Roddy McDowall - by Samuel Garza Bernstein (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Sincerity, erudition, charisma . . . Roddy McDowall.
Here is the comprehensive, first-ever biography of the award-winning child star, Planet of the Apes movie icon, beloved film legend, and Hollywood renaissance man whose career spanned 60 years.

As one of the very few naturally gifted child actors who graduated into adult roles with relative ease, Roddy McDowall exuded charm throughout a glorious Hollywood run that included film, television, and Broadway. John Ford's 1941 classic How Green Was My Valley put Roddy on the map at 12-years-old. It won Best Picture over Citizen Kane and is Clint Eastwood's favorite film of all time. But Roddy's biggest claim to fame was yet to come.

The phenomenally popular Planet of the Apes film series, which ran from 1968-1973, introduced him to a whole new generation of fans. In a career spanning 60 years, Roddy was also a professional photographer, producer and director, starstruck movie lover himself, and film preservationist. Among his treasured friends: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Angela Lansbury, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, Lauren Bacall, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood, and Rock Hudson. Openly gay among his peers, if not the public, Roddy was a trusted keeper of secrets as well. Loyal and authentic to the end, everyone in Hollywood loved Roddy McDowall.

Exhaustively researched and featuring exclusive interviews with those who knew him best, this first-ever biography from author Samuel Garza Bernstein charts the extraordinary trajectory of the London-born, award-winning actor--from a childhood in front of the cameras, to a break from the studio and his controlling stage mother, an awkward adolescence and growing awareness of his sexuality, to eventually shaping the life and career that Roddy wanted for himself. Professionally and personally, he was a success. This intimate and fascinating journey of resilience, transformation, and reinvention is a
long-awaited and illuminating tribute to a true Hollywood legend.

Review Quotes

Praise for Samuel Garza Bernstein

"A spirited portrait of a Hollywood legend." ―Publisher's Weekly on Starring Joan Crawford

"A bold and complex amalgam of biography, critical analysis, Hollywood gossip, and fantasy. Garza Bernstein successfully balances the apocryphal with scholarly truth, camp with sober insight. It's a satisfying, hearty stew spiced with wit and a genuine love and respect for its eternally fascinating subject." --Charles Busch, American actor, playwright, screenwriter on Starring Joan Crawford

"Gorgeously written and meticulously researched, Starring Joan Crawford is a delicious melange of biographical details, cultural criticism, and fanboy fantasia that brings the most vivacious actress of the twentieth century screamingly to life. Freed by the author's sharp eye from the wire-hanger-wielding monstrosity she has become in the collective mind of popular American culture, Miss Crawford becomes flesh and blood once more. In Samuel Garza Bernstein's unputdownable book, her meaning and import are illuminated in the most up-to-date Britney-Xtina-Gaga terms. The superstar is young again, and so is Hollywood, and maybe even the reader, too." --Frank DeCaro, author of Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business on Starring Joan Crawford

"Samuel Garza Bernstein writes about a woman we all wish we knew because she sounds like a f―king hoot! And he does a great job of telling you why we should all wish she was in our circle of friends if we got to dip back in time." ―Karen McCullah, screenwriter, Legally Blonde and author, The Bachelorette Party on Starring Joan Crawford

"Samuel Garza Bernstein brilliantly titles his new book Starring Joan Crawford, but in keeping with the religious thrust, it could just as aptly be called Joan: The Bible. Because it IS the Bible on Joan Crawford. Garza Bernstein brings the real Joan to vivid life, in a style that's both dishy and intimate, but also as erudite and thoroughly researched as a PhD thesis. The men, the movies, the moxie, it's all here." ―Kim Powers, author of Rules for Being Dead and The History of Swimming on Starring Joan Crawford

"In his follow up to the wonderful "Mr. Confidential" Samuel Bernstein brilliantly brings actress Louise Brooks to life in this evocative non-fiction novel that blends both fact and fiction in a way that will keep readers turning pages and begging for more." ―Julie Kenner, bestselling author of Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom and The Prada Paradox on Lulu

About the Author

Samuel Garza Bernstein is a bestselling author, a Stonewall Book Award winner, and an award-winning screenwriter and playwright whose work often reflects the wild intersections of modern life. He, his husband Ronald Shore, and their pack of incorrigible dachshunds split their time between Porto, Portugal, and Los Angeles, California.