Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood [Hardcover]

Todd McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

One of the greatest of directors ever to work in Hollywood, Howard Hawks was a filmmaker of incomparable versatility. Among his masterful directing feats are Scarface, Bringing up Baby, Sergeant York, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Rio Bravo, and The Big Sleep. Now, on the centenary of his birth, this first biography of Hawks penetrates the persona he so carefully constructed for himself to reveal one of the most complex and enigmatic figures of Hollywood's Golden Age. of photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As producer and director, Howard Hawks mastered such diverse genres as screwball comedy, Western, science fiction, musical, and hard-boiled gangster film. He possessed a natural gift for storytelling and a keen eye for talent. He constantly bucked the studios and censorship boards, yet he made no "personal" films and considered any film a failure if it did not reach an audience. Despite the success of his films, Hawks was always scrambling for work thanks to gambling habits, free spending, and IRS claims for back taxes. On the centenary of the complex man's birth, the chief film critic at Variety has produced the first comprehensive biography of Hawks, detailing his privileged early life and his numerous relationships with "dames." McCarthy also discusses Hawks's aloof behavior both on the set and at home, as well as his working methods with such varied figures as Howard Hughes, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. This exhaustively researched warts-and-all biography is a major contribution to film literature and should lead to a renewed appreciation of Hawks. Highly recommended.
-?Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Howard Hawks (1896^-1977) was one of the leading directors of Hollywood's golden age, worked with its biggest stars (Bogart, Hepburn, Grant), and--pilot, notorious womanizer, Hemingway's drinking buddy--lived a colorful life straight out of one of his action movies yet has never been the subject of a full-scale biography. McCarthy obliges him, tracing Hawks' career from the silent era through his 1970 valedictory, Rio Lobo. Chief film critic for the show-biz trade paper Variety, McCarthy is an ideal chronicler of the life of this most commercial of great filmmakers. He uncovers the truth behind the oft-told anecdotes of the notoriously self-aggrandizing Hawks and reveals the secret of Hawks' success: the films he wanted to make--straightforward entertainments featuring big stars--were the same ones that the studios wanted to make and that, in most cases, the public wanted to see. So Hawks boasted an unmatched, unbroken string of 11 hits between 1938 and 1951, and while his contemporaries faltered after World War II, continued his career successfully into the 1970s. Gordon Flagg

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 756 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802115985
• ISBN-13: 978-0802115980
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #840,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Movie Directors

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Good Enough", September 10, 2002

By 

Michael Samerdyke (Big Stone Gap, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (Paperback)

This is a very good book. Hawks apparently left no papers, and some aspects of his life are undocumented. (For example, McCarthy keeps mentioning Hawks' great friendship with Gary Cooper, but because of both men being dead and no documentation, Cooper remains a very shadowy presence in this book. Hawks' friendship with William Faulkner gets far more space, since Faulkner left papers.)

So there is not a lot about "the inner Hawks." However, there is a lot about Hawks' films. Once the talkies begin, there is a chapter on practically every film Hawks made. I was fascinated by the stories behind the films, how long it took some films to get made (Hatari began as an idea for a movie with Cooper), the films Hawks never made (apparently a very traditional vampire film), and his frequent tangles with Howard Hughes.

McCarthy did a lot of research, and he does not uncritically accept the stories Hawks told (frequently told) about his work. So if you like the films of Howard Hawks and are familiar with books such as Hawks on Hawks and Howard Hawks Storyteller, this is a book that you will still get a lot out of.

To use a term from Hawks' films: "This book is good enough."

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hawks Biography Depicts a Sphinxlike Director of Good Movies, May 4, 2005

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (Paperback)

As a native Hoosier I was prepared to like Howard Hawks. Hawks was born into relative luxury in Goshen, Indiana. He was raised
in Pasedena, graduated with an engineering degree from Cornell,
served briefly in World War I and rose to directorial fame in
silent film.
Hawks wed three times. Wife one was Athole the daughter of
the lovely and nice Norma Shearer. His second wife "Slim"was a
social climbing fashion plate whose nickname was used by Lauren
Bacall in To Have and Have Not with Bogey. His third wife Dee
was an aspiring actress who wed the older Hawks to achieve a life of comfort. Hawks was a womanizer throughout his life who was unfaithful and often cruel in his dealings with women.
Repugnant!
Hawks was also a gambler losing fortunes and also known as a drinker of note matching bourbons with such buddies as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper. His closest friend was famed director Victor Fleming the director of Gone With the Wind and other classics.
Why then spend almost 700 pages on this taciturn, egocentric,
cruel man? Simply put -the great movies he directed. Hawks is
known for such classics as Dawn Patrol; Sergeant York; To Have and Have Not; the Big Sleep. Classic westerns directed by Hawks include Red River with John Wayne and Rio Bravo with the Duke.
Sophisticated comedy delivered at torrid rates of dialogue verbniage include His Girl Friday with Cary Grant and Rosalind
Russell. Grant also stared in Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings
and "I Was a Male War Bride" with Ann Sheridan. My personal
favorite of the great director are "To Have and Have Not" and
"The Big Sleep" with Bogey and Bacall.
On and on I could go listing the classics making this man's
oeuvre impressive; his influence on younger directors and his
storytelling skills reasons to celebrate the genius of HWH!
Movie books like this one could be boring to someone who tires of reading countless pages on the making of each movie, the financing of the films and the often legal troubles Hawks engaged in against such powerful moguls as Mayer. Warner and
Zanuck. To those of us who enjoy learning about the golden age of Hollywood they are glorious glimpses in the story of Tinseltown.
Hawks was a man of action enjoying sports, auto racing and
even croquet! He loved horses, bourbon, babes and making films!
Hawks was no intellectual and admired he-men like Wayne. If we
look at America we see the vision of HOward Hawks making an impression for generations of filmgoers. His films never won an
Oscar but his ability to excell in many genres from Westerns to
light romance to war/adventure tales is admirable.
McCarthy gets a good grade for showing us Hawks in all his
glory and all his greedy desire to seize life by the neck!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars About as thorough as we're likely to get., August 20, 2009

