Zachary Scott: HollywoodÂ’s Sophisticated Cad (Hollywood Legends Series) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Zachary Scott not only grew up with money, but he came from American aristocracy on both sides of his family..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Warner Bros, Zachary Scott (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Throughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914–1965) was the model for sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent husband of Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis. Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic tenant farmer in Jean Renoir’s The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped typecasting.

In Zachary Scott: Hollywood’s Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L. Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in privileged circumstances—his father was a distinguished physician; his grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron—and was expected to follow his father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to America, he began to look for work in New York.

Excelling on stage and screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the mid-1940s.

To reconstruct Scott’s life, Davis uses interviews with Scott and colleagues, reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Brothers Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely allowed to show his versatility on the screen.

From the Publisher

This biography of the stage and screen star who could never escape the role of dashing villain

* Provides first major biography of Zachary Scott, a star known for his sinister, villainous roles throughout the 1940s

*Features over twenty photographs of Scott in such films as Mildred Pierce, The Southerner, and The Mask of Dimitrios

*Includes story of Scott’s lesser-known television and stage work

*Expands our Hollywood Legends Series

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (February 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578068371
• ISBN-13: 978-1578068371
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #866,962 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Forgotten Leading Man, April 19, 2006

By	M. Mabry "Cinemares" (Boise, Idaho) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have always been curious about what happened to Zachary Scott - he just seemed to disappear after several years as a leading man. This biography was very informative about his life, albeit, a little slow in the childhood and beginnings but it picked up nicely. It was interesting to know that he came from a very prominent and wealthy family in Texas. His personal life was chronicled in a thorough way and I felt the book was very much worth reading. I bought it and put in my library of Hollywood memorabilia and history.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Half the story is better than none...I suppose., June 28, 2006

By	Nicholas A. Salerno (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Zachary Scott was not famous enough an actor to warrant more than one biography. Davis had complete access to Scott's family and friends and to archival material never before tapped. He supplies much factual information previously unknown to the general public. But Davis refuses to face head on Scott's alcoholism and homosexuality. He pussyfoots around these issues oh so gingerly, so genteelly that the reader can only guess how these aspects of Scott's personal life contributed to his one-dimensionality as an actor. Davis blames studio bosses for stereotyping Scott in his film roles, but surely Scott himself was at least partially to blame. Scott's failure to deal with his personal demons no doubt contributed to the limitations in his performances. Sadly, Davis allows Scott to continue in this charade. The result is a biography with little psychological depth. And because Scott is a minor figure in film history, it's not likely that a more probing biography will ever see print. This same problem mars Davis's earlier biography of Van Johnson. However, Johnson is still alive and may yet write an autobiography. Unfortunately, in Scott's case--the books are closed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Scott, January 5, 2008

By	Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Ronald Davis wrote a previous book about Van Johnson, the still living star of the boy next door type whose sexuality was much whispered about in the 1940s. But, as Davis says of himself, as an author he's no scandalmonger, so much of what makes Van Johnson interesting was absent from Davis' biography, and I imagine Zachary Scott was more interesting than the dapper cipher presented here.

Obviously something went wrong at every stage of Scott's life, though his parents never let him down and supported him financially through his last days. He failed to become a topflight Hollywood star, even though he went West at a time when, as Van Johnson discovered too, the war, the draft and simple patriotism had emptied the movie capital of nearly all male competition, and the studios were in dire need of leading men. (Davis theorizes that Zach's dad, a well connected Texas doctor, may have pulled some strings and had his son released from the ordinary citizen's responsibilities). Scott's first marriage collapsed when his life left him for John Steinbeck, and his second marriage was an extraordinary pileup of Gothic egos. Add two "daughters" to the pack (one who Davis interviewed and who winds up coming off as sincere and stable, the other who eluded him who gets the demon treatment), a drinking problem shared by nearly everyone else in the book, and a suspect earring borne steadily in his ear as a defiant badge of "pirate" sexuality, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Yet he did make A MASK FOR DIMITRIOS, MILDRED PIERCE, RUTHLESS, THE YOUNG ONE, THE SOUTHERNER, and (on stage) he played Gavin Stevens in Faulkner's REQUIEM FOR A NUN in London and New York, so who knows, there are grounds for a fullscale Zachary Scott revival. I don't know if Ronald Davis really likes him though.

Physically, the book itself is printed on ultra creamy paper (though I kept hoping for a photo of Scott's sister and or children, in fact there weren't enough photos in general or what there were aren't well chosen.) If I had to die and come back as a book I hope it would be one as sturdy, elegant and pleasing as one of these "Hollywood Legends Series" from the University Press of Mississippi.