Hollywood Enigma

Carl Rollyson is professor emeritus of journalism at Baruch College, CUNY. He is author of many biographies, including The Life of William Faulkner; The Last Days of Sylvia Plath; American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath; Amy Lowell Anew: A Biography; A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan; and Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress, Revised and Updated. He is also coauthor (with Lisa Paddock) of Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated. His reviews of biography have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Criterion, and he writes a weekly column on biography for the New York Sun.

The life of actor Dana Andrews (1909-1992)--a brilliant, woefully underrated Hollywood star--is at last given major treatment in this meticulous, haunting biography. Carl Rollyson has had unrestricted access to the Andrews family; to journals, letters, and private archives; to exclusive interviews; and to studio records. The result is the landmark chronicle of a highly gifted, deeply tortured but enormously likable man. Rollyson never flinches: the years of Andrews's struggle with alcoholism and of professional decline are detailed here--but so are the many admirable achievements and the heroic triumph over addiction, mostly because of his faithful devotion to his wife and children. With countless others, I have always admired Dana Andrews; now, Carl Rollyson has shown, in this scholarly and immensely readable book, why our admiration is not misplaced.--Donald Spoto, author of biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, and of The Redgraves: A Family Epic Always understated and all too underrated, Dana Andrews now has a definitive biography of his own.--David Stenn, author of Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild Nothing else written about Andrews over the years pulls together so many sources of information so skillfully, making this likely the definitive biography of the man for all time.--Keith Humphreys "Washington Monthly" From the gritty small towns of olden Texas to California in the Great Depression to the movie factories of World War II, Hollywood Enigma chronicles the extraordinary struggle of an unlikely dreamer and reveals a unique side of one actor's journey. The fierce ambitions of Carver Dana Andrews, son of a Baptist preacher, might well have been imagined by Horatio Alger, Jr.--or Samuel Goldwyn--but not the hidden costs behind those achievements. Carl Rollyson compassionately captures the man behind the movie star.--Marion Meade, author of The Unruly Life of Woody Allen: A Biography and Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney Hollywood Enigma teaches us to appreciate an actor whose standing in the Hollywood pantheon should clearly be reassessed. As Mr. Rollyson clearly understands, Dana Andrews has nowhere to go but up.--Jeanine Basinger "The Wall Street Journal"