JANUARY 2015 - AudioFile
Iowan John “Duke” Wayne’s life is extensively examined through a well-researched, film-centered biography. Wayne’s savvy personal, business, and entertainment decisions are highlighted within the context of the American icon he became. Pete Larkin’s steady, workmanlike narration fails to inspire the listener’s interest in the myriad details on film production, box office figures, and Wayne’s personal life. While authoritative, Larkin’s overall audio performance is flat. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 10/13/2014
In this incisive biography, Eliot (American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood) reveals the man behind the on-screen paragon of stoic, all-American manhood: an insecure actor (he would passively bow to the humiliating on-set insults showered on him by his mentor, director John Ford); a husband with mother-in-law issues and messy public divorces; a sex slave of Marlene Dietrich; an assiduous avoider of military service during WWII as he became the movie industry’s reigning action hero; and a sometimes guilt-stricken right-wing bully who helped enforce the McCarthy-era blacklist against leftists in the movie industry. Eliot’s narrative is briskly paced, with plenty of entertaining show-biz profiles and anecdotes, and not given much to thumb-sucking rumination, but his critical appreciations (and depreciations) of Wayne’s movies are pithy and evocative, from the mediocre Blood Alley, which imported Lauren Bacall “to add some romantic relief for the women” who wanted more than to “see Wayne beat up some Commies,” to the sublime western The Searchers, in which Wayne displays “deep passion... humanity, great physical strength and endurance, weariness, courage... eerie coldness.” Eliot’s canny, well-judged study gives us the complexity of Wayne the man and the archetype. Photos. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
A close, unblinking look at a bright star with some internal darkness.” — Kirkus Reviews
“In this incisive biography, Eliot reveals the man behind the on-screen paragon of stoic, all-American manhood . . . briskly paced, with plenty of entertaining show-biz profiles and anecdotes . . . Eliot’s canny, well-judged study gives us the complexity of Wayne the man and the archetype.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Has a tell-all quality, disclosing titillating tidbits about the star’s personal life, which includes several tabloid-worthy episodes.” — Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Has a tell-all quality, disclosing titillating tidbits about the star’s personal life, which includes several tabloid-worthy episodes.
USA Today
The author can spin a yarn
People
Eliot offers… shrewd analysis
New York Observer
Eliot lets the most beautiful ghosts float through
Newsweek
Eliot does a nuanced job… [his] insights are hard to contest
New York Times Book Review
[Eliot] turns up some surprising revelations
Vogue
Eliot gives us a glimpse... we’ve never fully witnessed before
Washington Post
[Eliot] shows the dark shadows behind the gleaming façade
New York Times
Praise for the Work of Marc Eliot:“Eliot is on sure ground with the business of Hollywood
JANUARY 2015 - AudioFile
Iowan John “Duke” Wayne’s life is extensively examined through a well-researched, film-centered biography. Wayne’s savvy personal, business, and entertainment decisions are highlighted within the context of the American icon he became. Pete Larkin’s steady, workmanlike narration fails to inspire the listener’s interest in the myriad details on film production, box office figures, and Wayne’s personal life. While authoritative, Larkin’s overall audio performance is flat. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-09-29
A veteran biographer of pop-culture icons (Cary Grant, Walt Disney, Clint Eastwood) returns with an account of the astonishing film career of Marion Robert Morrison (1907-1979).Eliot (Nicholson: A Biography, 2013, etc.) dispenses with much one might expect in a thick biography—e.g., interviews with those who knew Wayne, sordid sexual details (the author does show us an actor who enjoyed relations with myriads of women) or pompous declarations about what Wayne symbolized. Instead, he focuses on the career of the Duke (the name of a boyhood dog), carefully charting his rise from a modest Iowa family—his father, who frequently failed and eventually left, was sometimes a druggist—to his enduring status as one of Hollywood's most popular actors, despite his intransigent right-wing political views in a left-wing community. Nothing happened quickly. Wayne worked behind the scenes and took modest walk-on parts before gradually finding his place as an actor. It was John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) that ignited his career, though even then he did not leap to stardom. More minor (and bad and horrible) films followed, and Eliot, to his credit, pulls no punches in his assessments of Wayne's performances. However, the author also agrees with Wayne's conviction that the liberal Hollywood establishment denied him Oscar nominations even for his finest roles—in The Searchers, for example, a 1956 film (and Wayne performance) that Eliot continually praises. Eliot is careful to quote reviews of key performances, to let us know the box office successes (and failures) and to give us a peek at Wayne's behavior on the set. We also see his relationships with key directors John Ford and Howard Hawks, and there are plenty of touching moments—e.g., Wayne's final appearance at the Oscars shortly before he died of stomach cancer. A close, unblinking look at a bright star with some internal darkness.
