Nazimova: A Biography [Hardcover]

Gavin Lambert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1997

major rediscovery, this full-scale biography profiles Nazimova, the electrifying Russian-born actress who brought Stanislavsky and Chekhov to American theatre--a legend of the stage and screen for 50 years, and then strangely forgotten. With exclusive access to her unpublished memoirs, letters, and notes, Lambert gives readers a brilliant portrait of this extraordinary woman. 120 photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Actress Alla Nazimova rode unto Broadway from the East, bearing lightning bolts. It was 1905, and her experience in the legendary Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavsky made her a goddess in the eyes of the first generation of fully professional American actors. Lambert's remarkable feat of theatrical history recaptures the puissant mystique of Nazimova (true believers knew her only by that name, and rolled it off their tongues like an incantation). She introduced many of the primary Ibsen and Chekhov roles to America, introducing in the process a new standard of realistic performance that swept away the wildly melodramatic style of the late 19th century. Nazimova's choice of roles and standards of performance have become so encoded in the DNA of new actresses that they all strive to be Nazimova--whether they even know what a Nazimova was. Thanks to Lambert, they can again. The book includes some of Nazimova's poetry.

From Booklist

All but forgotten today, Alla Nazimova (1879^-1945) was one of the most powerful actresses in silent-era Hollywood, able to name her terms and maintain artistic control of her films. Lambert's rich, readable, painstakingly researched biography follows Nazimova's life from her difficult, Dostoyevskian childhood in Russia, where she suffered at the hands of an abusive, neglectful father, through her years studying with Stanislavsky et al. at the Moscow Art Theater, to her emigration to the U.S. and subsequent rise to the heights of the film and theater worlds. Lambert handles a melodramatic life full of violence, scandal, and the kind of sudden reversals of fortune that would have killed lesser talents with considerable aplomb, and Nazimova's sexual orientation with even greater composure, treating her bisexual inclinations and later strict lesbianism without a hint of Hollywood-Babylonish sensationalism. Incidentally noteworthy are the fascinating portraits Lambert provides of the Moscow Art Theater in its first years, of Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties, and of the American theater during the fervent years of the Depression. Jack Helbig

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 420 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679407219
• ISBN-13: 978-0679407218
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #726,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Nazimova Few Know About, January 10, 2003

By 

Stanley C. Sargent "Stanley C. Sargent" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Nazimova: A Biography (Hardcover)

Most people only know the Alla Nazimova through her connection with Rudolph Valentino and her "gay" silent film "Salome." She is nearly always reviled as a domineering, spiteful lesbian queen of Hollywood whose own ego led to her fall.
This book provides a completely different picture of the woman behind the name. Her horrendous treatment as a child definitely molded her personality. An extremely talented actress, she earned her stardom on stage, screen and then stage again, inspiring many of the greatest playwrites of the early 20th century to write plays, many for her.
The author reveals much of Nazimova's sadness and disappointment in her personal life and career, her gullibility when it came to trusting friends with her money, and the vast number of women and the few men with whom she had love affairs.
Through exhaustive research of Nazimova's voluminous but unfinished (and unpublished) autobiography, interveiws with the few living persons who met her, and the letters and memoirs of a vast number of acquaintances and co-workers, the author has constructed a fascinating portrayal of a fragile, brilliant, yet tempermental child-woman who may well have been the greatest actress of at least the first half of the twentieth century.
Readers will be surprised to read the rave accounts of Nazimova's unparalleled talent her from Truman Capote, Ibsen, Shaw and Katherine Hepburn, as well as the doting love and companionship showered on the elderly Nazimova by her godaughter Nancy Davis, later Nancy Reagan.
I highly recommend this book to those who love silent films and bizzare, talented personalities.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite a good book; essential reading for theatre fans, August 10, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nazimova: A Biography (Hardcover)

"Nazimova" is a fascinating portrait of a mythic figure. Alla Nazimova died only fifty or so years ago, and she appeared in a number of films in the sound era, but you'd think she was Sarah Bernhardt's great-grandmother for all that remains of her in our consciousness. And now I think I know why. While I enjoyed the book very much -- at times its recreation of a vanished world is truly amazing -- I came away with a sense that something important was missing in Nazimova herself. We learn a great deal about her lovers but not much about her students. Did she bother to have any? Lambert cites plenty of idolators and proteges, but few to whom she passed on her techniques and values in a formal way (Nazimova's flaw or Lambert's? Hard to tell). That may be why we have so little sense of her today. But there's no denying that Nazimova was a powerful influence on the modern theatre -- not to mention a dizzying link between Chekhov and Louis B. Mayer -- and anyone who cares at all about theatre history should read this book

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful profile of an extremely amazing and talented actre, October 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nazimova: A Biography (Hardcover)

Alla Nazimova was my Godmother and I have heard many stories about her over the years so I was delighted to see a book written about her by Gavin Lambert. I found the book to be fastanating and learned so much about this woman who brought Ibsen and Chekhov among others to the theaters in America. She appears to be a very private yet complicated indivdual who knew exactly what she wanted and went after it with her whole being. She accomplished so much on the stage and in films that it is a shame so few people today remember her. Perhaps Lambert's book will rekindle that interest again in such a great lady of the theater.