About this item
The legendary Hollywood star blazes a fiery trail in this enthralling portrait of a brilliant actress and the movies her talent elevated to greatness She was magnificent and exasperating in equal measure. Jack Warner called her "an explosive little broad with a sharp left." Humphrey Bogart once remarked, "Unless you're very big she can knock you down." Bette Davis was a force of nature--an idiosyncratic talent who nevertheless defined the words "movie star" for more than half a century and who created an extraordinary body of work filled with unforgettable performances. In Dark Victory, the noted film critic and biographer Ed Sikov paints the most detailed picture ever delivered of this intelligent, opinionated, and unusual woman who was--in the words of a close friend--"one of the major events of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Ed Sikov (born 1957, Pennsylvania) is an openly gay American film scholar and author. His books include Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers (published in 2002), On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder (published in 1998), and Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedies of the 1950s (published in 1994). Sikov was born in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, majored in English at Haverford College, and has a Ph.D. from Columbia University; Sikov has since written eloquently of the difficulties he experienced as a gay student in the 1970s. He has lived in New York City since 1979, and currently resides with his husband, Bruce Schackman. Sikov's most recent book is a textbook - Film Studies: An Introduction; before that was Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis (Henry Holt, 2007).
