From Publishers Weekly
Interviews with Bennett, his friends, lovers, associates and family members form this portrait of the choreographer-director of such memorable Broadway shows as A Chorus Line . "Bennett emerges as a complex and driven personality" whose "disturbing characteristics seem insignificant compared to his accomplishments and the loss occasioned by his death from AIDS at the age of 44," wrote PW. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Hard on the heels of Denny Martin Flinn's What They Did for Love and Ken Mandelbaum's admirable A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett (both LJ 6/15/89) comes the first full biography of the Broadway director-choreographer. Boston theater critic Kelly interviewed those closest to Bennett and explores his personal and professional relationships and love affairs with sometimes brutal honesty. Kelly is never tentative, and his account is far more gossipy and at times more spiteful than the others. Kelly does provide a fine balance between the life and the career, although Mandelbaum goes into greater detail about the shows. Bennett's creativity may have been undeniable, but despite claims of his enormous popularity and charisma, all three books point out his repeated cruelties and immense ego, so that the cumulative effect is an intense dislike of the man on the part of the reader. Kelly's biography should be the talk of Shubert Alley for some time to come; theater collections will need both Mandelbaum and Kelly for completeness.
- Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of Bridgeport Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of Bridgeport Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
