Elia Kazan: A Biography »

Richard Schickel has written many books about film, including The Disney Version, Brando: A Life in Our Times, and Clint Eastwood: A Biography. He is a film critic for Time magazine and the producer-writer-director of more than thirty documentary films about figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Elia Kazan.

Born in Istanbul in 1909 to Greek parents, Elia Kazan would become for a time the most influential American director of theater and film through the creation of such masterpieces as On the Waterfront (1954). In this biography, film critic Schickel (Time magazine) provides balanced coverage of Kazan's remarkable art and his tumultuous personal life. The professional ramifications of Kazan's testimony in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities are also discussed. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The New York Times - John Simon

… a biography, a stirring bit of social history and a panorama of Broadway and Hollywood during what may have been their glory days. It could not be a more pertinent study of a spellbinding subject.