Andrews

I have just completed American Isis: The Life and Death of Sylvia Plath, to be published by St. Martin's Press in February 2013 on the 50th anniversary of Plath's death. I welcome comments in the Discussion section about her life and work. Here is a list of the book's highlights:

The first Plath biography to benefit from the new Ted Hughes archive at the British library, which includes 41 letters from Plath and Hughes as well as other unpublished papers; new information and insight into Plath’s early reading and addiction to popular radio shows like Jack Benny, Superman, Stella Dallas, and The Shadow; new interviews with several of Plath’s friends at Smith College and with students she taught; photographs of Plath and her children published for the first time; new details about the mysterious Richard Sassoon, the only male ever to rival Ted Hughes in Plath’s imagination;
revealing discussions of the letters that Sylvia’s mother did not include in Letters Home, as well as of Aurelia’s later comments on the Plath legend in the material Aurelia deposited at Smith College; an account of a court deposition dealing with Plath’s misgivings about her decision to marry Ted Hughes; fresh statements and corrections of the biographical record from David Wevill, husband of Ted’s Hughes’s lover, Assia Wevill, and from Elizabeth Compton Sigmund (one of Plath’s Devon neighbors); startling new details about Plath’s final days and the pivotal role critic A. Alvarez played in the fraught Plath-Hughes marriage and what Plath wrote in the journal Ted Hughes “lost” or destroyed.