By 

Steven Daedalus "Steve" (Deming, NM USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (Paperback)

Todd McCarthy has just about closed the book on Howard Hawks. It isn't that there is no more to be told about Hawks, particularly about his private life, it's that for one reason or another -- death or discretion -- no one is going to tell it.

"Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood" gives us everything we wanted to know about Hawks' professional life, his deals with the studios, his treatment of his performers and crew, and then it gives us more than we needed to know. I frankly got bogged down in his cross-chases with moguls like Darryl F. Zanuck and idiosyncratic millionaire nuts like Howard Hughes. But it has to be admitted that McCarthy did his homework. My God, what a heap of information on display, and what a Mount Everest of papers and documents and letters and memoranda he must have dug through in order to unearth this stuff, going back all the way to the businesses run by Hawks' grandparents. (Was the business a success? No power on earth could drag the answer from me.)

We also get a reasonably objective picture of Hawks' character. McCarthy is no fawning fan. When Hawks makes a stinker, McCarthy admits it and tries to figure out why. And we get Hawks as a person too. He was, in a word, dull. Dullness, it could be argued, was his most interesting trait. He was dull as the child of a wealthy Midwestern family and he didn't evolve over the trajectory of his life. He didn't even visit Europe until his professional responsibilities required it. Neither did President George W. Bush or Elvis Presley. This lack of curiosity could be called insular American. When you already are certain about things, why challenge yourself? This complacency is reflected in his plots (which he rewrote extensively during shoots) and even his technique. His directorial style is straightforward and scenes are shot from eye level. No razzle dazzle, no furbelows. And he stole from his earlier work shamelessly. He seemed to have two chief motives for making movies. (1) It was "fun", and (2) it made you a lot of money.

Slow in every dimension, he rarely showed anger or any enthusiasm or amusement that required more than a smile for its expression. He gave his old friends and relatives occasional jobs but showed them little affection. If he hired some people repeatedly it was largely because he knew he could rely on them, not because he especially enjoyed their presence. He died in December, 1977. John Wayne spoke (briefly) at Hawks' funeral but hardly anyone else of note showed up. He had always been distant and reserved.

Well -- except in a few regards. As a younger man he enjoyed gambling on horses, which sometimes landed him in considerable debt. He could be relied on to lie in ways that boosted his image. And he did have a few co-workers with whom he appeared to share an unspoken bond. William Faulkner was one. (Hemingway was not.) He and Faulkner were comfortable simply sitting next to each other, silently, except for an occasional drawled remark.

The Australian actor Leo McKern met with Hawks when Kern was being considered for one of the parts. His description of Hawks' drawling interactional style is kind of amusing.

"I have never met anyone who spoke or moved slower; a broad gesture with an arm took so long that it became an effort not to take the eyes from his face and follow its movement like a stoat-thralled rabbit; and yet the word it accompanied . . . 'e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e' . . . lasted as long as the gesture. I believe that it was long ago that he had simply decided that if anyone was going to come down with an ulcer, it was not H. H."

Hawks went through women as if they were going out of style. The one he found most attractive, and took the usual advantage of, conformed to the same generic template -- beautiful, tall, outdoorsy, stylish with appearing to put much effort into it. Lauren Bacall, whom he turned into a star, was emblematic. He was married three times -- once to a woman who suffered from a mood disorder, next to a socialite, finally to a high-maintenance lady less than half his age.

Which brings up a question that in the context of Hawks' life is inevitable. He had all the women he ever wanted. All he had to do was beckon. Yet they didn't remain with him for long, usually leaving of their own accord. So how was he in bed? He was about as dynamic in the sack as he was in his social life. In the 1930s, Jean Harlow expressed an interest in dating Hawks. It was arranged. Later, the panderer passed Harlow on the beach and asked her how it went, and she scowled and pinched her nose. Hawks had no religion or politics, but in turn-of-the-century small-town Indiana, you didn't get too demonstrative about anything.

There isn't much of the author in this biography. I kind of missed the personal touch. McCarthy missed some opportunities for guesses or wisecracks that might have been incisive or richly humorous. Not that anyone would want a tabloid expose, but, I mean, what ABOUT all that supposed homoerotic subtext in Hawks' work?

Anyway, I got through the book, and although it has its longueurs, it includes just about everything you might want to know about Howard Hawks, one of America's iconic film directors -- a superb story teller.