Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel

One of Hollywood's most colorful and talented directors punches above his weight in this rollicking biography. Wellman Jr. (author of The Man and His Wings), an actor, screenwriter, and son of director William Wellman, recounts the latter's picaresque life as a juvenile delinquent in Boston, WWI fighter pilot, and groundbreaking auteur of Hollywood classics including the aviation epic Wings, the gangster melodrama The Public Enemy, the Tinseltown weepie A Star is Born, and the social Western The Ox-Bow Incident. It's a two-fisted saga of a man who never flinched from any foe, be they German aces, barroom brawlers, or Hollywood big shots. (He choked and spat on studio mogul William Fox when the latter fired him for demanding a raise; emptied a wastebasket over one executive's head and shoveled horse manure onto the desk of another; and had three separate fistfights with Spencer Tracy.) Wellman Jr. is, naturally, very fond of his subject, who comes off as a charming rogue%E2%80%94the book often draws on Wellman Sr.'s funny, sardonic memoir%E2%80%94with solid, down-to-earth aesthetic instincts. There's more action than introspection in this portrait, but the many briskly told anecdotes of Wellman and other luminaries make for an entertaining recreation of Hollywood's golden age and the moxie that energized it. B&w photos. (Apr.)