Patricia Bosworth

Tied in to a major retrospective of the artist's work, this illustrated study details the ups and downs, vision, and work of the influential and controversial photographer, drawing precise correspondence between the life and the work. Reprint.

A Biography

Diane Arbus

Acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth recalls her emotional coming of age in 1950s New York in this profound and powerful memoir, a story of family, marriage, tragedy, Broadway, and art, featuring a rich cast of well-known literary and theatrical figures from the period. From Bosworth—acclaimed biographer of Montgomery Clift, Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, and Jane Fonda—comes a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood. This deeply-felt memoir is the story of a woman who defied repressive 1950s conventions while being shaped by the notable men in her life. Born into privilege in San Francisco as the children of famous attorney Bartley Crum and novelist Gertrude, Patricia and her brother Bart Jr. lead charmed lives until their father’s career is ruined when he defends the Hollywood Ten. The family moves to New York, suffering greater tragedy when Bart Jr. kills himself. However, his loving spirit continues to influence Patricia as she fights to succeed as an actress and writer. Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she’s twenty, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes, and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre’s Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun’s Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever. The Men in My Life is about survival, achieving your goals, and learning to love. It’s also the story of America’s most culturally pivotal era, told through the lens of one insider’s extraordinary life.

A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan

The Men in My Life

Explores the life of the actress, fitness trainer, and activist beyond her controversial public persona, covering her complicated relationship with her father, her marriage to Ted Turner, and the self-doubts about her anti-war campaigns.

The Private Life of a Public Woman

Jane Fonda

Diane Arbus-Leben in Licht und Schatten

Follows the life of the gifted and enigmatic American actor, from his disturbing childhood to his early days in Hollywood to his tragic and untimely death.

Montgomery Clift

Mégastar dont la notoriété n'a d'égale que celle de Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando est, au-delà du mythe, un acteur d'exception, plus grand que nature. Patricia Bosworth se penche sur sa vie, ses films, et sur l'homme torturé qu'il a été, durant son enfance d'abord, puis au-delà, quand la célébrité l'a frappé sans prévenir. Avec ce portrait saisissant et fait sans concession, l'auteur, qui a déjà signé des biographies faisant autorité sur Montgomery Clift et Diane Arbus, nous permet d'y voir clair dans cette existence des plus mouvementées. Au-delà des scandales relayés par la presse, la biographe s'intéresse avant tout au travail de l'acteur et à ses relations avec des réalisateurs de premier plan comme Elia Kazan, Bernardo Bertolucci et Francis Ford Coppola. L'originalité de ce récit tient à ce qu'il transcende la figure mythique de Brando pour révéler le véritable artiste en lui, celui qui, par une approche intuitive du jeu, allait par la suite influencer profondément un grand nombre d'acteurs.

Marlon Brando

A memoir by the daughter of famous attorney Bartley C. Crum: “A gripping account not only of Crum but of McCarthyism and its devastating effects” (SFGate). The FBI kept a secret dossier on him. He was a confidante to stars; adviser to politicians; and lawyer to the likes of William Randolph Hearst, Rita Hayworth, and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, whom he defended during the House Un-American Activities Committee trials of 1947. Bartley C. Crum was also Patricia Bosworth’s father—a frequently absent, unrelentingly principled, and stubbornly self-destructive one. Anything Your Little Heart Desires is Bosworth’s memoir of life with him, and of the momentous events that shaped his lifetime, from the New Deal to the Cold War and the anti-Communist fervor that jolted American life. Using interviews, journals, letters, and her father’s own files, Bosworth delivers a profoundly personal portrait of the father she never fully knew, and the political forces that shaped a nation.

An American Family Story

Anything Your Little Heart Desires

Noah Baumbach

The Shooting Script

Margot at the Wedding

An intimate and tragic portrait of Bartley Crum, a prominent activist lawyer of the 1930s and 1940s, who fell victim to McCarthyism and committed suicide during that era, comes to life in the words of his daughter, a well-known biographer. 25,000 first printing.

Outlines a portrait of the intense and fascinating life of one of the most audacious and groundbreaking photographers of the 20th century.

Diane Arbus's startling photographic images of dwarfs, twins, transvestites, and freaks seemed from the first to redefine both the normal and the abnormal in our lives; they were already becoming part of the iconography of the age when Arbus committed suicide in 1971. Arbus herself remained an enigma until the publication of this first full biography. Patricia Bosworth examines the life behind the eerie, mesmerizing photographs: Diane's pampered childhood; her passionate marriage to Allan Arbus and their work together as fashion photographers during the fifties; the emotional upheaval surrounding the end of that marriage; and the radically dark, liberating, and ultimately tragic turn Diane's art took during the sixties. Bosworth's engrossing book is a compassionate portrait of the woman behind some of the most powerful photographs of our time.

“The definitive portrait of a woman conflicted, torn between ferocious ambition, family, and feminist causes” (Gail Sheehy, author of Passages). Jane Fonda emerged from a heartbreaking Hollywood family drama to become a ’60s onscreen ingénue and then an Oscar-winning actress. At the top of her game she risked it all, speaking out against the Vietnam War and shocking the world with a trip to Hanoi. One of Hollywood’s most committed feminists, she financed her husband Tom Hayden’s political career in the ’80s with a series of exercise videos that sparked a nationwide fitness craze. Even more surprising was Fonda’s next turn, as a Stepford Wife of the Gulfstream set, marrying Ted Turner and seemingly walking away from her ideals and her career. Patricia Bosworth goes behind the image of an American superwoman, revealing the real Jane Fonda—more powerful and vulnerable than we ever expected—whose struggles for high achievement, love, and motherhood mirror the conflicts of an entire generation of women. In the hands of this seasoned, tenacious biographer, the evolution of one of the world’s most controversial and successful women becomes nothing less than a great, enthralling American life. “A book that gets unusually close to its subject. It sees what Ms. Fonda cannot see about herself.” —The New York Times “Bosworth’s thorough account of this wild, uniquely twentieth-century Hollywood life makes Jane Fonda the actress even more intriguing.” —San Francisco Chronicle

An intimate portrait of Bartley Crum, a prominent activist lawyer of the 1930s and 1940s, who fell victim to McCarthyism and committed suicide during that era

Phil Stern

Brett Ratner

Carol McCusker

Nat Hentoff

"Phil Stern: A Life's Work is the long-awaited magnum opus from one of the twentieth century's premier celebrity and documentary photographers. His three great bodies of work on World War II, Jazz, and Hollywood are collected and presented for the first time in this stunning tribute.

A Life's Work

This biography of the legendary actor “offers a fascinating look into his charismatic genius” (Library Journal). In 1948 Marlon Brando stunned audiences and critics alike with his revolutionary, raw, and improvisational approach to acting. He became a symbol of a new, rebellious generation that was sick of conventions and committed to genuine emotion and unvarnished truth. From his breakout role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire to his mesmerizing portrayal of Don Corleone in The Godfather, he created some of the most memorable characters in American cinematic history. Brando was a paradox—intensely private but using his fame to promote worthy causes, a womanizer who clung to his childhood friends and animals. He was one of the most fiercely independent stars ever. In this book, acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth peels away Brando’s many layers, revealing the struggles, triumphs, and relentless ambition that transformed the irrepressible farm boy from Nebraska into a legend of American cinema.

Patricia Bosworth

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