Contessa transcends a life span of extraordinary breadth and variety. Contessa's story is not only a bombshell of an expose but is also an insightful treatment of the life and career of a sensitive, creative, talented, and enigmatic icon of the theater and film. It offers the reader the untold stories and details of her victories and defeats. Here is a totally candid and intimate self-portrait of a remarkable woman, her personal failures as well as her public successes. Contessa, the human being, is warm, witty, humorous and relentlessly honest. Her story of chaos shows how she fought back at life and won control over her own destiny. The fictitious Contessa is tempestuous, scintillating, poignant and passionate, open, honest and generous.High praise for Jack Fitzgerald's previous work-Fitzgerald has an uncanny knack of capturing American types and speech; it is in their conversation and present-day mores that Fitzgerald's talent shines. Fitzgerald is so adept with a pen he can make the improbably seem believable, utterly believable. -The International Herald Tribune Fitzgerald's manipulation of quick caricature is akin to the scheme that Ring Lardner employed to depict baseball riffraff, goofy pugilists and Tin Pan Alley trash. It is a humor achieved not by physical identification but by verbal. Just let one of his characters open his or her mouth and personality is stamped with jocose exactitude. -The International Herald Tribune Fitzgerald has an extraordinarily acute ear for the talk of ordinary people and records and edits it amusingly. -The International Herald Tribune
Jack Fitzgerald grew up in Okolona, Mississippi, a tiny town in the northeastern part of the state. During his formative years, he viewed first-hand the microcosmos of what small-town living was all about . Much of it was friendly and neighborly but underneath it all was jealousy, pride, ego and an obsession with the trivial, vacuous and absurd. By the time he finished high school, he felt he was quite versed in how folks interacted with one another. He dreamed of leaving because he had no desire to remain and help replicate another generation of such goings on.
He badgered his parents into letting him attend college in Mexico City at the University of Mexico. They finally gave in but his mother was sure she would never lay eyes on him again. While in this gigantic metropolitan city, he did things he could only have dreamed of in Okolona. He learned and spoke another language, he appeared as an extra in some movies and he met people from all over the world.
From Mexico he returned to the United States and joined the army. HIs plan was to get the G. I. Bill of Rights, which would pay for his college. He was sent overseas to Japan and learned yet another set of insights. After those experiences, he finished his B. A. at Mississippi State University.
Upon graduating with a degree in English (the year was 1957), he found the only thing he could do was get a job teaching in another small Mississippi town for $2,700 a year. He decided that was not for him. Instead he went to Cuba where he taught English as a foreign language. His mother again thought she would never see him again. She was partially right because he got caught up in the revolution which ushered Fidel Castro into power. Under this new regime, he was no longer welcomed and was deported.
In Florida he taught a year and decided to attend Middlebury College in Vermont. He enrolled in their graduate school in Spain and received his M. A. from the University of Madrid. While there, he taught school, appeared in several Spanish films and on stage. He returned to the USA and taught Spanish at Wake Forest University and New York State University.
He ultimately moved to Paris, France, several years later where he founded the Paris English Theatre. Nine of his plays had their original productions there. He also appeared in several French films, did TV commercials (mainly with cheese products and as an American tourist).
The success of his plays caused him to be hired to write a screenplay in Hollywood. He left France and remained in California acting and writing screenplays for the next twenty years. On TV he was seen in everything from ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE to THE GOLDEN GIRLS. In movies he appeared in over thirty films.
He retired to Palm Springs, CA but soon got bored and began writing books. His first is a novel CONTESSA which includes a lot of his adventures during the Cuban Revolution. His second entitled PARIS PLAYS is an anthology of his nine plays which had their original productions in Paris. His most recent book (out just recently) VIVA LA EVOLUCION is a humorous satire of our present-day excesses, exaggerations, hype and umpteen contradictions in human behavior.
You can find more information at his web site www.jackfitzgerald.com. He would be extremely pleased to count you among his readers.
