The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox

Born a Nebraska farmboy in 1902, Darryl Zanuck muscled in on the movies as a young man, scoring a coup with the first talkie, The Jazz Singer. Founding 20th Century-Fox in 1933, he kept control until his son, Richard, and Richard's partner, David Brown, took over during the 1960s. The author, long-time entertainment correspondent for the New York Post , purports to describe the end of the Zanuck dynasty, but the book is crammed with minutiae on the film industry from the silents onwardinfighting, huge profits, disastrous losseswith exhaustive notes on the Zanucks' Sound of Music , Jaws , M*A*S*H et al. Hollywood insiders provide almost equally nonstop tales about sexual affairsthose of the elder Zanuck as well as othersmaking this a tasty feast for gossip fanciers. (Dec.)