From Publishers Weekly
Biographer Brown (Alan J. Pakula; Zero Mostel), who has also scripted 15 plays and directed over 90 stage productions, regards Hart's Act One (1959) as "the finest theatrical memoir ever written." Even so, he examines some "peculiar inconsistencies," spotlighting Hart's insecurities as well as his creative breakthroughs. Born in 1904, Hart hoped to escape "the dark brown sameness" of the Bronx, and the stage "became Moss's refuge, his escape from unpopularity and from poverty, his ticket to romance." He gained self-confidence in the borscht belt as his reputation for polished productions spread throughout the Catskills, catapulting him into the glitter of the Great White Way, where he collaborated with George S. Kaufman, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, and had such theatrical triumphs as You Can't Take It with You and My Fair Lady. With exhaustive research (indicated by 40 pages of bibliographic notes) and access to Hart's diary and letters, plus interviews with family and friends, the book is bursting with backstage anecdotes. Theater buffs will applaud this penetrating portrait of the stylish, incandescent Broadway legend. 47 b&w photos not seen by PW. (July)
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Brown reveals nothing particularly shocking in his new biography of playwright and director Hart. Others before have dealt, however gingerly, with Hart's possible bisexuality and the constant confusion over whether he was Jewish. (He was.) Instead, Brown offers a thick, well-researched, no-nonsense traditional biography that examines its subject's life in great detail without getting lost in a forest of facts. Brown, for example, analyzes Hart's autobiography, Act One (1959), revealing that Hart wasn't immune to the temptation to rewrite his life to make a better story, or to protect close family members. Brown makes a convincing case that the person who wrote Hart threatening letters and set mysterious backstage fires early in Hart's career may have been his mentally unstable mother, not the equally unstable, theater-loving aunt Act One fingers. Not that Brown's book is packed with gossip. It is much more devoted to charting Hart's artistic development and professional accomplishments. Hart fans, in particular, will appreciate the wealth of new information about this theatrical giant that Brown has unearthed. Jack Helbig
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About the Author
Jared Brown, the author of Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life, Zero Mostel, and The Fabulous Lunts, has directed more than seventy productions. The former chair of Illinois Wesleyan’s School of Theatre Arts, he received the DuPont Award for Teaching Excellence in 1997. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois.
