Gerald Clarke

A portrait based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the famous author traces his eccentric childhood in Alabama, his relationships with such contemporaries as Grace Paley and Gore Vidal, and his struggles with alcohol and drug abuse.

A Biography

Capote

To tell Judy Garland's story, Gerald Clarke took 10 years, travelled thousands of miles across two continents, conducted hundreds of interviews, and dug through mountains of documents. He re-creates the golden age of Hollywood with cinematic urgency, bringing to life the characters who played leading roles in the unending drama of Judy Garland: Louis B. Mayer, the patriarch of MGM; sexy Lana Turner, Judy's friend and idol, who had a habit of trying to snatch away any man Judy expressed interest in; clarinetist Artie Shaw; handsome Tyrone Power; boy-genius Orson Welles; and brilliant director Vincente Minnelli, who fathered her first child, Liza.

The Life of Judy Garland

Get Happy

A compelling portrayal of the Hollywood superstar covers Garland's childhood, her struggles to establish herself in one of the industry's great studios, her often traumatic love affairs, and much more. By the author of Capote. 100,000 first printing.

She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age forty-seven. Judy Garland died over thirty years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit -- and demons -- until now. From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations. Based on hundreds of interviews and drawing on her own unfinished -- and unpublished -- autobiography, Get Happy presents the real Judy Garland in all her flawed glory. With the same skill, style, and storytelling flair that made his bestselling Capote a landmark literary biography, Gerald Clarke sorts through the secrets and the scandals, the legends and the lies, to create a portrait of Judy Garland as candid as it is compassionate. Here are her early years, during which her parents sowed the seeds of heartbreak and self-destruction that would plague her for decades ... the golden age of Hollywood, brought into sharp focus with cinematic urgency, from the hidden private lives of the movie world's biggest stars to the cold-eyed businessmen who controlled the machine ... and a parade of brilliant and gifted men -- lovers and artists, impresarios and crooks -- who helped her reach so many creative pinnacles yet left her hopeless and alone after each seemingly inevitable fall. Here, then, is Judy Garland in all her magic and despair: the woman, the star, the legend, in a riveting saga of tragedy, resurrection, and genius.

Judy Garland

Judy Garland, the girl with the pigtails in THE WIZARD OF OZ, was an entertainer of almost magical power. The woman of half a dozen comebacks and a hundred heartbreaks. To tell her story, Gerald Clarke took ten years, travelled thousands of miles across two continents, conducted hundreds of interviews, and combed through mountains of documents, many of which were unavailable to other biographers. Combining a novelist's skill and a movie director's eye, Clarke re-creates the golden age of Hollywood with cinematic urgency: Louis B Mayer, the patriarch of MGM; sexy Lana Turner, Judy's friend and idol, who had a habit of trying to snatch away any man Judy expressed interest in; clarinettist Artie Shaw, handsome Tyrone Power; boy genius Orson Welles and brilliant director Vincente Minnelli, who fathered her first child, Liza. Towards the end of her life, Garland tried to tell her own story. With access to her tape recordings - and her revelatory unfinished manuscript - Clarke is able to tell Judy's story as she herself might have told it.

Man könnte behaupten, es sei ein Leichtes, über eine so schillernde Figur wie Truman Capote eine spannende Biographie zu verfassen. Ist es nicht. Obwohl oder gerade weil Capote ein so bewegtes Leben geführt hat. Der Ruhm nach Kaltblütig war unendlich – Capote gehörte nicht nur zum New Yorker Jetset, er war Jetset. Aber seine Abstürze waren ebenso maßlos: In den letzten Jahren vor seinem Tod versank er mehr und mehr in Depressionen, in Sucht und Larmoyanz. Zerrissen fühlte er sich schon als kleiner Junge. Seine Mutter war schön, glamourös – und eine unberechenbare Alkoholikerin, der zur Hochstapelei neigende Vater in Trumans Kindheit kaum präsent. Und trotzdem muss er bereits von seinen Spielkameraden in Alabama als etwas sehr Einzigartiges wie Eigenartiges wahrgenommen worden sein, als einer, der zu verführen weiß, aber auch zu manipulieren.

Gerald Clarke

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