Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Reluctant Witness": Linda Alexander at her best!, May 22, 2008
Linda Alexander's book, "Reluctant Witness," is a well-written, and well-researched, book about a well-publicized man. Ms. Alexander portrays Robert Taylor's life in a manner seldom seen in literary circles today -- she tells Taylor's short-lived life's story in a realistic, yet sensitive, approach and not in a sensational audacity. This reader enjoyed reading the side of Robert Taylor that few people knew existed. Only those closest to the actor could possibly share their insightful observations of an enigmatic man (e.g., Robert Taylor's family, Chad Everett, Robert Stack, and others); however, it is obvious to this reader that these folks did disclose their interpretations to Ms. Alexander through the author's expansive bibliography located at the end of the book.
Ms. Alexander researched Robert Taylor's story at great length, and with the approval of Robert Taylor's family and closest friends and colleagues, the author gives an astute account of a man who was (and is) a Hollywood legend. Terry Taylor, Robert Taylor's son, endorses Ms. Alexander's extensive research in the book's foreword. "My sincere thanks to Linda Alexander who dug deep and spread wide her copious research and leaps of literary faith, that reveal stunningly an untold story (pg. 3).
"Reluctant Witness: Robert Taylor, Hollywood, and Communism" is a well-documented, must-read book about a real-life man in a make-believe world. Terry Taylor's statement on the book's back cover exemplifies what he thinks about Linda Alexander. There is ". . . no better author to write it."
Kathy Hartwell, MA
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Verbal Family Album, April 23, 2008
In Reluctant Witness: "Robert Taylor, Hollywood and Communism" Linda Alexander has created a verbal family album of a man's life and passions, loves and triumphs. I now feel as though I knew him, and upon reading of his death, mourned him as I would a friend. No greater accolade can be can be said of a biographer, than the fact that the reader was made to feel as though they were actually present...experiencing each moment in time. Author Debra Shiveley Welch
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful book about a underrated actor, June 9, 2008
Robert Taylor was one of the great actors of Hollywood's golden age and one of its most underrated. He starred in many classic films opposite some of the great leading ladies of the era. He was also one of the most modest and self effacing of leading men. Linda Alexander has done a superb job researching and putting together the life of Spangler Arlington Brugh (Taylor's real name). She has done an especially fine job on his early years--the years that molded him--growing up in Nebraska. Taylor might be remembered more today by mainstream critics if it were not for his testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) as a so-called "friendly" witness in 1947. Alexander convincingly shows us a man who was reluctant to give such testimony and in many ways was given no other choice by his studio--MGM. To many this was an unforgivable sin, and Taylor's reputation has paid a price. He belonged to the same MGM hierarchy which included Gable, Crawford, Tracy and Harlow and, as good a screen actor as any of them, yet to a certain extent not given the same creative appraisals as his contemporaries. This book changes that. Well done!
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