Beschreibung
Fine unread condition dark gray boards/maroon spine/gold spine lettering contained in a near fine condition non price-clipped dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by Peter Collier; Author Dedication; Author's Note; Notes; and Index. Illustrated with two sections of black-and-white photographic plates. A former owner address label is neatly affixed to the upper blank first free front endpaper and her neatly scripted signature is on the top of the next half title page. "Henry was in New York about to go to a publicity interview when his mother-in-law, Sophie Seymour, called with the news that Frances had killed herself. He choked out words of shock and pain, and then caught a train from New York. When he arrived, he and Sophie arranged for a hurried funeral service that afternoon at a local mortuary. They agreed that they would be the only mourners. Later that afternoon, while Frances's body was being cremated, Jane and Peter were told that their mother had died of a heart attack. "In the years to come, this death would be one of those things not to be discussed around the Fondas. Yet it was always a defining point in their lives - the event that, even more than Henry's celebrity, made them different from other people; the dagger at the heart of their relationship which each of them would, at various times, twist and ineffectually truly to withdraw." - excerpt from The Fondas, from the rear outer jacket. "Charismatic, enigmatic, and larger than life, the Fonda family - Henry, Jane, and Peter - has long captued the attention and imagination of movie audiences. Yet the real story of the Fondas is one not only of public triumphs but also of hidden scars and sorrows. Now, for the first time, a biographer probes the private world of the Fondas and creates an astonishing, psychologically complex portrait of an aloof, uncommunicative patriarch and his two headstrong, rudderless children. Peter Collier, who has demonstrated his mastery of family dynamics in his biographies of the Rockefellers and Kennedys, begins his story with Henry. The handsome, laconic young actor from Nebraska arrived in Hollywood in 1935, just as the golden era of the talkies was creating a new breed of hero. With his slate-blue eyes, chiseled features, and tall, lanky frame, Fonda became an instant film legend as Abe Lincoln, Tom Joad, and Wyatt Earp. Off screen Fonda was a prickly, highly demanding man fated to a series of fractured relationships. His marriage to actress Margaret Sullavan ended when she invited other men to their apartment. Henry's second wife, the socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, was a deeply troubled woman whose illnesses and hospitalizations alientated her from her husband and from their two children, Jane and Peter. After Frances committed suicide in 1950, Henry, instead of drawing closer to his children, shunted them aside and sought comfort in his work and in a sucession of three more wives. His children never seemed to forgive Henry for their troubled youth. They subconsciously battled for love and attention in the way they knew best: by seeking public acclaim. Playing out their internal dramas on the big screen of the public imagination, they remade the Fonda image - Peter with his landmark film, Easy Rider; Jane with flamboyant political activism during the Vietnam War and later as a major film star. As the story moves from Henry to his offspring, Collier tells with gripping detail of Peter Fonda's downward spiral after Easy RIder. In a drug-induced haze, Peter struggled with a broken marriage and a faltering film career. After his fleeting moment as the family's box-office star, he once again watched as his sister eclipsed him. The rivalries, smoldering since childhood, resurfaced. Jane, for her part, struggled to transform her image from that of Roger Vadim's sex kitten to that of a serious revolutionary. She then became the archetypal Hollywood figure and shrewd businesswoman." - dust jacket excerpt. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 005469
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