Douglas Fairbanks

Front Cover
University of California Press, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 368 pages
"The heedless ambition of youth. The triumphs of maturity, redefining our ideas of fame, fortune and international celebrity. The sad aimlessness of the aging male, stripped of his powers over his formerly adoring audience. It is the archetypal Hollywood story, maybe the archetypal American story. And Jeffrey Vance tells it with verve and compassion and admirable compression in his handsomely illustrated biography of Douglas Fairbanks. It is a book that restores his subject to his rightful place as the American movies' founding Big Brother--shrewd, playful, flawed and endlessly fascinating."--Richard Schickel



"Over the years I have had an interest in Douglas Fairbanks' life and films before reading Jeffrey Vance's book. I was delighted to find that the research was admirable, the detail abundant, and the style devoid of pretense and heavy-handed scholarship. The book reads gracefully with a wonderful sense of 'and then what happened?' And a great deal does happen to the inimitable Doug along the way. His cinema world of high adventure, storybook romance, cloak and sword derring-do, and dazzling acrobatics against spectacular settings are all here in the text and in the abundance of extraordinary photos--many quite rare. A first-rate book."--Rudy Behlmer, film historian and author



"Douglas Fairbanks was one of the most important characters in film history, and this enthusiastic and well-researched book will tell you why."--Kevin Brownlow, filmmaker and film historian
 

Contents

Prologue
1
A Bad Case of St Vitus Dance
10
The Machine for Escape
26
Hero and Popular Philosopher
60
United Artists
71
The Mark of Zorro 1920
312
Douglas Fairbanks as The Gaucho 1927
319
Douglas Fairbankss Broadway Appearances 19021915
337
Acknowledgments
355
Copyright

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About the author (2008)

Jeffrey Vance is a film historian, producer, and lecturer as well as the author of an acclaimed trilogy of books on the great triumvirate of silent-film comedy: Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema, Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian (with Suzanne Lloyd), and Buster Keaton Remembered (with Eleanor Keaton).

Bibliographic information