Books by Donald Spoto and Complete Book Reviews

Donald Spoto, Author Little Brown and Company $19.95 (301p) ISBN 978-0-316-80726-5
One of our most influential filmmakers, Sturges (1898-1959) paved the way for the likes of Orson Welles, Billy Wilder and Woody Allen, among others, not only in terms of cinematic style but as a screenwriter who earned the privilege of sole control...
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Donald Spoto. Univ. Press of Mississippi, $35 (272p) ISBN 978-1-62846-045-2
Prolific celebrity biographer Spoto (The Redgraves: A Family Epic) paints an engaging and intimate portrait of Oscar-winning actor Teresa Wright. Her notable film roles included Shadow of a Doubt, The Best Years of Our Lives, and The Pride of the...
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Donald Spoto. Crown Archetype, $26 (384p) ISBN 978-0-307-72014-6
Spoto (High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly) provides a competent biography of one of the most revered families in acting—a clan whose combined careers have spanned seven decades. The author devotes the better part of his attention to Michael...
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Donald Spoto, Author St. Martin's Press $24.95 (348p) ISBN 978-0-312-24650-1
Veteran film biographer Spoto (Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman, etc.) does a masterful job of capturing--and explaining--the complex personality of a figure who was arguably the most important icon of American womanhood of her day....
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Donald Spoto, Author HarperCollins Publishers $27.5 (496p) ISBN 978-0-06-018702-6
The life of acting legend and legendary beauty Ingrid Bergman is given major treatment in this detailed and elegantly written volume by veteran film biographer Spoto (Rebel, etc.). Although there are no great revelations, Spoto gives a full and...
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Donald Spoto, Author Pocket Books $7.5 (544p) ISBN 978-0-671-00230-5
Celebrity biographer Spoto profiles Britain's consistently dysfunctional royal family, from Queen Victoria to Princess DI. (Sept.)
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Donald Spoto, Author HarperCollins Publishers $25 (0p) ISBN 978-0-06-017656-3
When James Dean died by smashing his Porsche into another car, the 24-year-old actor leaped from fame into legend. Ever since, according to veteran biographer Spoto (A Passion for Life, 1995, about Elizabeth Taylor), Dean has been a protean icon,...
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Donald Spoto, Author HarperCollins Publishers $25 (401p) ISBN 978-0-06-017657-0
At once scathing and sympathetic, Spoto's biography presents Elizabeth Taylor as ``the ultimate star--both as achiever and as casualty,'' a quintessential romantic who came to perceive all her relationships through the prism of movies and whose life'
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Donald Spoto, Author Simon & Schuster $27 (0p) ISBN 978-0-684-81544-2
At first sight it seems inconceivable that another word could usefully be written about the endlessly dissected House of Windsor, but Spoto, biographer of Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, has skillfully assembled what could be...
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Donald Spoto, Author Doubleday Books $24 (335p) ISBN 978-0-385-42553-7
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) dedicated her energies to maintaining the Garbo-like image of a mysterious, alluring, remote creature, a glamour-queen role crafted by her mentor and sometime lover, director Josef von Sternberg. But the earthy German-bor
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Donald Spoto, Author . Viking Compass $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-670-03128-3
It does not seem possible that the world needs another biography of St. Francis of Assisi, but Spoto (The Hidden Jesus) makes a credible case for adding to the glut of books and articles about the medieval saint. (Spoto cites one count taken nearly...
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Donald Spoto, Author Little Brown and Company $19.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-316-80725-8
A frightened, abused child and a teenage prostitute, Vienna-born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blaumauer (1898-1981), later known as Lotte Lenya, achieved worldwide fame as the wife of Kurt Weill and as the outstanding interpreter of his songs. In...
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Donald Spoto, Author HarperCollins Publishers $23 (460p) ISBN 978-0-06-018315-8
Knight of the realm, embodiment of England, great Shakespearean actor and movie star, Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was saddled with self-loathing, chronic guilt over failed relationships and sexual ambivalence. His 10-year affair with Danny Kaye...
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Donald Spoto, Author Little Brown and Company $0 (154p) ISBN 978-0-316-80724-1
The legendary Marlene Dietrich and her career are here celebrated with nostalgia. Spoto (The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams, etc.) explores the impact made by the alluring, mysterious Marlene: her role in The Blue Angel in...
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Donald Spoto, Author . Harmony $25.99 (303p) ISBN 978-0-307-39561-0
Noted film biographer Spoto (Spellbound by Beauty ) gives readers a previously unseen glimpse into the life of Grace Kelly (1929–1982), who went from Academy Award–winning actress to princess of Monaco. Drawing on hours of personal...
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Donald Spoto, Author . Harmony $25.95 (324p) ISBN 978-0-307-35130-2
In this enthralling third installment of his Hitchcock trilogy (after The Dark Side of Genius and The Art of Alfred Hitchcock ), Spoto paints a portrait of a man as talented as he was troubled. Spoto examines each film in terms of its leading lady,
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Donald Spoto, Author . Harper San Francisco $24.95 (222p) ISBN 978-0-06-081517-2
According to biographer and theologian Spoto, Joan of Arc is a girl for the 21st century. She asserted and fought for the ideal that nations shouldn't invade and occupy others for the sake of empire building, a message to contemplate in today'
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Donald Spoto, Author . Harmony $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-307-23758-3
Celebrity biographer Spoto (The Art of Alfred Hitchcock ) offers a sparkling, fawning life of the European gamine whom America took to instantly with her 1953 debut in Roman Holiday . Hepburn (1929–1993) held the irresistible charm of a...
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Donald Spoto, Author . Viking Compass $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-670-03347-8
Explaining his decision to add to the innumerable books on the subject of individual prayer, Spoto asserts that the most worthwhile subjects humans can write about and mull over are those they can never fully grasp. The author of 19 celebrity...
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Donald Spoto, Author, Donald Spoto, Introduction by St. Martin's Press $24.95 (312p) ISBN 978-0-312-19282-2
Spoto, author of Diana: The Last Year, turns his considerable storytelling skills to the life of the one person who can clearly claim greater celebrity than the departed princess: Jesus. Calling Jesus the ""man nobody knows,"" Spoto offers a...
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Donald Spoto, Author, George K. Wilson, Read by , read by George K. Wilson. Tantor Media $34.99 (0p) ISBN 978-1-40-011511-2
In bringing noted film historian Spoto's biography of the late actress and monarch to life, George K. Wilson takes a natural, understated, unfussy approach in keeping with Kelly's own performing technique. Given Spoto's background, it
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