Tricia Welsch, Brunswick, Maine, is associate professor on the Marvin H. Green, Jr., Fund and chair of the film studies program at Bowdoin College. Her work has appeared in Cinema Journal, the Journal of Popular Film and Television, Film Quarterly, Film Criticism, the Journal of Film and Video, the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Griffithiana, and Genre.
Gloria Swanson was, beyond doubt, the brightest star in Hollywood's
glittering firmament for many decades, beginning in the era of
silent films, continuing well into the postwar period. To a
surprising degree, she understood and manipulated the idea of
celebrity with an almost incalculable sense of entrepreneurship,
managing to survive in a medium challenged, then as now, by rapid
technological shifts. Tricia Welsch shows us why the whole world
loved her in this sparky, intelligent, and deeply researched
biography. A brilliant study of this iconic figure.--Jay Parini,
author of The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year
I am so glad that Gloria Swanson is at last receiving the attention
she deserves.--Kevin Brownlow, author of The Parade's Gone By. . .,
filmmaker, and Academy Award recipient for his contributions to
film scholarship and film preservation
If Gloria Swanson was ready for her close-up, Tricia Welsch proves
more than ready to take it. Drawing from an astonishing array of
materials, Welsch deftly shows that there was much, much more to
Swanson than the silent era's most glamorous (and fashionable)
female star or the Norma Desmond vampire of Sunset Boulevard.
Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up provides a lively, deft, and
full account of Swanson's pioneering career and personal life, both
of which were informed by a spirit of constant, intrepid
reinvention. Welsch has given us the definitive biography of one of
the major figures of the performing arts in the twentieth
century.--Matthew H. Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood
Independent
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