Originally a successful painter from Romania, Jean Negulesco worked in Hollywood first as an art director, then as a second unit director. He was later hired as a director by various studios-mostly for ballet and musical shorts-before being assigned to a number of commercially successful films. During his 30-year career, he worked in several European countries yet it was in the U.S. he achieved his greatest success, with Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. Dubbed "The Prince of Melodrama" by critics, he directed films of all genres, working with stars like Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Fred Astaire and many others. Negulesco was nominated for Best Director by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1948 for Johnny Belinda-now considered a classic, along with his The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Humoresque (1946), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954). This book-the first on Negulesco since his 1984 autobiography-covers his extraordinary life and career, with extensive analysis of his films.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, " Margaret Mitchell opened Gone with the Wind with this description, but her words can hardly be applied to Vivien Leigh, the British actress who gave an unforgettable performance as the Southern belle. Leigh possessed a beauty that men seldom failed to recognize and a charm that caught many, but her life was far from all beauty and charm. This biography of the beautiful and tortured actress, from her birth and childhood in India to her premature death in 1967, gives special attention to her development and career as a stage and film actress. Her ambitious personality and her manic-depressive illness, including the sexual compulsion that haunted her life, her romantic and tragic marriage to Laurence Olivier, and her performances in, for instance, Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, are all detailed.

Arriving in Hollywood in 1950 to launch her American film career, Jean Simmons (1929-2010) had already appeared in 18 British films and was best known for her portrayal of Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. She soon became a favorite female face working with some of filmmaking's greats and acted opposite many Hollywood A-listers. Two of her most popular films-Guys and Dolls (1955) and Spartacus (1960)-were international box-office hits, and in her seven decades-long career she collected numerous awards and honors including a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and two Oscar nominations as Best Actress. Despite the accomplishments and accolades, radiant beauty, and stunning versatility, Simmons is considered by many to be an underrated artist, too often handed more comfortable leading female roles than those that could've elevated her to the level of super stardom experienced by some of her peers. This, the first full-length biography of Simmons, fills a gap in film and performing arts studies, and includes extensive notes and photographs.

Actor and director John Derek was born in Hollywood, where his striking good looks helped get him a contract with David O' Selznick. Derek's career took off after Humphrey Bogart made him his costar in the cultish noir Knock at Any Doors. Derek appeared in such Academy Award-nominated films as All the King's Men, Run for Cover, The Ten Commandments and Exodus, and worked with directors like Nicholas Ray, Cecil B. DeMille, Otto Preminger and others. He was a competent, dedicated performer even in his last, trivial roles. In the 1960s, his career in decline, he began directing his own films. Although critics panned the string of movies he made starring his three wives-Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Bo Derek-some were box-office hits, like Tarzan, the Ape Man. This biography covers his extraordinary life and career, with extensive analysis of his films.

This book reveals and reflects upon Janet Leigh's life and extraordinary career and also extensively analyzes all of her films and television appearances, and the like. For the first decade of her career Leigh's screen persona was restricted almost exclusively to Hollywood's most conventional image of the ""nice girl."" She was cast opposite some of the industry's biggest names including Robert Mitchum in Holiday Affair, Stewart Granger in Scaramouche, James Stewart in The Naked Spur, and Charlton Heston in Orson Welles' masterpiece Touch of Evil. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho supplied her most memorable role: Marion Crane, who is murdered before the picture is half over. The part earned Leigh an Academy Award nomination. Two years later, she starred opposite Frank Sinatra in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. From 1951 to 1962, Leigh was married to favorite co-star Tony Curtis; the iconic couple of 50's Hollywood starred together in five films. They had two daughters, Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis, both of whom followed in their parents' professional footsteps.

Blessed with a natural beauty that faded but little over the years, Scotland-born actress Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) provided the cinema with memorable studies of English gentility. A star in British pictures before she was 21 and a Hollywood fixture from 1946, she projected a cool reserve and stoic nobility, often hinting at a passion and insecurity beneath the surface. Frequently portraying selfless, sympathetic women, she was brilliant in such roles as Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1956). And in a fascinating departure from her normal range, Kerr's portrayal of the sexually frustrated Army wife in From Here to Eternity (1953) resulted in the screen's most famous ""clinch""--the beach scene with Burt Lancaster. Though she never won an Academy Award despite six nominations, Deborah Kerr received an honorary Oscar in 1994.

This is the story of William Holden, a true leading man whose career spanned more than 40 years and included over 70 films and three Academy Award nominations. 'Golden Holden' won an Oscar for his role in ""Stalag 17"" and, after films like ""Sunset Boulevard"", he became one of Hollywood's most powerful stars in the late 1950s. His personal life included international adventures and romances with such stars as Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, yet he suffered from alcoholism and clinical depression. This biography covers his entire life and career, from boyhood through his greatest successes, short decline, re-emergence in ""The Wild Bunch"", and his legacy of support for African wildlife.

At the peak of his career in the 1950s, Montgomery Clift was the symbol of a very talented yet rebellious generation of movie stars. His acting combined the personal and the professional, and his seventeen movies show his superb craft and extraordinary sensitivity. Yet there was much more to his life than his talents as an actor--more than most people knew. This book is a biography of the extremely handsome, acutely intelligent, but tormented Montgomery Clift. His life has been described as "the longest suicide in the history of Hollywood, " and this biography shows the accuracy of that description. It covers Clifts sheltered childhood, his discovery at the age of 12, the early critical acclaim that brought attention from such noted directors as Elia Kazan and Antoinette Perry, his development as a professional actor and work with many of Hollywoods greatest directors (including Kazan, Fred Zinneman, Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston), and the devastating car accident that disfigured his face and caused him to turn to drugs and alcohol. Throughout the book, attention is given to Clifts self-destructive personality--which created problems that even close friends like Elizabeth Taylor could not help him solve--and his closet homosexuality, which contributed to his intense insecurity. Richly illustrated.

During his 40-year career, director-producer Anatole Litvak (1902-1974) made films of all genres in Russia, Germany, England, France and the United States. His rootless background was cited by critics lamenting his lack of consistent style, but it also added to his mystique as a chameleon-like realisateur. Litvak directed Hollywood greats like Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Kirk Douglas, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Olivia de Havilland, Yul Brynner, Burt Lancaster, Barbara Stanwick and many others. He was twice nominated for Best Director by the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences for The Snake Pit (1948) and for Decision Before Dawn (1951). These films - along with Mayerling (1936), Sorry, Wrong Number (1946) and Anastasia (1956) - are considered classics, but none of his pictures gives any clue of Litvak the man. Apart from passing references to his wartime service as combat documentarian, he never discussed his life in print, allowing only brief interviews relating exclusively to his work. This biography fills that void, providing the first detailed portrait of an artist described by film historian Richard Schickel as “an adept, adaptable and prolific man; the kind of director that Hollywood likes best”.